4. 'Pagla hoiya bane bane phiri'

After my mother passed away in 1944, for three or four months I studied in a school in Chittagong that was founded by one of my eldest brother’s friends. Once they had a function, and there I recited this particular poem of Tagore’s. I was eleven years old. Still I like it. It is a short poem. The meaning is:

Like a madcap I roam,
as a deer looks for the fragrance.
The fragrance is inside the deer,
but the deer cannot find it.
Similarly, I am also searching for my own fragrance.
Whatever I ask for, it is all by mistake.
And whatever I get, I am never satisfied.