Ye Jo Des Hai Tera

Eleven years since it released, the movie Swades continues to inspire countless overseas Indians to come back home and serve their motherland. This week's Maitri Tunes is offered in gratitude to all those who heed the call of their heart, and come back home no matter how far they have wandered.

Around ten years ago, when I first heard this song, I was nearing the end of my studies in Chicago. My mind was boggled with a whole new world of unlimited choices, paths and destinations. However, my heart was longing to come back to my people in India and it was a daily struggle between the mind and the heart. Looking back now, the deep wisdom in this song was instrumental in allowing my heart to win the battle.

A few days ago, I was joyfully sitting in a café and looking back was feeling grateful for all that life had brought my way. Magically, this very song started playing on the radio, and a tear of gratitude welled up in surrender to the grace that is continually showered on us. Albert Eintein’s words came to mind: "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."

Sitting in the café, surrounded by beautiful trees, as I heard the lyrics of the song, I entered a deeply reflective space. Every line of the song was sheer poetry, and it evoked a strong calling to explore where my true Swades, my true homeland is. 

Words of Kabir’s poetry in “Naiharwa, humko naa bhaave” and “Udd Jaayega Hans Akela” came flooding by in which he reminds us that this world is a only a mela, a festival, a play and we are swans who have come here temporarily and ultimately will go back to our real homes when the play winds up. “Each of us who is born, shall one day die. Where will we go, once we take of from this rented body of ours. Where is the soul’s homeland?”.

The same evening, Asmund Seip posted a wonderful poem which articulated what I was feeling beautifully and was a magical culmination of a truly blessed day.

"My longing is to come closer to home. To feel it beneath my naked feet, to tear down every fake wall I’ve come to build. My dream is for everyone to be home. But I will not try and convince you.

What I will do is to set out on a journey. Like with all journeys, I cannot know where this one will take me. My hope, however, and what I set out to do, is to get closer to home. Closer to the Earth. Perhaps that will also bring me closer to you. And to myself. As if the three of us were ever
separate."