My Life-Songs - N. M. Joshi

Song and life, for me, have been a beautiful journey on two parallel tracks. In truth, this is likely the case for all of you, but from my perspective, this synergy has been paramount. Whenever I reminisce about the events, the moments, the paths, and the turning points of my life, the songs that accompanied them inevitably come to mind. Whether I heard them at the time of the event or long after, they resurface, and I find myself floating on their melodies, living my subsequent moments through their rekindled memories. For instance, my childhood was spent in a small village in the Patan taluka of Satara district. We lived in a large ancestral home, a , in a beautiful village with small temples to Rama and Baleshwar. Our own house was a traditional tiled-roof home. Even today, this memory brings forth the beautiful song, (“The Tiled-Roof House in the Village”). The lyrics speak of a river flowing to the east, carrying childhood along with it. In reality, our village didn't have a river, but it had a stream that was just as grand to us. When I would go to its banks, I felt as if all my childhood memories were flowing past me in its current. In those days, there were no other forms of entertainment in our village. Cinema was unheard of. We had (devotional storytelling), (ballads of valour), and the occasional visit from a mimicry artist. The most popular was a man named Loharbuwa. As night fell, the cymbal players would arrive, the would begin its rhythm, and his voice would fill the air with a sacred :

(Beholding His form, my eyes found bliss, O dear friend, How beautiful is this Vithhal, how beautiful is this Madhav…)

That melody would linger in our ears. Even today, when I recall it, the image of Loharbuwa singing

appears vividly before me, and I find myself reliving that entire devotional poem, adrift on its notes. Our village school was on a plateau. The Zilla Parishad had given us four tin sheets and a doorframe; the rest was just open space. But we, the students and teachers, built that school with our own hands through selfless labour (

), transforming it into a beautiful structure. It always reminded me of a song penned by my friend Ravindra Bhat for the film

(“That is My Home”):

(A temple of humanity is mine, with lamps of knowledge lit within, O labourers, come and take your rest here!)

That scene remains etched in my mind. It was the pre-independence era. What songs did we sing in our little village? The one I am about to mention was taught to us by Yashwantrao Chavan himself, in a makeshift classroom in the Jotiba temple. This was in 1945, and at the time, Yashwantrao Chavan was a young Congress party worker, not yet the eminent leader he would become, and he would travel from village to village for the cause. He taught us this song:

(Come on, rise up, O farmer brother, O worker brother! Mother India is our own mother, a serpent’s coil is wrapped around her feet, Let us become the eagle and set her free, come on, rise up!)

We children would sing it with great spirit. On the many paths of my life, these songs from every turning point still resonate within me. I moved to the city, and new scenes brought new songs to mind. The poet B. B. Borkar has always been a favourite of mine. We had studied his poem

(“Where I sense the divine, there my hands join in prayer”), and I later taught it as a teacher. Its sentiment often comes back to me when I observe the world. He writes of those selfless souls:

(Wiping the pearls of sweat from their brows, They cultivate gardens of divine grace… The world takes no count of them, It is there that my hands join in prayer.)

These lines describe those who work without any expectation of recognition. Today, we see so many who float on the waves of publicity, their words far outstripping their deeds. But for those who work silently, of whom it is said,

(“Neither a memorial stone, nor a lamp”), Borkar’s poem is a perfect tribute. And then there is the opposite scene. The people who do no work are on the stage, while the people who do all the work stand in the crowd, and those with no work at all look hopefully towards the stage. It is a world filled with a coterie of the selfish, the deceitful, and the corrupt. At such times, I am reminded of a brilliant poem by G. D. Madgulkar:

(O Uddhava, how strange is your government! The king is whimsical, the subjects are blind, and the court hangs in limbo.)

The next stanza is even more poignant:

(Here, flowers are born only to die, While stones are granted eternal life, The thorny acacia thrives without reason, And an axe is laid to the head of the sandalwood tree!)

Today, when one sees the sandalwood being felled while the thorny acacia flourishes, this beautiful, sorrowful poem comes to mind. When I think of my gurus—Jere Master, who taught me in the village; Shukla Sir from my school; and Dr. P. G. Sahasrabuddhe, who truly shaped my life—I remember a song by Sudhir Moghe, sung by Sudhir Phadke:

(In moments of joy, in the dense clouds of sorrow, Standing behind me is an unseen hand…)

That song brings the image of P. G. Sahasrabuddhe directly before me. When I moved to Pune and began my life with my wife in our small home, a song from the film

(“If You Understand”) captured the moment perfectly:

(New is the moon today, new is the night, New feelings in the heart, new dreams in the eyes.)

As a schoolteacher, I often took students on excursions. On the trains and boats, the children would sing with such joy. Being on a train today still brings back a song from the film

, by Kavi Pradeep:

(Come, children, let us show you a glimpse of India, Anoint your foreheads with this soil, for this is the land of sacrifice.)

I have also acted in plays twice in my life. I had once dreamt of becoming an actor, but seeing the fate of the two preceding generations of actors in my family, I chose teaching instead, channeling my art into literature. I performed in the play

(“The Shackles of Marriage”) twice—once at eighteen in the female role of Rashmi, and later in college in the role of Parag, directed by the great Sharad Talwalkar. The character Parag had a delightful song:

(The moment I saw that maiden, my heart was utterly slain, A spear of love pierced straight through my chest…)

Even now, when I visit a college campus and see a young man looking at a young woman with that same expression, I see the emotion of this song in his eyes and recall my role, humming to myself,

Sharad Talwalkar, our director, gave me a wonderful piece of stage direction for that song. The male students and professors sat on the ground floor, while the female students sat in the gallery above. He told me, “For the line,

(‘As if filtering the fairies of heaven…’), drop the ‘Swa’ from

and sing

(‘the fairies of the classroom…’) while gesturing towards the gallery. It will be a huge hit!” I did exactly that, and the hall erupted in thunderous applause and whistles. That song, and that memory, have stayed with me forever. Mother was the life of my life, my everything. When I think of her, three songs come to mind:

(“Mother, I Miss You”), Madhav Julian’s

(“Mother, Embodiment of Love; Mother, Ocean of Affection”), and Kavi Yashwant’s immortal line,

(“Even the lord of the three worlds is a beggar without his mother”). Now, at this late turn in life’s road, one sometimes takes account of one’s deeds—the good, the bad. At such times, a song by B. B. Borkar, sung by Jitendra Abhisheki, always comes to mind:

(There is no counting of virtues, Nor any pricking of sins, For life is like the flowing waters of the Ganga.)

My entire life feels like the water of the Ganges, carrying everything—good and bad, even the departed—in its ceaseless flow. When I recall my lifelong love for theatre, Ram Marathe’s song

comes to me, reminding me of the days I would travel to Pune to see the first show of every new play. Now, when I go to the temple of our family deity, Narasimha, and bow my head, another song comes to mind, befitting my age:

(Brush Your hand over my wings one last time, Let my final nest be here in Your courtyard.)

In my youth, I faced neglect due to poverty and poor health. I often felt like the odd one out. This brings to mind the song,

(“In a pond, there were beautiful ducklings”), which tells the story of an ugly duckling who turns out to be a swan. I wonder if I, too, was that swan. My favourite poet remains G. D. Madgulkar. I organized the massive gathering at Shaniwar Wada to mourn his passing. One of his songs from the

contains a profound philosophy of life:

(When destiny brings sorrow, there is no one to blame, In this world, the son of man is not his own master.)

The song brought tears to the eyes of even a great ascetic like Vinoba Bhave when he first heard it. It still has the same effect on me. At my retirement function from the Tilak College of Education, my students gave me a farewell. My student Rajashri Wad, who is now the renowned principal of that very college, sang the final song,

(“This is My Final Obeisance to You”). She sang it with such emotion that when she finished, the entire hall was silent. The only sound was the collective exhale of the students who had been holding their breath. Even today, that memory and that song bring a wave of emotion over me. And so it is, my friends. On the many paths and turning points of my life, so many songs keep me company. There are countless more. But I shall end with a song by the great P. L. Deshpande, which perfectly encapsulates my philosophy as I reflect on my life:

(“My Life, A Song”). Whether there is light or darkness, I lose myself in this song of life. It is the song I am singing even now, and with its memory, I bring this article to a close.

- Dr. N. M. Joshi

(This article is the translated version of the original article तरूणाई : प्रश्नांतून उमलणारे उत्तरांचे बीज 

written by

Prof. Dr. Varsha Todmal

published in the Sahitya Chaprak Diwali Ank 2025 )