Auld Lang Syne

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
And days of auld lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We’ll tak a cup of kindness yet,
For days of auld lang syne!

Another year over.  I can’t believe it.  In many ways, this past year probably has been one of the worst of my life.  But I don’t want to dwell on that.  I want to focus on the positive and hope for a better year next year.  There were definitely good parts of this year as well.  I throughly enjoyed this summer and all the different people we visited.  If nothing else, I think my lesson from is past year was that I am truly lucky because of the people I have in my life.

Another positive thing, though it only happened recently was getting in touch with my old friends again.  As I was looking up the lyrics for Auld Lang Syne, I was reminded of the Rabindranath Tagore song, Purano Shey Diner Kotha…the music from the song is almost identical to Auld Lang Syne and it is said that Tagore "stole" the music from the old Scottish song.  The themes to both songs are kinda similar…all about not forgetting the old days and friendships of old.

Purano shey diner kotha bhoolbe keere hai oh shey chokher dhekha, praner kotha, shey ki bhoola jai.
Aye ar ectibar, aye re shokha, praner majhe aye. Mora shooker dookher kotha kobo, pran joorabe prai.
Mora bhoorer bela phool tulechi, doolechi doolay.  Bajiay bashi gaan geyachi, bokuler tolay.
Hai maajhe holo charra-charri, gelem ke kothay.  Abaar dekha jothi holo shokha, praner majhe aye.

English Translation:
How can you forget the days of old when we see each other face to face and talk of what’s in our hearts. Can you really forget all that?
Come again, come to me my friend, come to my heart.  We shall talk about our happiness and our sadness to our heart’s content.
We woke up at dawn to pick flowers and swung on the swing.  Playing the flute, we sang songs underneath the summer flower tree.
In between we lost touch, as we went our seperate ways.  But since I have seen you again my friend, come to my heart again.

*SIGH*  It loses so much in translation, but the idea of it is still there.  To me, it’s one of the most beautifully written Bengali songs ever.  The emotion in the song and the feeling of friendship is totally there from the first note.

Anyway, my plans for tonight are to hang out with Jack and Smiles.  I don’t think we’ll be making it to HL’s friends’ party which is fine by me.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!
I hope the New Year brings everyone their heart’s desire!