Our hope refuses to wither away. Even amid darkness we strive for the lamp of truth. True, at one level there is nothing new in the New Year. The sun rises, and birds begin to fly. With absolute routinisation we go to our offices, and experience what Albert Camus would have regarded as the 'absurdity' of existence. Children are born in maternity clinics; cancer patients die in super-speciality hospitals; politicians make promises; and newspapers write about scams and scandals.

Yet, we pray, we hope and we wait for a turning point. And in the New Year, I too begin to long for something new. And my quest leads me to enter the world of poetry and music.

The poetry of fearlessness

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high – I begin my journey towards the 'newness' in the New Year with this extraordinary poem of Rabindranath Tagore. Yes, I am aware of the fact that I am reading Tagore at a time when the psychology of fear invades our existence. Fear cripples us because a terribly non-dialogic ruling regime spreads the message that 'there is no alternative', every dissenting voice is  potentially 'anti- national', and hence it must to be subject to the meticulously designed surveillance machinery. Fear paralyses us. No wonder, some of us pretend not to see anything, be it mob lynching or cow vigilantism or hate speech, or the devastating effect of demonetisation. Instead, we see the fancy garments of the Emperor when the fact is that he is naked. Or we prefer to remain silent, and with absolute indifference we enter into our 'comfort' zones.

Can we overcome this life-killing fear? For a minute, let us sing with Tagore, and imagine a state of being:

Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way.

It is not easy. As I watch some of our news channels, I experience the anti-thesis of what the poet longed for. No, seldom do the words of the 'star' anchors of those channels come from the depth of truth. Instead, noise becomes fact, propaganda replaces the quest for truth, and authoritarianism is praised as a sign of 'charisma'. Tagore wanted knowledge to be free so that the world could not be 'broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls'. However, the toxic social media, the loud assertion of the 'intelligentsia' of the ruling regime, and the constant attack on the free flow of ideas in public universities corrupt our minds; it becomes difficult to see beyond the binaries of India and Pakistan, Hindu and Muslim, and 'nationalists' and 'anarchists'.

Yes, 2018 was not really pleasant. Yet, as my hope refuses to die, I love to celebrate the New Year with Tagore's prayer for fearlessness: 'Let my country awake into the heaven of freedom.'

Searching for the Jesus of Kolkata

To acquire the spirit of fearlessness is to regain the spirit of being a child. As adults, do we really try to find the child within us? Or is it that we are only running – and running at a reckless speed – without a moment of contemplation, and becoming increasingly incapable of identifying the treasure within? But then, in the New Year as I begin to converse with Nirendranath Chakraborty – yet anther gifted Bengali poet, he makes me see the 'Jesus of Kolkata': the child within us, the child without armours, the spontaneous child laughing at the absurdity of my mindless running.

Also read: Best of The Wire in 2018: Our Team Recommends...

Imagine a busy street in Kolkata. There was no red signal. Yet, 'the traffic stopped'. As the poet captured the moment:

The city which so far had the speed of storm;
Precariously held on to the road.

Yes, buses, taxis, trams and double deckers – there was no movement; there was only stillness. To use the poet's words:

Labourers, hawkers, shopkeepers, customers –
they all became part of a still picture.

And then, came 'a naked child who crossed the road from one end to another.' It was really a moment of awakening. Nirendranath Chakraborty could feel it:

You the Jesus of Kolkata
Stopped the traffic by your spell.
You walk through
The Passage
With death on both sides,
Like someone learning to walk.  

As I read this poem in the New Year, I begin to search for the Jesus of Kolkata within me; I begin to search for him in the world around me. When sycophancy is the norm of the day, or when the cunning intellect of the adult kills the spontaneity of the child, it becomes difficult to walk with death on both sides. Yet, I want the traffic of falsehood to stop... I want the Jesus of Kolkata to remove the clouds of 'post-truth'.

'Jeena isi ka naam hai'

At this moment I find the blend of Raj Kapoor and Mukesh once again. What a lovely song in Hrishikesh Mukherjee's film Anari! I close my eyes, and begin to absorb the song (thanks to lyricist Shailendra, and music director Shankar Jaikishan):

Falling for someone's smiles
Borrow, if you can, someone's strife
Open your heart for someone's love  
That's the pleasure of life.  

Also read: Mrinal Sen: Always on the Edge

In a violent society like ours that promotes the culture of narcissism, and even encourages its top leaders to cherish the poison of verbal aggression, we have almost forgotten what it means to open one's heart to someone's love. When social Darwinism or the doctrine of the survival of the fittest becomes the language of the neoliberal market, it is not easy to borrow someone's strife. Furthermore, as the glitz of consumerism seduces us, and the 'having mode of existence', as Erich Fromm said beautifully, generates a sense of chronic restlessness for more and more, it is not easy to acquire the richness of simplicity, and sing:

What if I have no wealth
Yet I'm rich at heart
Falling for love
That's life.

No, it is not something that the Ambanis of the world would understand (think of Isha Ambani's lavish wedding, and the spectacle of waste); and possibly, the emergent middle class striving for the illusory success (what else the IPL auction indicates) would never be able to melt, and realise that to be truly rich is to be reduced to nothingness, and only when we fly into the infinity of emptiness, we find our real substance, and realise that jina isi ka nam hai.

Yes, the song purifies my soul. I acquire the courage to begin my New Year with a new possibility.

Avijit Pathak is a professor of sociology at JNU.

The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.