AB KE BARAS (THIS YEAR)

It is customary in Indian culture that a girl returns to her parents’ home in the first season of the Monsoons after she is married. Integral to the institution of marriage, at least in the northern Hindi speaking belt, is the arrival of the girl’s brother to the home her in-laws and he takes her back with him, with the in-laws’ blessings and token gifts, and with the promise that he will return her to them once the rains have passed.

What follow are the lyrics of perhaps one of the most touching, soulful songs from vintage Indian films. ‘Ab Ke Baras’, literally translating as ‘This Year’, is the heartrending plea of a girl calling out to her father, begging him to call her back for the season. A part of an old film ‘Bandini’ (Prisoner), the song is sung in a women’s prison, the reference being that the Hindi word ‘Sasural’ – though it meant home of the in-laws – was used as a colloquial slang for prison.

Slow, rich with emotion and plight, the words tug at the heartstrings as the song is enough to move one to tears.

Send my brother to collect me this year, Oh father

Send him for the rains have come.

My friends from my childhood have returned home and they call me,

And the letters they send are wet from the rains.

So send him, oh father, to collect me this year.

Let me play on the swings beneath the cloudy sky again,

As the showers pour around me.

And with me will return to your gardens, oh father,

The soothing, cool showers of the rain.

Tears splash from my eyes and I hurt

As I recount memories of my childhood

So send him, oh father, to collect me this year.

This life this youth stole the playthings of my childhood,

And I have lost my dolls.

Tell me, oh father, after growing up on your pride,

When was it that I stopped belonging to you?

Ages pass, and I receive no letters from you,

And I see no boats on the horizon coming for me.

Send my brother to collect me this year, Oh father

Send him for the rains have come.

So send him, oh father, to collect me this year.