প্রথম দিনের সূর্য: রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর

প্রথম দিনের সূর্য

প্রশ্ন করেছিল
সত্তার নূতন আবির্ভাবে—
কে তুমি?
মেলে নি উত্তর।

বৎসর বৎসর চলে গেল।
দিবসের শেষ সূর্য
শেষ প্রশ্ন উচ্চারিল
পশ্চিমসাগরতীরে
নিস্তব্ধ সন্ধ্যায়—
কে তুমি?
পেল না উত্তর

Translation by Ananda

The sun of the first dawn
Had asked the living soul
On its first appearance
'Who are You?'--
There was no response.
Years passed,
On a still twilight
In the far horizon of the western seas,
The last sun asks,
'Who are You?'
There is no response.

My Thoughts

One of the last literary works of Tagore reflects one of humanity's longest-standing questions: Who are we? Although he seems a little saddened by the lack of an answer—as he is at the end of his life and still struggling to find one—I think this question, asked by very early humans (although current research suggests that Homo sapiens might not have been the first to ask such questions), served as a fundamental basis that gave birth to philosophy, religion, and even science, to some extent. These questions posed by Tagore formed the basis of my becoming a physicist. "Who are we? What are we made of? What is nature made of? What is the universe?"—questions we should never stop asking.