Asia’s first-ever Nobel laureate and Indian literary icon Rabindranath Tagore had written more than 2000 songs and touched the hearts and souls of millions across the globe for more than a century. However, little did the multi-faceted universalist from India know that many decades after his death, a young composer in faraway Russia would find the perfect words for his magnum opus song in Tagore’s writing.

A young Alexey Rybnikov created the most magical song of his life that not only became a chartbuster in the erstwhile Soviet Union but remains a classic after many decades. The story of Tagore’s unknowingly contribution to the Russian-language song, Poslednyaya Poema or the Last Poem, however, stayed inconspicuous for many years until a global entrepreneur, Suvra Chakraborty, from the Indian legend’s birthplace of Kolkata, discovered the fascinating connection during a business visit to, of all places, Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, by a sheer stroke of luck.

Currently based in Dubai, Chakraborty dug deeper for several years to bring out many of the mesmerizing stories behind the pathbreaking musical creation amidst his busy business schedule in the multicultural desert oasis. The documentary Last Poem, predominantly shot in Dubai and with Apple iPhone8, narrates the story of how a timeless song evolved for years to a totem of culture and universalism, with its main protagonist Chakraborty’s relentless pursuit to find the genesis of the soulful creation being the focal theme. Also featuring Uzbek national cultural icon Farrukh Zokirov, one of the first performers of the song in the erstwhile Soviet Union, the song is also a profound testimony to the fact that music has got the pivotal power to transcend the barriers of languages, cultures, regions, countries and continents and is a great leveller.

To see the video with Russian subtitles, follow this link.