Calcutta, Sept. 21: Caught in the endless Singur tangle, a battered Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee took time off for a balmy Sunday evening.

“Roj onek jala jontrona sojhyo korte hoy. Ekhane eshe aami khub khushi (I have to bear with a lot of agony and anguish every day. I’m very happy to be here),” he said at the annual programme of Rabitirtha, the Rabindrasangeet school founded by Suchitra Mitra.

The 40-minute break that the chief minister allowed himself after a busy day at the party headquarters gave him a chance to listen to some of his favourite Tagore songs.

“I have been very busy. But it feels good to be a part of an evening filled with Tagore’s songs and thoughts,” he added, addressing 1,000-odd people at Rabindra Sadan.

Busy he has been. Last evening, he was closeted in a meeting with the governor on Singur. Today, besides meeting his party colleagues, he iterated an appeal to the Opposition for a peaceful end to the impasse.

In his brief speech, Bhattacharjee did not mention Singur or industrialisation but the reason behind his “jala jontrona” was much too evident. “I have a feeling these days that the society has become too corrupt. Whenever you want to do something good, there are a lot of obstacles in the path. If there is light, there is a lot of darkness as well. But still, I must confess, I am an optimist and I have this firm belief that good will triumph ultimately. There will be light,” the chief minister said, looking relaxed in the poet’s halo. But not enough to give in to the demand of the organisers to recite a poem.

Before ending his speech, he turned towards Mitra and said “Suchitradi, ki bolbo apnake (what should I say)?” and broke off before reciting two lines of a famous Tagore song: “Tumi kemon kore gaan koro, hey guni / Aami obak hoye shuni (I know not how you sing, my master! I listen in silent amazement).”

Rabindrasangeet, the chief minister said, had helped generations of Bengalis “understand themselves”.