Remembering The Bard of Bengal

Rabindranath Tagore.

Dear Friends

Hope you all are safe and healthy.

Quite excited about today’s newsletter because I could instantly feel a sense of exhilaration and courage even while writing about this towering figure!

I have, it is true, engaged myself in a series of activities. But the innermost me is not to be found in any of these. At the end of the journey I am able to see, a little more clearly, the orb of my life. Looking back, the only thing of which I feel certain is that I am a poet (ami kavi)

Rabindranath Tagore

Today is ২৫ শে বৈশাখ(  25 Shey Boishakh) the birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore, the bard of Bengal who brought a cultural upheaval and beckoned literary renaissance in the subcontinent through his art and writing. “It would be trite to call him versatile; to call him prolific very nearly funny,” says Buddhadeva Bose in this intricate essay on Tagore’s life by the Poetry Foundation. What better way could a man of such magnanimity of thought and personality be described? 

It is sad that we have somehow become ignorant of the great legacy he has left behind. And even though I can’t claim to be completely familiar with his work, I can and do enjoy his philosophy and some of his most popular works I have had the opportunity to interact with. I hope this newsletter ignites curiosity in you to know and explore more of his work! 

Any talk on Tagore’s work cannot begin without mentioning The Gitanjali, the anthology which made him the first Asian Nobel Laureate. William Butler Yeats describes the poems as a “work of supreme culture” The poems are spiritual and mystical based on love, drawing heavy imageries from nature.

Gitanjali 35

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

You can explore his other poems here.

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Sesher Kobita or The Last Poem

“Most barbarians equate marriage with the union and look upon the real union thereafter with contempt... Ketaki and I - our love is like water in my kalsi (jug); I fill it each morning and use it all day long. But Labannya's love is like a vast lake, not to be brought home, but into which my mind can immerse itself.”

It is the epic love story of platonic and unrequited love between the protagonist Amit Ray – a flamboyant, foreign-educated man who comes from wealth and falls in love with Labanya – a simple woman of high intellect. 

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Chokher Bali 

The novel is based on an upper-class Bengali family and revolves around the life and predicament of a widow, Binodini. “Of all women characters created by Tagore in his many novels, Binodini is the most real, convincing, and full-blooded. In her frustrations and suffering is summed up the author’s ironic acceptance of the orthodox Hindu society of the day.”

If you can find an English subtitled version then this adaptation featuring Aishwarya Rai will be more rewarding to watch:

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Ghare o Baire or The Home and the World

It is based on the anti-colonial movement taking place in Bengal preceding its partition in 1905. I would highly recommend watching the movie adaptation of the novel by another Bengali mastermind of the 20th  century, Satyajit Ray.  

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Kabuliwala

It is highly likely that you might have read this short story in your high school years. It is the story of an Afghani Kabuliwala who sells dry fruits in the streets of Calcutta and his unlikely friendship and subsequent separation with a little Bengali girl called Mini.  You can watch it on Netflix’s Stories by Rabindranath Tagore, however, I can’t vouch for its factual or aesthetic authenticity. 

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And this is today’s bonus recommendation! Not sure how many of you have had the pleasure of listening to Rabindra Sangeet, and if you will be able to enjoy the absolute beauty of these songs without comprehending the lyrics, but still here you go, some of his best songs by contemporary artists!

It is also Mother’s Day, so here’s wishing a joyful Mother’s Day to everyone celebrating! I hope all of you are safe and healthy, spend more time with your parents not only because the day dictates so but because they should be loved and appreciated every day of the year!

Tell me in the comments below if you did something special today.

Also, do let me know if you liked today’s edition and if I should do more such features on some of my other favorite thinkers!