Heritage

Rabindranath Tagore

There is perhaps only one litterateur who penned anthems of two countries: India and Bangladesh: Jana Gana Mana and Amar Shonar Bangla. This alone amply shows how big the name Rabindranath Tagore is. Some people tell Bengalis live and breathe Rabindranath. It is often a matter of research as how Bengalis would have been if Rabindranath were not there.

Rabindranath Tagore (sobriquet Gurudev) was a poet, novelist, musician, painter, playwright and educationist; who reshaped Bengali culture and created a lasting impact on Bengali psyche. His literature and educational reforms inspired many future generations in India and Bangladesh.

As author of Gitanjali, he was the first non-European to win Nobel Prize in Literature. Following is quoted from nobelprize.org: The Nobel Prize in Literature 1913 was awarded to Rabindranath Tagore "because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West".

Family Background

The youngest of thirteen (some say fourteen) surviving children, Rabi was born of Debendranath Tagore(1817–1905) and Sarada Devi (1830–1875); on the 7th Day of May 1861; at No. 6 Dwarkanath Tagore Lane, Jorasanko — the address of his family mansion. Jorasanko was located in of north Kolkata (Calcutta), located near Chitpur Road.

His grandfather “Prince” Dwarakanath Tagore was one of the earliest entrepreneurs from India, and also one of the Richest of contemporary India. He was an acknowledged civic leader of Kolkata who played a pioneering role in setting up a string of first commercial ventures in India - banking, insurance and shipping companies. His company managed huge zamindary estates spread across today's West Bengal, Orissa, and in Bangladesh; besides holding large stakes into coal mines and tea estates.

His father Debendranath Tagore, who was addressed out of respect by followers as “maharishi” (the great sage), had formulated the Brahmo faith propagated by his friend, the reformer Raja Ram Mohan Roy. Debendranath became the central figure in Brahmo society after Rammohan’s death, and continued to lead the Adi Brahmo Shomaj for life.

Rabi’s family was a beacon of education in contemporary Bengal. He lived amidst an atmosphere where literary magazines were published, musical recitals were held, and theatre performed. The Jorasanko Tagores were indeed at the center of a large and art-loving social group. Rabi's oldest brother, Dwijendranath, was a respected philosopher and poet. Another brother, Satyendranath, was the first ethnically Indian member appointed to the elite and formerly all-white Indian Civil Service. Yet another brother, Jyotirindranath Tagore, was a talented musician, composer, and playwright. Among his sisters, Swarnakumari Devi earned fame as a novelist in her own right. Jyotirindranath's wife, Kadambari — who was slightly older than Rabi — was a dear friend and a powerful influence on Tagore.

Childhood

Rabi’s mother died in his early childhood; and his father traveled extensively. As a result, he was mostly raised by servants (he referred this period as ‘Servant Rule’). Rabi was mostly confined to the family compound — he was forbidden to leave it for any purpose other than traveling to school. He thereby grew increasingly restless for the outside world, open spaces, and nature. On the other hand, Tagore was intimidated by the mansion's perceived ghostly and enigmatic aura.

One particular servant Shyam, in order to confine Rabi, used to make him sit beside a big window, and used to put a line (Laxman rekha) around the window, telling Rabi that if he crosses the line, he will be taken by demons. This made Rabi sit for long hours beside the window looking at the outside, and ‘travel in imagination’.

Rabi had a natural antipathy towards classroom and procedural schooling, used to often run away from school. He felt the school was too devoid of life, and full of boredom. In his own words: “"knock at the doors of the mind. If any boy is asked to give an account of what is awakened in him by such knocking, he will probably say something silly. For what happens within is much bigger than what comes out in words. Those who pin their faith on university examinations as the test of education take no account of this”.

Every evening his family members used to gather together and share their knowledge with others. These used to be an open house of just about anything – from science, politics, to art and literature.

As a result, even though Rabi was missing school, his education was on a fast-pace. Rabi was already writing poems when he was eight. He was urged by an older brother to recite these to people in the mansion. At age sixteen, he published his first poetry under the pseudonym Bhanushingho ("Sun Lion"). The family used to organize frequent dance dramas, and for these ‘house’ dance dramas, Rabi wrote many of his classics. He wrote his first short stories and dramas in 1877.

Rabi was tutored at home by Hemendranath, his brother. He was swimming in the Ganges River, taking long treks through hilly areas, and practicing judo and wrestling. He was given lessons in anatomy, drawing, language, geography, gymnastics, history, literature, mathematics, and Sanskrit.

Tagore underwent the upanayan (coming-of-age, or sacred-thread rite) at age eleven. As a part of that, he and two cousins who also were having upanayan, were shaved bald and sent into retreat for three days, where they were to chant and meditate. Tagore instead rollicked, beating drums and pulling his brothers' ears. He successfully completed the ceremony nevertheless, and received a sacred thread of investiture.

Rabi left for a tour of India with his father for several months.

On February 14, 1873, Tagore experienced the first close contact with his father when they set out together from Calcutta on a months-long tour of India. They first made for Shantiniketan ("Abode of Peace"), a family estate in Bolepur, Birbhum; acquired in 1863 by Debendranath composed of two rooms set amidst a mango grove, trees, and plants. Tagore later recalled his stay among the rice paddies. In his own words:

"What I could not see did not take me long to get over — what I did see was quite enough. There was no servant rule, and the only ring which encircled me was the blue of the horizon, drawn around these [rural] solitudes by their presiding goddess. Within this I was free to move about as I chose”.

The journey continued; they stopped in Amritsar; before reaching the Himalayan hill station of Dalhousie. There, at an elevation of some 2,300 meters (7,500 feet), they lived in a house high atop Bakrota hill. Tagore was taken aback by the region's deep gorges, alpine forests, and mossy streams and waterfalls.

This was a time of both spiritual and intellectual awakening for young Rabi. There, Rabi read biographies and was home-educated in history, astronomy, modern science, and Sanskrit, and examined the poetry of Kālidāsa. He completed major works in 1877, one a long poem of the Maithili style pioneered by Vidyapati. Published pseudonymously, experts accepted them as the lost works of Bhānusiṃha, a newly discovered 17th-century Vaiṣṇava poet. He wrote "Bhikharini" (1877; "The Beggar Woman"—the Bengali language's first short story) and Sandhya Sangit (1882)—including the famous poem "Nirjharer Swapnabhanga" ("The Rousing of the Waterfall").

Some two months later, Tagore left his father in Dalhousie and journeyed back to Calcutta.

Young Rabi

A prospective barrister, Tagore enrolled at a public school in Brighton, East Sussex, England in 1878. Those days the way for traveling to England was to take a ship from Bombay (Mumbai). Tagore stayed in Mumbai for approx six months at the house of one of his father’s friends. Anna Tarkhar, the daughter of his father’s friend, took the responsibility to teach Rabi spoken English as well as British etiquette. Soon it became the other way round, Anna used to spend mesmerised hours listening Rabi reciting poetry. Some say this is where Rabi first came to know what romantic love is. It was not a successful love, but it created a lasting impact on the young poet’s mind.

He read law at University College London, but left classrooms to explore Shakespeare and other litterateurs of England; returned degreeless to Bengal in 1880.

This exposure to English culture and language would later percolate into his earlier acquaintance with Bengali musical tradition, allowing him to create new modes of music, poetry, and drama. Nevertheless, Tagore neither fully embraced English strictures nor his family's traditionally strict Oriental religious observances in either his life or in his art, choosing instead to pick the best from both realms of experience.

On 9 December 1883 he married Mrinalini Devi (born Bhabatarini, 1873–1902); they had five children, two of whom died before reaching adulthood.

Jyotirindranath's wife, Kadambari’s abrupt suicide in 1884 left Rabi distraught for years, and left a profound mark on the emotional timbre of Rabi's literary life.

As Zamindar

In 1890, Tagore began managing his family's vast estates in Shilaidaha, a region now in Bangladesh; he was joined by his wife and children in 1898.

Known then as “Zamindar Babu, he Often traveled dozens of miles across the vast estate. His dealings with his tenants included the annual collection of (mostly token) rents and the blessing of villagers; in exchange for his generosity, villagers regularly held feasts in Tagore's honour — these featured such fare as dried rice and sour milk.

As "Zamindar Babu", Tagore criss-crossed the holdings while living out of the family's converted flat-bottomed keel-less luxurious barge, the Padma, to collect (mostly token) rents and bless villagers, who held feasts in his honour.

In 1890, Tagore released his Manasi poems, among his best-known work.

In this decade, Tagore authored many works and founded a new genre of Bengali writing: the short story. Tagore wrote some fifty-nine of them in 1891–1901; many had ironic elements or had emotional appeal while they dealt with a wide range of Bengali lifestyles. Examples include Sonar Tari (1894), Chitra (1896), and Katha O Kahini (1900); his essays, poems, and plays of the time also touched on village life.

Shantiniketan

In 1901, Tagore left Shilaidaha and moved to Shantiniketan, a spread of relatively arid and eroded red soil of seven acres, found an ashram which grew to include a marble-floored prayer hall ("The Mandir"), an experimental school, groves of trees, gardens, and a library. There, Tagore's wife and two of his children died. His father also died, on 19 January 1905.

Remained bold in face of tragedy after tragedy, he faced financial hardship too, as there was practically no income from the Shantiniketan estate. He received monthly payments as part of his inheritance and additional income from the Maharaja of Tripura, sales of his family's jewellery, his seaside bungalow in Puri, and mediocre royalties (Rs. 2,000) from his works.

By then, his work was gaining him a large following among Bengali and foreign readers alike, and he published such works as Naivedya (1901) and Kheya (1906).

Nobel Prize

In response to requests by admirers (including painter William Rothenstein), Tagore began translating his poems into free verse. In 1912, he went to England while carrying a sheaf of his translated works. At readings there, these works impressed a number of Englishmen, including English missionary and Gandhi protégé Charles F. Andrews, Anglo-Irish poet William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, Robert Bridges, Ernest Rhys, and Thomas Sturge Moore. Yeats later wrote the preface to the English translation of Gitanjali (published by the India Society), while Andrews joined Tagore in India to work with him.

On 10 November 1912, Tagore traveled to the United States, speaking at a Unitarian church in Urbana, Illinois. In that year, Tagore also toured the United Kingdom, meeting William Rothenstein and William Butler Yeats, who read his Gitanjali. Later, he stayed in Butterton, Staffordshire with C.F. Andrews’ clergymen friends. On 14 November 1913, he received word that he had won the Nobel Prize in Literature; the award stemmed from the idealistic and accessible (for Western readers) nature of a small body of translated material, including the 1912 Gitanjali: Song Offerings.

Japan, Europe and North America

Together with Mukul Dey, Charles F. Andrews and W. W. Pearson, Tagore again set off by boat on 3 May 1916, embarking on a lecturing circuit of Japan and the United States that was to last until April 1917. During a four-month layover in Japan, Tagore authored "On the Way to Japan" and "In Japan", which were later compiled into the book Japanyatri ("A Sojourn to Japan"), which detailed his admiration for the Japanese aesthetic. Yet Tagore also denounced imperialism and ultra and narrow-minded brands of nationalism.

Tagore left for Santa Barbara, near Los Angeles. There, Tagore meditated among orange groves and conceived of a new type of university, desiring to "make Shantiniketan the connecting thread between India and the world ... [and] a world center for the study of humanity ... somewhere beyond the limits of nation and geography."

Knighthood

In 1915, Tagore was knighted by the British Crown. He later returned his knighthood in protest of the massacre of unarmed Indians in 1919 at Jallianwala Bagh.

Visva-Bharati

The school — which he named Visva-Bharati — had its foundation stone ceremoniously laid on 22 December 1918; it was later inaugurated on 22 December 1921. Tagore’s duties as steward and mentor at Santiniketan kept him busy; he taught classes in mornings and wrote textbooks for his students in afternoons and evenings. Of this routine, he wrote that “I long to discover some fairyland of holidays ... where all duties look delightfully undutiful, like clouds bearing rain appearing perfectly inconsequential”.

This was a unique school, where children studied in open air, under the trees. No one was forced to come to school. Natural talents of individuals were discovered and nurtured.

If we analyse what were the concepts which gave birth to Visva-Bharati, perhaps the following comes:

1. Influence of father Debendranath and Brahmo lineage. From his father he learned of India’s rich Vedic heritage and its gurukuls, and perhaps from then only he had a dream in his mind to bring back the glory of the old days with yound modern vitalism.
2. His school and College drop-out past. Tagore’s academic memories were nothing but memories of endless torture of mind. Through many pass through it and forget when grown-up, Tagore remembered his pain and always wanted to change it.
3. His understanding of limitations of Gandhian concept of Swaraj. Tagore wanted to give an alternate model of Swaraj. His Swaraj was based upon knowledge, open-mindedness, and practical hard work. His experience here was depicted in his immortal novel “Ghare Baire”. He believed before going for agitation and political movements, we as a nation should build our foundation solid. As a true believer of his own idea, he instead of preaching, created something which was an example of what he believed.

Tagore was also occupied with fundraising between 1919 and 1921, undertaking trips to Europe and the U.S.

Shriniketan

In 1921, Tagore and agricultural economist Leonard Elmhirst set up the Institute for Rural Reconstruction, later renamed Shriniketan—in Surul, a village near the ashram at Shantiniketan.

He sought aid from donors, officials, and scholars worldwide to "free village(s) from the shackles of helplessness and ignorance" by "vitalis(ing) knowledge".

South America

Shortly after returning to India, the 63-year-old Tagore accepted the Peruvian government's invitation to visit. He then traveled to Mexico. Each government pledged US$100,000 to the school at Shantiniketan (Visva-Bharati) in commemoration of his visits. A week after his 6 November 1924 arrival in Buenos Aires, Argentina, an ill Tagore moved into the Villa Miralrío at the behest of Victoria Ocampo, who remained a lifelong follower of Tagore. Tagore left for India in January 1925.

Mussolini

On 30 May 1926, he went to Naples, Italy; and met Benito Mussolini in Rome the next day. A warm rapport ended when Tagore criticised Mussolini on 20 July 1926.

Southeast Asia

On 14 July 1927, Tagore and two companions began a four-month tour of Southeast Asia, visiting Bali, Java, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Penang, Siam, and Singapore. Tagore's travelogues from the tour were collected into the work "Jatri".

Tagore’s moment in the Malay peninsula gave him a chance to have a conversation with the Chinese literati. The Chinese had named the Indian poet Chu Chen-tan (Thunder and Sunlight of India) based on the following equations: Rabi=Tan=Morning Sun, Indra=Chen=Thunder, India=Thien-chu=Heavenly Kingdom (an ancient Chinese name for India). Among the Malay Chinese Tagore interacted with was the barrister Song Ong Siang.

As he journeyed across the straits of Malacca towards Batavia Tagore wrote his poem ‘Srivijayalakshmi’, remembering the Srivijaya empire which originated in India but spread across Southeast Asia; celebrating the renewal of a bond after a thousand-year separation. Javanese poet Doetadilaga composed a long and classical response to Tagore’s poem: “Remember how we never could believe in days past that our love would know separation; perfect was our harmony, one our thought, one our soul and one our body, - the unity of God and creature nigh. Verily I saw in you my elder brother guiding me in the ways of the world, teaching me scripture, tongue and behavior, and all that we need to exist”.

Tagore was soon to discover how Hindu traditions and rituals pervaded life in Bali, in very distinctive form. Tagore became very close to the king of Karengasem, and explored Balinese Hinduism in detailed. In memory of the forests and blue ocean of Bali, after his departure from the island, Tagore wrote one of his most beautiful poems, ‘Bali’, which was later renamed ‘Sagarika’; of which the opening verse read:

Against Untouchability

In the early 1930s, Tagore targeted India's "abnormal caste consciousness" and untouchability. Lecturing against these, he penned untouchable heroes for his poems and dramas and campaigned successfully to open Kerala’s Guruvayoor Temple to Dalits.

Last Travel Abroad

In early 1930 he left Bengal for a nearly year-long tour of Europe and the United States. Once he returned to the UK, while his paintings were being exhibited in Paris and London, he stayed at a friend’s settlement in Birmingham. There he wrote his Oxford Hibbert Lectures and spoke at London's annual Quaker gathering. There (addressing relations between the British and Indians, a topic he would grapple with over the next two years, Tagore spoke of a "dark chasm of aloofness".

He visited Aga Khan III, stayed at Dartington Hall, and toured Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany from June to mid-September 1930, then the Soviet Union.

Such extensive travels allowed Tagore to interact with many notable contemporaries, including Henri Bergson, Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, Thomas Mann, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells and Romain Rolland.

Tagore's last travels abroad, including visits to Persia and Iraq (in 1932) and Sri Lanka (in 1933), only sharpened his opinions regarding human divisions and ultra-nationalism, and formed his opinion towards universal brotherhood.

“Each country of Asia will solve its own historical problems according to its strength, nature and need,” Tagore said during his visit to Iran, “but the lamp that they will each carry on their path to progress will converge to illuminate the common ray of knowledge...it is only when the light of the spirit glows that the bond of humanity becomes true.”

Lastly, in April 1932, Tagore—who was acquainted with the legends and works of the Persian mystic Hafez—was hosted by Reza Shah Pahlavi of Iran. With his main identity established as a poet and an honorary Sufi, the highlight of his visit turned out to be the encounter with Saadi and Hafiz in Shiraz.

During his two weeks in Tehran, he participated in as many as eighteen public functions. Persian music continued to intrigue him with its elements of sameness and difference in relation to north Indian classical music. On the violin Tagore was often played melodies, which sounded like the morning ragas Bhairon, Ramkeli and even the pure Bhairavi. The poet’s 71st birthday on May 6, 1932, was celebrated with great fanfare in Tehran. In return for all the bouquets, Tagore gave a gift in the form of a poem titled ‘Iran’.

Last Days

To the end, Tagore scrutinized orthodoxy. He upbraided Gandhi for declaring that a massive 15 January 1934 earthquake in Bihar—leaving thousands dead—was “divine retribution brought on by the oppression of Dalits”. He mourned the endemic poverty of Kolkata and the accelerating socioeconomic decline of Bengal.

Fifteen new volumes of Tagore writings appeared, among them the prose-poems works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued: he developed prose-songs and dance-dramas, including Chitrangada (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938), and wrote the novels Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934).

Tagore took an interest in science in his last years, writing Visva-Parichay (a collection of essays) in 1937. His exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy impacted his poetry, which often contained extensive naturalism that underscored his respect for scientific laws. He also wove the process of science, including narratives of scientists, into many stories contained in such volumes as Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941).

On February 10, 1937, Tagore composed his poem, “Africa”, towards the end of his long and creative life in literature, and was a living embodiment of his universal brotherhood. This poem is divided into four sections.

Section One gives a nice picture of Africa’s past, its simplicity and its uniqueness.

Section two introduces Africa’s story of ‘blood and tears’, under the raids of Slave traders; and Section Three shows the stark contrast of what standards of humanism and value for life the invaders practiced back home; depicts the true dilemma of the poet. Even as the ‘barbaric greed of the civilized’ put on naked display their ‘shameless inhumanity’, church bells rang out in neighborhoods across the ocean in the name of benign God, children played in their mother’s laps, and poets sang paeans to beauty. The hypocrisy of the colonizer stood in stark opposition to the abjection of the colonized. Tagore lifelong believed in universal Humanism, believed in the intellectual prowess of European thinkers. Seeing them inactive in the face of such atrocities on fellow human left him disconsolate.

Section Four gives an indication of impending Second World War and coming doom over Europe, through his poetic vision he saw the colossal slaughter of human values. He remained doubtful how much human values will remain after the war. His last request to the future poet was to ask for forgiveness to that destitute human populace whose life was destroyed by human greed.

Tagore's last four years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness.

These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for an extended period. This was followed three years later, in late 1940, by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. The poetry Tagore wrote in these years is among his finest, and is distinctive for its preoccupation with death. After extended suffering, Tagore died on 7 August 1941 (22 Shravan 1348) in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion in which he was raised; his death anniversary is mourned across the Bengali-speaking world.

By that time, the Second World War has already cast its dark shadow over most of the globe. One of his Japanese disciples, Tomi Wada Kora, believed Tagore choose this time for his death because he could not bear such atrocities sufferer by human in the hands of other fellow human.