Political preoccupations began to weigh on Tagore. Tagore who had till then preserved an aristocratic detachment, found himself drawn more and more into the popular movements, writes MEERA S. SASHITAL.
As I listen to Rabindra Sangit I cannot help visualising the greatness of Rabindranath Tagore its composer. Apart from his literary achievement, he was not only a poet, playwright, novelist but a musician, composer, painter, philosopher, teacher, orator, patriot and host of other things, and distinguished himself in each of these very different roles “There is no more versatile, prolific and gifted genius in history”. His name is known to all over the world and in his own country he is venerated as a poet and philosopher in the tradition of the ancient rishis. As Keyserling put it, he is “the most universal, the most encompassing, the most complete human being I have known.”
The Tagores were one of the first families of Bengal who were not only great hereditary landowners (zamindars) but were noted for their munificent patronage of art and literature. Originally Banerjis, after they settled in West Bengal they received the appellation of Thakur which meant “respected lord,” The name was later anglocised as Tagore.
Tagore was born on 7th May 1861 in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta to parents Debandranath Tagore and Sarada Devi. He was the youngest of thirteen surviving children and was nicknamed “Rabi.” Tagore was brought up mostly by trusted servants as his mother died in his early childhood and his father travelled widely. It seems his father was a remote figure, austere and inaccessible may be due to his wide travelling.
Besides Rabindranath the most dazzling star, his whole family was talented. Dwinjendranath his elder brother was a philosopher and essayist of distinction, Jyotindranath, another brother a great artist, a third brother was the first to enter the Civil Service, including his father who had written a remarkable autobiography. But Rabindranath had from the beginning a dislike for schooling. He largely avoided classroom schooling and preferred to roam the manor or nearby Bolpur, idylls which the family visited. He was sent to many schools but his resolute refusal to be at schools made him study at home. He showed as little enthusiasm for private lessons as for the more formal discipline of the class-room. His mind was eager and too dreamy, too independent and too sensitive to fall readily into the conventional ruts. His scholarly travails at the local Presidency College spanned a single day.
After his Upanayan (coming- of- age) rite at age eleven, Tagore and his father left Calcutta in February 1873 to tour India for several months, from visiting his father’s Santinketan estate to reaching the Himalayam hill station of Dalhousie. Here, Tagore read biographies, studied various subjects including Sanskrit and classical poetry of Kalidasa. Tagore returned to Jorasanko and completed a set of major works by 1877.
Because Debendranath wanted his son to become a barrister, Tagore enrolled at a public school in Brighton, East Sussex, England in 1878. He later joined University College London, but again left school and opted instead for independent study of Shakespeare, Religio Medici, Coriolanus etc. Lively English, Irish and Scottish folk tunes impressed Tagore, whose own tradition of Nidhubabu authored kirtans and tappas and Brahmo hymnbody was subdued. In 1880 he returned to Bengal degree-less resolving to reconcile European novelty with Brahmo traditions taking the best from each. In 1883 he married Mrinalini Devi. They had five children, two of whom died in childhood.
Travel scarcely interrupted his literary interest. He had begun to write verse almost as soon as he could walk and his work appeared in print before he was fifteen. And, before he was eighteen, he had published nearly seven thousand lines of verse and a large number of proses. In addition to his other works he tried to start a Bengali Literary Academy and contributed specially to “Balika”a magazine for boys. He came to be known as “Bengali Shelley”. He is said to have introduced among educated Bengalis the fashion of wearing long hair and the “Napoleon beard”.
In 1890 at Shileida, Tagore spent some of the happiest years of his life. Though a poet, He showed himself not incapable of managing his vast ancestral estates. He was in intimate touch with the common people and gained first-hand knowledge of the rural problems of India both from technical and human aspects. He enjoyed the surrounding Nature and had the peace of mind and leisure to unfold his genius. Here he became familiar with Baul Lalon Shah whose folk songs greatly influenced Tagore. Here he released ‘Manasi’ poems among his best-known works. Here he also revealed himself as a dramatist of the first rank after contributing to Sadhana a best Bengali periodical some of his great works like Sacrifice, Chitrangada, Sonar Tari and Urvasi (perhaps the greatest lyric and unalloyed perfect worship of Beauty). Sadhana periodical was most productive of all.
Political preoccupations began to weigh on Tagore. Tagore who had till then preserved an aristocratic detachment, found himself drawn more and more into the popular movements. Inevitably, he became a leader of the Indian Renaissance. He delved into India’s past; he lectured on the Upanishads and our rich ancient civilization.
The most enduring memorial of Tagore is Santiniketan the world famous school founded in 1901 near Calcutta where Tagore wished to be in communion with Nature. Here he hoped to recapture the meditative calm of ancient India and provide an environment where the mind of the young “might expand into love of Beauty and of God.” Tagore employed a brahmacharya system where Gurus gave pupils personal guidance-emotional, intellectual and spiritual. Teaching was done under the trees.
Political and social problems definitely yielded place in Tagore’s mind to religion. He wrote a group of symbolical plays and he wrote Gitanjali. The inspiration of Gitanjali (Song-Offerings) is clear and unsullied. “It is the authentic voice of one who, through much suffering, had attained joyous serenity.” Some passages in it, Maeterlink said, “are among the loftiest, most profound and most divinely human ever written.” Gitanjali is Tagore’s best-known collection internationally, earning him his Nobel. In the autumn of 1913 Tagore was universally recognized as one of the foremost poets of his age and within a few weeks of his return from America the Nobel Prize for Literature was conferred on him. In 1914 he was knighted. But the political tension was more acute than in the days of the Bengal Partition and following on the shootings at Amritsar (Jalianwala Bagh) in 1919, Tagore renounced the Knighthood.
In 1971 ‘Amar Shonar Bangla “became the national anthem of Bangladesh. It was written- ironically to protest the 1905 Partition of Bengal”. Jana Gana Mana “was written in ‘shadhu-bhasha’, a Sanskritised register of Bengali, and is the first of five stanzas of a Brahmo hymn that Tagore composed. It was first sung in 1911 at a Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress.
Tagore, besides being a poet, painter, philosopher, was a great musician. “There is in Bengal no cultured home where Rabindranath’s songs are not sung or at least attempted to be sung. Even illiterate villagers sing his songs.” He was a prolific composer with 2,230 songs to his credit. His songs are known as Rabindrasangit (“Tagore Song”), which merges fluidly into his literature, most of which are lyricised. They emulate the tonal color of classical ragas to varying extent. Wordings of these songs are soul- stirring and transcend the mundane to the aesthetic and express all ranges of human emotion. His songs are like offerings or prayers to God, mainly devotional, heartening and meditative which leave the listener soothe, calm and in a blissful mood.
During the last few years Rabindranath Tagore had been in very poor health. He died on 7th August 1941 at the age of eighty.
