Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore (Bangla: ??????????? ?????, Robindronath ?hakur) (May 7, 1861 – August 7, 1941) (in the Bangla Calendar, 25 Baishakh, 1268 – 22 Srabon, 1348), also called Gurudev, was a Bengali poet, Brahmo philosopher and nationalist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913, becoming the first Asian to

Literature

Poetry dominates Tagore's literary reputation, but he also wrote novels, essays, short stories, travelogues, and drama. He also wrote numerous songs and composed all of them himself.

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Poetry

Gitanjali is obviously his most famous collection of poetry. Other well known collections include Manasi, Sonar Tori, Bolaka and Purobi.

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Music

He was also an accomplished musician, and his most enduring legacy to Bangla may be his 2,000 songs, now known as Rabindra Sangeet which are part of the Bengali cultural heritage in both West Bengal, India, and Bangladesh. Tagore's music cannot really be seperated from his literature, because almost all of it was music for his songs, and they were oftened initially written as poems or written as a part of a novell, story or play.

Related Topics:
Rabindra Sangeet - West Bengal - Bangladesh

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His songs have been chosen as national anthems of two nations: "jana gana mana" (?? ?? ??) in India and aamaar sonaar baanglaa (???? ????? ?????) in Bangladesh. In 1913, he won the Nobel Prize in literature, the first non-European to receive this honor, for his English translation of his work Gitanjali (?????????, "An offering of song").

Related Topics:
India - Bangladesh - 1913 - Nobel Prize in literature - English - Gitanjali

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Here is song seven from the text,

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Original text in Bangla and Roman scripts(????????? 127):

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AmAr e gAn chheRechhe tAr sakal alaMkAr

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tomAr kAchhe rAkhe ni Ar sAjer ahaMkAr

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alaMkAr Je mAjhe paRe milanete ARAl kare,

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tomAr kathA DhAke Je tAr mukhara jhaMkAr.

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tomAr kAchhe khATe nA mor kabir garba karA,

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mahAkabi, tomAr pAye dite chAi Je dharA.

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jIban laye Jatan kari Jadi saral bA.Mshi gaRi,

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Apan sure dibe bhari sakal chhidra tAr.

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Free-verse translation by Tagore (English Gitanjali VII):

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My song has put off her adornments. She has no pride of dress and decoration.

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Ornaments would mar our union; they would come between thee and me; their jingling would drown thy whispers.

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My poet's vanity dies in shame before thy sight.

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O master poet, I have sat down at thy feet. Only let me make my life simple and straight, like a flute of reed for thee to fill with music.

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Prose (Fiction)

Of Rabindranath's prose, perhaps most highly regarded are his short stories. He is credited with maturing the art of short story writing in Bangla, and is still widely recognized as one of the great masters of the art. His short stories are written in a prose that is rythmic, often to the point of being poetic. However, his stories are mostly rooted in the life of ordinary people.

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Rabindranath's ????????? (Golpoguchchho or "Bunch of stories") remains one of the most popular books of fictions in Bangla literature. Its continual influence on Bengali culture can hardly be over estimated. It has provided subject matter for numerous successful films and theaters, its characters among the most well known to Bengalis, and remains a point of cultural reference. The aclaimed film director Satyajit Ray based his film Charulata (The Lonely Wife) on Nashtanir (The Broken Nest). This famous story has a autobiographical element to it, following to some extent the relation between Rabindranath and his sister-in-law, Kadambari Devi. Ray has also made memorable films of Samapti, Postmaster and Monihara, bundling them together as Teen Kanya (Three daughters). Tapan Sinha directed Atithi, based on another poignantly lyrical Tagore story. Tarapada, a young brahmin boy, catches a boat ride with a village zamindar. It turns out that he has ran from his home and has been wandering around ever since. The zamindar adopts him, and finally arranges a marraige to his own daughter. The night before the wedding Tarapada runs away again. Strir Patra (The letter from the wife) (also filmed, by Purnendu Patri) has to be one of the earliest depictions in Bangla literature of such bold emancipation of women. Mrinal is the wife of a typical Bengali middleclass man. The letter written while she is traveling (which consists all of the story) describes her petty life and struggles, and finally declares that will not return to his patriarchial home. The final line declares, "Amio bachbo. Ei bachlum" (And I shall live. Here, I live). In Haimanti, Tagore takes on the institution of Hindu marraige. He describes, ala Strir Patra, the dismal lifelessness of Bengali women after they are married off, the deep hypocracies of the Indian middle class, and how Haimanti, a sensitive young woman, has to pay for her sensitiveness and free spirit with her life. In the last passage, Rabindranath directly attacks the Hindu custom of glorifying Sita's entering in fire to appease her husband Rama's doubts, as depicted in the epic Ramayana. Tagore takes a look at the Hindu-muslim problem in Musalmani didi, and it embodies in many ways the essence of Tagore's humanism. Darpaharan on the other hand, is interestingly self conscious. It describes a young man with literary amibitions who loves his wife but wants to stiffle her own literary career as he deems it unfeminine. Rabindranath himself, in his youth, seems to have harbored similar ideas about women. The story depicts the final humbling of the man and acceptance of his wife's talents. As many other Tagore stories, Jibito o Mrito provides the Bengali's with one of their more widely used epigrams Kadombini moriya proman korilo she more nai (Kadombini died, and thus proved that she hadn't).

Related Topics:
Bangla - Satyajit Ray - Charulata - The Lonely Wife - Nashtanir - The Broken Nest - Tapan Sinha - Brahmin - Zamindar - Purnendu Patri - Ramayana

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Tagore's plays have a equally central position in Bengali literature. All of his plays have been repeatedly staged and reinterpreted over the years. His most famous play, perhaps, is Roktokorobi, which is the name of a red flower. The play depicts a kingdom where the king lives behind a iron curtain, and the people are subjected to cruelty and death at the slightest pretext. People are forced to work in the mines to make the king and his cronies more wealthy. The play follows Nandini, the heroine, who leads the people and finally the king himself towards the destruction of this artifact of subjugation. However, this ultimate victory is preceded by numerous deaths, most importantly that of Ranjan, Nandinis lover and Kishore and young boy devoted to her. This is a play Rabindranath worked hard on, and at least eleven revisions of it have been located. What motivated Rabindranath to write Roktokarabi is not clear, some suggesting his recent visit to the mines of Bombay, some to his dislike of what he saw in the west, and some other think that he was motivated by a woman to create the character of Nandini. Other plays of Tagore include Chitrangada, Raja, Valmiki-Pratibha and Mayar Khela.

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His novels have received perhaps the least critical acclaim of all of his prose. Rabindranath's novels include Bou Thakurani'r Haat, Chaturanga, Gora, Shesher Kobita, Ghore Baire, Char Odhay, Noukadubi etc. Ghore Baire is an examination of the rising nationalistic fealing in India and the dangers of it. This novel clearly depicts Tagore's distrust of nationalism, specially when associated with a religious element. Gora in some sense has the same theme, raising a deep question of the Indian identity. Shesher Kobita is his most lyrical novel, probably more widely read as a collection of poems and rythmic passages rather than as a novel on its own.

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Prose (Non-fiction)