This song of mine will wind its music around you, my child, like the fond arms of love.
This song of mine will touch your forehead like a kiss of blessing.
When you are alone it will sit by your side and whisper in your ear, when you are in the crowd
it will fence you about with aloofness.
My song will be like a pair of wings to your dreams, it will transport your heart to the verge of the unknown.
It will be like the faithful star overhead when dark night is over your road.
My song will sit in the pupils of your eyes, and will carry your sight into the heart of things.
And when my voice is silenced in death, my song will speak in your living heart.
Rabindranath Tagore
Tagore modernized Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced), and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: the Republic of India's Jana Gana Mana and Bangladesh's Amar Shonar Bangla. The composer of Sri Lanka's national anthem: Sri Lanka Matha was a student of Tagore, and the song is inspired by Tagore's style.
Rabindranath became the most prominent embodiment of how the west wanted to see the east – sagelike, mystical, descending from some less developed but perhaps more innocent civilisation; above all, exotic. He looked the part, with his white robes and flowing beard and hair, and sometimes overplayed it. Of course, the truth was more complicated. The Tagores were among Kolkata's most influential families. They'd prospered in their role as middle men to the East India Company, whose servants named them Tagore because it was more easily pronounced than the Bengali title, Thakur. The west wasn't strange to them. Rabindranath's grandfather, Dwarkanath, owned steam tug companies and coal mines, became a favourite of Queen Victoria's and died in England (his tombstone is in Kensal Green cemetery)
Gurudev’s life speaks his thirst for innovations, occult, perseverance and endeavour. His warmth of Gratitude, sovereign insight – godly reticence, linguistic proficiency and flair for writing – made him a versatile internationalist. Being the haven of creation, an ardent exponent of spiritualism and mentor of philosophy, Tagore meticulously worked to promote the boon of “Holistic Education” across the country.
Breaking the Barrier of time & region, the thespian Gurudev introduced the Ambience of Raksha Bandhan to evoke harmony and universal brotherhood. The polymath put his intuitions flowered in scintillating consciousness of the infinite innate.
The ecstasy of “Gitanjali” enlightens the globe. The colossus, charismatic Tagore is the dovetail of pragmatism for all ages. His marvel of corpuses at once conveys his intrinsic brilliance. Ethnic yet contemporary, the euphoric genre of Tagore has pounded every heart, oscillated every nerve. Gurudev remains one of the rare Geniuses behind today’s globalization.
Every year, many events pay tribute to Tagore: Kabipranam, his birth anniversary, is celebrated by groups scattered across the globe; the annual Tagore Festival held in Urbana, Illinois; Rabindra Path Parikrama walking pilgrimages from Calcutta to Santiniketan; and recitals of his poetry, which are held on important anniversaries. Bengali culture is fraught with this legacy: from language and arts to history and politics. Amartya Sen scantly deemed Tagore a "towering figure", a "deeply relevant and many-sided contemporary thinker". Tagore's Bengali originals—the 1939 Rabīndra Rachanāvalī—is canonised as one of his nation's greatest cultural treasures, and he was roped into a reasonably humble role: "the greatest poet India has produced".
Mukul Naskar
PGPMC
2nd sem
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