The everlasting fascination of Gitanjali

by Justice P. H. K. Kulatilaka

Rabindranath Tagore was born on May 27, 1861 in Calcutta to a family of artistes and philosophers. Gognendranath and Abaninranath were artistes, his brother Dwigendranath was a great philosopher. His father Maha Rishi an exponent of Adi Dharma faith would sit immovable in meditation by the great river Ganges enticed by the serenity and the beauty of the natural landscape around him. His family would have been a source of strength to young Rabindranath.

Rabindranath Tagore

After schooling in Brighton he studied Law at the University of London. But without completing his degree he returned to the motherland answering 'the inner call' that he should work for humanity.

When Tagore was a young man of 25 he lived in utmost seclusion in the solitude of a Bengali village by the river Ganges in a boathouse. Wild ducks that came from the Himalayan lakes during autumn were his only living companions.

In that solitude he seems to have drunk the open space "like wine overflowing with sunshine". Tagore gathered inspiration from the murmurs of the river which spoke to him of the secrets of nature.

'Inner call'

However, the "inner call" prompted him to come out of seclusion to enable him to render some service to his fellow human beings. His dream of imparting knowledge and giving inspiration to children culminated when he founded Visva-Bharathi. In fact, the preface to Rabindranath Tagore's Geethanjale was written by Sujith Kumara Basu, Vice-Chancellor of Visva - Bharathi in 2003. He was closely associated with Shantheniketan as well. Tagore encouraged the revival of Buddhist learning in Sri Lanka.

He visited the island in 1922 and 1933. In one of these visits he laid the foundation stone for Sri Palee, Horana. Tagore found time to step into Ananda College and Mahinda College as well.

Tagore had a special liking for China. He believed in the beneficial interactive relationship between the two great civilisations of China and India. He visited China in 1928. By then Tagore was already a celebrated figure in that country. In fact, as early as 1915 Chen Du Xiu, one of the founding fathers of the Communist Party of China, translated Tagore's prize winning anthology 'Gitanjali'.

Love for nature

Tagore had a deep love for nature. He loved children because they are innocent and unspoilt just like nature. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech he said, "I had a few boys around me and I taught them and tried to make them happy, I was their play-mate, their companion. I shared their life and felt I was the biggest child in the party.

He said "The vigour and joy of the children, their chatter and songs filled the air with a spirit of delight which I drank every day that I was there.

Tagore wrote his poems in the wee hours of the morning and in the afternoon glow of the golden sunset and sang them to himself at midnight under the glorious stars of the Indian sky. Bengali in which he put down his poetic thoughts and sang to himself is a musical and a beautiful language.

It is said that as generations pass, travellers will hum Geetanjali songs on the highways and men rowing upon rivers, Lovers while they await one another, shall find in murmuring them a passion for God which they do not find in murmuring "sweet nothing".

Tagore's poetry was very much influenced by classical Indian poetry, so much so that all inspirations of mankind are found ingrained in his poems. In 1913 the Nobel Committee of judges having read Rabindranath Tagore's own original manuscript Gitanjali, "Song Offerings" unanimously decided to "crown" the Bengali poet by awarding him the prestigious Nobel Prize.

What moved the committee was the idealistic tendency ingrained in his poems.

The Swedish poet Vernor Von Heidenstam who won the Nobel Prize in 1916 remarked "Through his song offerings we have come to know one of the very greatest poets of an age". In fact, Gitanjali was the biggest achievement of the Bengali Renaissance.

Song Offerings

I had the opportunity of reading Gitanjali, song offerings, the prose translation made by Tagore himself and the original Bengali manuscript. But I was sad because I could not appreciate the genuine poetic acumen of the great poet as I could not read or understand Bengali. Gitanjali was meant to be sung. Tagore himself says that he sang the poems to himself in the midnight under the glorious stars of the Indian skies. W. B. Yeats in his introduction to Tagore's Gitanjali, song offerings, gives a clue to the readers when he says, "I read Rabindranath every day, to read one line of him is to forget all the troubles of the world".

In fact, it was Yeats who selected and arranged the poems and made corrections for Tagore to consider.

Iva Stoniola, in his prologue in his Portuguese translation commented thus, "Gitanjali has to be read a little at a time, tallying each moment the poetic and mystic perception of the author with life's perception".

As A. G. Vajpayee, former Prime Minister of India said the fact that Gitanjali has stirred the imagination of many across national boundaries down the ages would naturally attract the conscience of a reader to get an insight into the philosophy and idealism ingrained in Gitanjali and the beauty of it. The former Vice Chancellor of Visva Bharati in his preface to Gitanjali says that the book has travelled a long way in the last nine decades touching the lives of statesmen, poets and ordinary folk. The prose form of translation of Gitanjali, Song Offerings contain 108 poems. His idealistic imagination which would have filled his mind when he sat under the glorious starry nights by the River Ganges in solitude is depicted in Gitanjali poem 78. It begins thus - 'When the creation was new and all the stars shone in their first splendour, the gods held their assembly in the sky and sang "Oh' the picture of perfection the joy unalloyed. Suddenly they realised that one of the stars had been lost. They cried in dismay.

"Yes that lost star was the best.

She was the glory of all heavens" The poet laments -

"Vain is the seeking

Unbroken perfection is overall".

Religious touch expressed in hymnal rhythm is a kind of visionary idealism which embraced his love for God, his sense of dedication of his own life to the service of mankind to wit, Gitanjali 41.

'I wait here weary hours spreading my offerings for thee

while passers-by come and take my flowers, one by one and

my basket is nearly empty'

The poet goes on

'I sit like a beggar maid drawing my skirt over my face, when they ask me what is it I want

I drop my eyes and answer them not'.

Tagore pours out his heart when he discovers the whereabouts of his God and invites the reader to open his eyes an see the God

'Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before you.

He is there where the tiller is tilling hard ground and where the path maker is breaking stones. He is with them in sun and in shower and his garment is covered with dust. Put off thy mantle and each like Him come down on the dusty soil' - Gitanjali II.

Undoubtedly, local popular singer T. M. Jayaratne would have been inspired by Tagore's vision when he sings 'balan kadathura era daase'

In Gitanjali poem 57 the poet seems to be in trance.

He sees a light which he goes to describe thus -

'Light my light, the world filling light, the eye kissing light, hear sweetening light

Ah, the light dances my darling at the centre of my life".

He goes on - "The butterflies spread their sails,

on the sea of light, lilies and jasmine surge up

on the crest of the waves of light.

The light is scattered into gold on every cloud,

my darling, and it scatters gems of profusion"

The reader might wonder whether it is a love song but it is deeply mystical.

Paradoxically Tagore in poem 58 speaks of twin brothers and winds up - 'the joy that throws everything it has, upon the dust".

I would rather stop here for the reason that my desire was not to make a review of Gitanjali as I am not competent to do so but to share with the readers my thoughts on Gitanjali and its author.

The writer is a former Director,

Sri Lanka Judges' Institute