Tagore:

Re-discovered and re-lived

by Husna Inayathullah

“The speech of my heart will be carried on in murmurings of a song.”
- Rabindranath Tagore

Friday, March 27 saw the launch of the epic, ‘One Hundred Years of Gitanjali’ at the Indian Cultural Centre, Colombo. It is a collection of essays written by Indian and Sri Lankan writers providing new insights to understand and rediscover Tagore’s Gitanjali from different perspectives. It was edited by Dr. Sandagomi Coperahewa, Director, Centre for Contemporary Indian Studies, University of Colombo.

The launch was followed by Gitanjali-Re-lived, a musical rendition by eminent Rabindra Sangeet exponent Dr. Ananda Gupta and his group.

The book launch and the musical rendition brought back the sharper focus the greatness of Rabindranath Tagore, the most famous poet to come from India and first non-European to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Given the significance of Gitanjali, it comes as no surprise that it was his poetic thoughts expressed in beautiful, profound and sensitive verses in Gitanjali that earned him the Nobel. A Bengali poet, philosopher, artist, playwright, composer and novelist, Tagore (1861-1941) travelled widely and was friends with many notable 20th century figures. He composed the text of both India's and Bangladesh's respective national anthems and also founded Visva-Bharati, which remain reputable institutions.

Venerated as a poet and writer who excelled in various genres, Tagore was an educator who created a new highly qualified education system. He was also a thinker, reformer, revolutionary, world traveller, painter, political activist and agricultural reformer and messenger between east and west who met with the geat of all continents and fuelled the much needed dialogue between cultures and civilizations.

His interest in science led him to meet Einstein, less is known of his encounter with Werner Heisenberg, one of the founders of quantum physics.

While he supported Indian Independence, he often had tactical disagreements with Gandhi. His body of literature is deeply sympathetic for the poor and upholds universal humanistic values. His poetry drew from traditional Vaisnava folk lyrics and was often deeply mystical.

The word Gitanjali is composed from 'gita' which means song and 'anjali' which means offering. Thus it means 'An offering of songs' but the word for offering 'anjali' has a strong devotional connotation. The title may also be interpreted as "prayer offering of song."

Gitanjali Song Offerings is a collection of 103 prose poems selected by Tagore from among his Bengali poems and translated by him into English. The collection brought Tagore international attention. Although Tagore later published more than 20 additional volumes of his poetry in English translation, Gitanjali Song Offerings remained one of his most beloved works.

Western readers immediately noted similarities between Gitanjali Song Offerings and the biblical Song of Songs, which most theologians insist deals not with a human union but with Christ’s love for his church.

Though Gitanjali Song Offerings also is filled with sensual imagery, there is no doubt that Tagore’s subject is the relationship between a human being and the divine. When Tagore mentioned his admiration for Vaishnava poetry in an essay published in 1912, he is reportedly had in mind the Gita Govinda, a long poem written in the twelfth century by the Bengali poet Sri Jayadev which Westerners have often called the Indian Song of Songs.

The Gita Govinda shows the god Vishnu in his incarnation as Krishna, in passionate pursuit of the cowgirl Radha. Since Vaishnavism or the worship of this very human god was especially popular in Bengal, Bengali poets often wrote about Krishna’s love for Radha. Though Tagore himself, reared a theist, did not adhere to.

‘One Hundred Years of Gitanjali’ is a commemoration of the Centennial of the Nobel Prize 1913-2013, and seeks to promote certain aspects mostly ignored about this universal man, like the great Thinker, the Philosopher, the Educator, the Activist, and cosmopolitan figure being in contact with the Great Men of his time, for example Einstein.

Beyond the Indian Culture, the universal validity of his message shows us the pertinence of his ideas for our time. Tagore speaks to us and for our tomorrow.

Tagore published 157 poems in Bengali shortly before Gitanjali. Today, a over hundred years later, The Other Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore is the first translation directly from Bengali to English of the entire 157 original poems accomplished by a renowned Bengali linguist and specialist of Tagore, poet and Indian writer himself.Romain Rolland (Nobel 1915) commented: "Tagore is for us the symbol of the spirit, light and harmony, the song of eternity that rises from the sea of passions unleashed".

The Nobel committee said: "... its rhythmic and balanced style ... combines both feminine grace of poetry with manly strength of prose".Some poems in Gitanjali involve themes related to nature, but here too, the spiritual is subtly present, as in this poem (No. 57):

· Light, my light, the world-filling light, the eye-kissing light, heart-sweetening light!

· Ah, the light dances, my darling, at the centre of my life; the light strikes, my darling, the chords of my love; the sky opens, the wind runs wild, laughter passes over the earth.

· The butterflies spread their sails on the sea of light. Lilies and jasmines surge up on the crest of the waves of light.

· The light is shattered into gold on every cloud, my darling, and it scatters gems in profusion.

· Mirth spreads from leaf to leaf, my darling, and gladness without measure. The heaven's river has drowned its banks and the flood of joy is abroad.

Udaya Narayana Singh, a linguistics professor, renowned poet-essayist and former Vice president of the Visva- Bharati University founded by Tagore, has undertaken the challenge to highlight the beauty of rhythm and sound of the Bengali language which is the base of the magic developed with mastery by Tagore and thus offers us as faithfully as possible, a milestone translation, the authentic song that Tagore gave the world.

In the depth analysis preceding Tagore's poems, Singh also discusses the translations of 1914 André Gide and Juan Ramón Jiménez. Here, for the first time, we get an insight into the roots of these poems and discover a Tagore "not Westernized" but more universal than ever.