Rabindranath Tagore :

The Poet Laureate

By S. Duraiswamy

"How would you like to go away with me to visit the Himalayas," asked the father soon after the Upanayana ceremonies were over. "Would I like it," thought the young Rabindranath, his eyes shining with happy excitement. And thus began his days with his father whom he loved and held in deep reverence.

From his childhood, Rabindranath Tagore longed for freedom, ''to soar higher and higher like a kite.'' He was one of the younger children of this rich and famous family in Calcutta - the Tagore family of Jorosenko where for generations great men have come out of its cradles.. Being so he was naturally protected; however, this protection was an imprisonment for him and he never took a liking to the shackles of school discipline.

"Being chained to a perch," was his feeling of being tied down and felt hemmed in as a child both at home and school.

"Let me light my lamp," says the star. "And never debate if it will help to remove the Darkness."

And the wonderful reprieve in the form of a retreat with his father came soon after the ceremonies. The Upananyana ceremony or the tying of the sacred-thread was arranged, and at this ceremony he was taught by his father the Gayatri mantra - an ancient prayer of the Vedic age which is being chanted to this day by millions of Hindus all over the world as they see the very same glorious rising Sun.

'"Om Bhur Bhuvah Swaha
Tat Savitur Varenyam
Bhargo Devasya Dhimahi
Dhiyo Yonah Prachodayat,"

Let me contemplate on the adorable splendour of Him, Tat Savitur who created the earth, the air and the starry spheres and sends the power of comprehension within our minds.' is man's prayer for Light and Knowledge which inspired young Tagore.

The whole ceremony and the deep solemnity, the sanctity that went with it and the Gayatri Prayer itself made a very great impression on the young mind. The subsequent retreat with his father at their family ashram, Santiniketan, gave him that freedom which he longed for.

His stay with his father was memorable; the picture of his father - the veritable Maharishi in his flowing white garments - sitting in meditation in the early hours of dawn, was indelibly etched on his mind . During that retreat, the young boy was able to understand his father's impression on God and what God meant to him - ''He is the Repose of my life; the Joy of my mind and Peace of my spirit,'' were the all inspiring words which on a later date he transcribed to a memorial stone marking the Maharishi's seat of meditation which one sees to this day at Santiniketan .

It was perhaps these months of retreat and living in the midst of Nature and its beauty and being greatly influenced by his father that awakened to full consciousness his passion for literature, for the magnificent Universe and Nature in all its glory. The experiences were wonderful because Tagore was happiest when he was in communion with Nature and was able to imbibe so much more rather than from stiff text books in a dull class room.

The studies in Sanskrit and the learning of mantrams helped in forming and flowering Tagore's genius. He naturally imbibed the ancient Hindu culture and traditions and was deeply influenced by these.

At the same time, he was sensitive to the new currents from the west which came into India with the colonial masters. He was one of those rare persons who was able to accept the challenges of the new within the values of ancient Hindu thought and culture. It was this sensitivity which helped him to forge the "seemingly" new educational philosophy into Santiniketan.

About this time, when he was building up his ideas of education, it is said that Tagore wrote a book devotional songs where he expressed his faith in God. Having dedicated this to his father, he read out a verse which impressed and delighted him simply because he rejoiced that his son had found and loved the Truth that is God.

"They who are near to me do not know that You
are nearer to me than they are.

They who speak to me do not know that my heart
is full with Your unspoken words.

They who crowd in my path do not know that I
am walking alone with You.

They who love me do not know that their love brings

You to my heart."

This sense of Love for Truth gradually blossomed out into outward simplicity and inward Truth as was seen in the ancient school, the Gurukula, Tapovana or Ashrama schools as they were variously called.

Tagore's thoughts on education

It is easy to see why Tagore should have decided to start a school. His own education was unorthodox both in the choice of his study, his reading and in the mode of his life. And this guided him in what he should do and what he should not do in the development of a school where children could be helped to think and learn instead of pouring knowledge into their brains. According to his thinking, education "is the freedom of mind which can only be achieved through the path of freedom" and that the highest education, "is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence."

The purpose of a school was to relive the ideals of outward simplicity and inward harmony and truth in the modern world. To Tagore, Goodness and Beauty are the languages in which Truth speaks to man.

Through Sivam and Sunderam, Satyam will emerge where the individual personality and development of a child will blossom out. This was his philosophy of education bringing out the inherent qualities of Satyam, Shivam, Sunderam - truth, goodness, beauty.

Santiniketan - the Ashrama Vidyalaya

Tagore built up Santiniketan and evolved an educational philosophy that was his own. His was a saga of building up the mind and culture of a young generation of boys and girls in an atmosphere of academic, artistic and spiritual life and a call to move from the mad scramble for material wealth to the grace of beauty, human kindness and love.

His aim was to give children that freedom which was denied to him in his early years.

He loved children and he wanted a place for them where they would live a happy life with much freedom so that they could be trained to use to the full their gifts of mind, body and spirit where study would not by divorced from life and the children and teachers would participate in one communal life, living in harmony with the surroundings of nature and where the mother tongue would be the medium of instruction.

Togore's writings

Tagore's writing could be divided into three stages. When he was young his poetry centred round natural objects which he culled while enjoying nature and her beauty. His next stage was when he wrote the most beautiful love poetry in Bengali where words come out from the depth of his own experience, both joy and sorrow.

Then his writing, art, painting and music grew deeper becoming religious and philosophical. "All the aspirations of mankind are in his hymns," says Y.B. Yeats, the Irish poet and great admirer of Tagore and his creative work.

Verses from the Gitanjali - a collection of prose translations made by Tagore himself from the original Bengali.

Tagore's testament of faith and his grateful homage to God could be gleaned in his poems. It is this that he had personified and sensitively portrayed in the words -

Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure.

This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again,
and fillest it ever with fresh life.

This little flute of a reed thou hast
carried over hills and dales and hast
breathed through it melodies eternally new

At the immortal touch of thy hands
my little heart loses its limits in joy
and gives birth to utterance ineffable.

Thy infinite gifts come to me only
on those very small hands of mine.

Ages pass and still thou pourest and
still there is room to fill.

From his poems in the Gitanjali one realizes that Tagore disliked rituals. To him service was more important and he says in a poem -

Leave this chanting, singing and
telling of beads! Whom doest thou
worship in this lonely dark corner of a
temple with doors all shut?

Open thine eyes, see thy God is not before thee!

He is there where the tiller is tilling
the hard ground and where the path maker
is breaking stones. He is with them
in the sun and in shower, and his
garment is covered with dust.

Put off thy holy mantle and even like him
come down on the dusty soil!

Come out of thy meditations and
leave aside thy flowers and incense!

What harm is there if thy clothes

Become tattered and stained? Meet
him and stand by him in toil and in sweat of thy brow.

In another poem he gives us an unusual prayer in the form of a request to his Lord
where he asks him to strike at the root of penury in his heart and then seeks strength -

"Give me the strength lightly to bear my joys and sorrows.

Give me the strength to make my love fruitful in service.

Give me the strength never to disown the poor
or bend my knees before insolent might

Give me the strength to raise my mind high above daily trifles.

And give me the strength to surrender my strength to thy will
with love."

I would like to share with my readers a poem of his from the Gitanjali that fascinated me form my childhood, especially when I felt lonely, lost and in despair, it gave me courage -

"Have you not heard His silent Steps?

He comes, comes ever comes........

In the fragrant days of sunny April through the forest path

He comes, comes, ever comes.

In the rainy gloom of July nights
on the thundering chariot of clouds

He comes, comes ever comes.

In sorrow after sorrow it is his steps that
press upon my heart,
and it is the golden touch of his feet
that makes my joys to shine."

Yes it is the Lord as Tagore said, Who comes to us in sorrow and in victory, every moment and in every age and it is His silent touch that makes us blossom out.

And for his country he had "a haven of freedom -

"Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; Where words come out from the depth of truth; Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection; Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary

desert sand of dead habit; Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action-

Into that haven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake."

Visit to Santiniketan

Several years ago, both Yogendra and I were able to visit Santiniketan and pay our homage to the great sage Rabindranath Tagore.

We.stood at the gates of Santiniketan and felt the spirit of the ashram pouring over us . The memorial stone on the spot where his father sat in meditation reads-

HE IS
the Repose of my life,
the Joy of my mind,
the Peace of my spirit.

revealing in words the Maharishi's thoughts on what God meant to him, "Are these thoughts different to ours," we thought. And the inscription on the gate speaks volumes. "Here in this ashram the One Invisible God is to be worshipped," is beautiful.

One needs to stay in the ashram to understand Tagore, his writings and his philosophy of education. Even though he is no more it is still a vibrant place of learning where the minds of children are opened to the inner world of Satyam, Sivam, Sunderam. The life of the ashram to this day, as in the past, is one of simple freedom with the fewest possible rules.

Santiniketan is indeed Tagore's offerings to the ideals and traditions of Education. It is a " Home for the Spirit of India," a unique Forest University designed by Tagore himself consisting of "Kutis," in the northern part called "Uttarayan" to which he gave special names like Konark, Udaya, Syamili and Udichi.

We felt mesmerized listening to the students at Assembly under trees with their palms together chanting the Gayatri prayer - the traditional invocation to the Sun every morning. And as the voices softened the chanting was followed by a few minutes of silence ending with "Om Shanti Shanti Shanti" - Peace! Peace! Peace!