Tagore – The Poet, Songwriter, Philosopher, Artist and Educator

Tarit Mukherjee*

“It is very simple to be happy, but it is very difficult to be simple.”

– Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was the youngest son of Debendranath Tagore, a leader of the Brahmo Samaj. Rabindranath Tagore was born in Calcutta into a wealthy and prominent family.  His grandfather had established a huge financial empire for himself.  Tagore received his early education first from tutors and then at a variety of schools. Among them were Bengal Academy where he studied history and culture. and then  University College, London, where he studied law but left a year later for unlikeness of the weather.

In his mature years, in addition to his many-sided literary activities, he managed the family estates, a project which brought him into close touch with people and increased his interest in social reforms. He also started an experimental school at Shantiniketan where he tried his Upanishadic ideals of education.

Tagore had early success as a writer in his native Bengal. With  translations of some of his poems he became rapidly known in the West. In fact his fame attained  luminous height, taking him across continents on lecture tours and tours of friendship. For the world he became the voice of India’s spiritual heritage, and for India, especially for Bengal, he became a great living institution.

Although Tagore wrote successfully in all literary genres, he was first of all a poet. Among his fifty and odd volumes of poetry are Manasi (1890) [The Ideal One], Sonar Tari (1894) [The Golden Boat], Gitanjali (1910) [Song Offerings], Gitimalya (1914) [Wreath of Songs], and Balaka (1916) [The Flight of Cranes]. The English renderings of his poetry,  include The Gardener (1913), Fruit-Gathering (1916), and The Fugitive (1921), Gitanjali: Song Offerings (1912), became the most acclaimed of them, contains poems from other works besides its namesake. Tagore’s reputation as a writer was established in the United States and in England after the publication of Gitanjali: Song Offerings, about divine and human love. The poems were translated into English by the author himself.

Tagore’s major plays are Raja (1910) [The King of the Dark Chamber], Dakghar (1912) [The Post Office], Achalayatan (1912) [The Immovable], Muktadhara (1922) [The Waterfall], and Raktakaravi (1926) [Red Oleanders]. He is the author of several volumes of short stories and a number of novels, among them Gora (1910), Ghare-Baire (1916) [The Home and the World], and Yogayog (1929) [Crosscurrents]. Besides these, he wrote musical dramas, dance dramas, essays of all types, travel diaries, and two autobiographies, one in his middle years and the other shortly before his death in 1941. Tagore also left numerous drawings and paintings, and songs for which he wrote the music himself.

“When one knows thee, then alien there is none, then no door is shut. Oh, grant me my prayer that I may never lose touch of the one in the play of the many.” (from Gitanjali)

A dedicated educator, Tagore established a school (1901) in his estate, Santiniketan, in Bengal, to teach a blend of Eastern and Western philosophies. In 1921 his school was expanded into an international university, Visva-Bharati. He also traveled and lectured throughout the world.  Visva-Bharati, which was dedicated to emerging Western and Indian philosophy and education  became a university in 1921.

In 1890 Tagore moved to East Bengal (now Bangladesh), where he collected local legends and folklore. Between 1893 and 1900 he wrote seven volumes of poetry, including Sonar TarI (The Golden Boat), 1894 and Khanika, 1900 and Nashtanir, (The Broken Nest) 1901, published first serially. This was a highly productive period in Tagore’s life, and earned him the rather misleading epitaph ‘The Bengali Shelley.’

The Greatest writer in modern Indian literature, Bengali poet, novelist and an early advocate of Independence for India, Tagaore won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 for his collection of well-known poems Gitanjali (Song Offerings). Two years later he was awarded the knighthood, but he surrendered it in 1919 as a protest against the massacre in Amritsar. Tagore’s influence over Gandhi and the founders of modern India was enormous, but his reputation in the West as a mystic has perhaps mislead his Western readers to ignore his role as a reformer and critic of colonialism.

At the age of 70 Tagore took up painting. He was also a composer, settings hundreds of poems to music. Many of his poems are actually songs, and inseparable from their music. Tagore’s ‘Our Golden Bengal’ became the national anthem of Bangladesh. His written production, still not completely collected, fills nearly 30 substantial volumes. Tagore remained a well-known and popular author in the West until the end of the 1920s.

Tagore’s short stories influenced deeply Indian Literature. ‘Punishment’, a much anthologized work, was set in a rural village. It describes the oppression of women through the tragedy of the low-caste Rui family. His major theme was humanity’s search for God and truth.

Between 1916 and 1941, Tagore published 21 collections of songs and poems and held lecture tours across Europe, America, China, Japan and Indonesia. In 1924, he inaugurated the Viswa Bharati University at Santiniketan, an All India Centre for culture.

Tagore was keenly aware of India’s socio-political condition under British rule. He supported the Swadeshi movement and had been deeply influenced by the religious renaissance of 19th century India. Tragically, between 1902 and 1907, Tagore lost his wife, son and daughter. But out of his pain emerged some of his most tender work, including Gitanjali, published in 1910. Tagore remained a true patriot, supporting the national movement and writing the lyrics of the “Jana Gana Mana”, which is India’s national anthem.

Tagore’s works are classics, renowned for their lyrical beauty and spiritual poignancy. He is remembered for his literary genius and Santiniketan remains a flourishing institute. In Tagore’s own words, “The world speaks to me in colours, my soul answers in music”. His profound symbolism, abetted by the free-flowing nature of his verse, creates a universe of haunting beauty that expresses God’s infinite love and humanity’s deep compassion for all things beautiful.

Known as “Gurudev,” poet Rabindranath Tagore was a proud inheritor of India’s spiritual heritage, to which he gave voice in his inimitable language. He was one of our noblest patriots and was always keen to promote the welfare of his countrymen, educationally, economically and politically. He was a colossus who made an outstanding contribution to the development of painting, music, dance and drama. He triumphantly toured many countries of the world carrying the message of renascent India.

*Freelance Writer

**In the memory of 150^th Birth Anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore (1861-19)