timeless tagore

7/29/2019 Timeless Tagore

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Vol:28 Iss:27URL: http://www.flonnet.com/fl2827/stories/20120113282700400.htm

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COVER STORY

Timeless Tagore

WILLIAM RADICE

There is hope that the new appreciation of Tagore as a thinker will in the long run enhance the

understanding of his creative achievements.

Kolkata, Santiniketan, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi and Ahmedabad; Marbach, Copenhagen, Lund, Zagreb

and Rijeka; London, Dartington, Cambridge, Birmingham and Hull; Stockholm, Leiden, Salamanca,

Barcelona and Valladolid; Washington and Chicago; Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.Who would have

thought when I started learning Bengali in 1972 that Bengali and Rabindranath Tagore would take me all ove

the world? The 150th anniversary of his birth has kept me and other Tagore specialists exceptionally busy in

2011, and the celebrations seem likely to continue, culminating with the centenary in 2013 of his Nobel Prize

This interest worldwide is both unsurprising and surprising. It is unsurprising, given that after winning theNobel Prize Tagore became, in the 1920s and 30s, the most famous poet in the world. Fame brought him

many opportunities to travel, and he seized them eagerly, globetrotting in a way that was unprecedented

before the age of air travel. Through his English translations and their secondary translations, through his

lectures and his extraordinary dress and charisma, he left pieces of his legacy wherever he went, and it is not

surprising that many of the events I have attended have been linked to his own visits and travels. But the

enthusiasm and commitment of the organisers of these events is quite surprising, given that Tagore except in

Bengal is hardly a household name. Many people have never heard of him, and some of the events have ha

tiny audiences. Tagore alone is not now a crowdpuller, and organisers have had to be ingenious in finding

ways of filling halls or seminar-rooms.

What has been gained? Perhaps it is too early to say. But I think it is possible to draw some initial conclusion

about Tagore's standing compared to what it was 40 years ago, and what trends relating to it can be expect

in the future.

PICTURES: THE HINDU ARCHIVES
http://history.go%28-1%29/


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RABINDRANATH Tagore in February 1931.

Tagore has attracted a good number of quips and sneers over the years, which are routinely trotted out bythose who wish to make fun of him. One such quip is Jorge Luis Borges' comment referring to the Nobel

Prize that Tagore was a hoaxer of good faith, or, if you prefer, a Swedish invention. Another is less well

known:

If only Tagore

Wouldn't draw!

His literary stuff

Is tedious enough.

Quoted to me many years ago by an uncle who had been in the Indian Civil Service, these lines will be usefuto those who wish to pour scorn on the roving exhibition of Tagore's paintings (December 12 to March 4) in

the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. I myself enjoy these quips when I am in the mood, and I suspec

that Tagore would himself have found them amusing. They also carry the bleak truth that for many non-

Bengalis there is, with Tagore, a credibility gap. Contributors to commemorative events or volumes are

convinced of his greatness, but there is a cold, harsh world outside full of people who are not so convinced.

Maybe as an Englishman I have been more acutely aware of this gap than admirers of Tagore from other

cultures and countries. The British literary establishment has always been resistant to Tagore. Read Bikash

Chakravarty's introduction to his collection of letters to Tagore from literary figures ( Poets to a Poet , 1912-

1940), and you will learn that even at the height of his success with Gitanjali, his circle of friends and admirer

in Britain was small and eccentric. Mainstream figures such as W.B. Yeats and Ezra Pound who were

enthusiastic to begin with quite rapidly lost interest. Despite all the work done since the 1980s to put Tagore

reputation on a new footing, there are in Britain entrenched views that have proved extremely hard to shift.

Tagore is vaguely remembered for Gitanjali and other English translations that enjoyed an initial vogue, but

which failed in the end to convince most mainstream writers and critics that he was a great and significant

poet.


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The resilience of this attitude was demonstrated by an article in The Guardian on May 7 by the veteran

journalist Ian Jack (who has a longstanding interest in India). It asked: Is his poetry any good? The answer

for anyone who can't read Bengali must be: don't know. No translation is up to the job. The article

concluded that perhaps the time has come for us to forget Tagore was ever a poet, and think of his more

intelligible achievements. No doubt Jack was being deliberately provocative, and the flurry of comment and

protest that his article provoked was not a bad thing: it did at least get Tagore into the pages of one of our

major newspapers. It appeared the day after Jack had chaired a lecture by Amartya Sen at the British

Museum, which essentially argued the same: that Tagore the poet was inaccessible to non-Bengalis and the

best thing to do was to learn from his valuable ideas about nationalism, universalism and history.

Unity, internationalism and freedom

Amartya Sen's authority as a Nobel laureate himself may have pushed Tagore's reputation as a thinker up a

few notches. This will not, of course, satisfy those who care passionately about his poetry, his songs, his

plays, his fiction, or his paintings. I myself have argued in lectures and articles that to focus on Tagore's ideas

and ideals can not only be a distraction from his profound achievements as a creative artist but can also be

misleading. Take any of his creative works, from a single song to a magnificent poem such as Tapobhanga

(The Wakening of Siva'), or a full-scale novel like Gora, and you will find that they cannot be reduced to aphilosophy': they have the complexity, many-sidedness, paradox and ambiguity that we expect to find in any

great work of art.

Nevertheless, a number of publications and conference papers in 2011 have given me hope that this new-

found appreciation of Tagore as a thinker will in the long run enhance the understanding of his creative

achievements. Particularly significant is Michael Collins' new book for Routledge: Empire, Nationalism and th

Postcolonial World: Rabindranath Tagore's Writings on History, Politics and Society. Dr Collins is a historia

teaching at University College London and his book derives from his Oxford D.Phil thesis. It is a highly

academic work and will not be read much outside academic circles. But works of scholarship can spread

ripples, and I foresee a considerable ripple effect from Dr Collins' painstaking pursuit of unity amidst the oftebaffling contradictions of Tagore's discursive writings. Was Tagore pro- or anti-West? Was he pro- or anti-

modern? Scholars at Tagore conferences argue endlessly about such issues.

Tagore felicitating Gandhi and Kasturba at the mango grove in Santiniketan. Tagore and Gandh


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held different views on the charkha, on the politics of non-violent non-cooperation, on modern

science and birth control and celibacy. Yet they shared a deep personal friendship and mutual

respect. There is a moving story of how Tagore slipped a note in Gandhi's hands at the end of the

1940 visit, asking him to accept this institution [Visva-Bharati] under your protection. Gandhi

immediately responded, setting the poet's mind at rest. Nehru's government made good that

promise in 1951 when Visva-Bharati was made a Central university through an Act of Parliament

Through carefully reading Tagore's English lectures and essays, Dr Collins has arrived at a conception similar

to my own, that in everything he did he strove for purnata, wholeness or completeness. He could be deeply

critical of imperialism or the nation-state or the dehumanising effects of capitalism and industrial production.

But his belief in history as an unfolding revelation and in his own creative work as an expression of a unifyi

jivan-devata made him also see the spirit of the age that spawned imperialist expansion or scientific

advance as tending towards unity, internationalism and freedom. He believed this because, in Dr Collins'

words, his monistic spiritual perspective derived largely from the Upanishadic insistence on the essential

oneness of the universe provided the basis for his philosophy of history.

The marginalisation of Tagore is the fragmentation of Tagore. If we can move even one aspect of him to the

centre, as Dr Collins has successfully done with Tagore's discursive writings in English, then his diverseachievements as a poet, composer, novelist, playwright and painter will cohere, make sense, join forces at th

centre of the stage. This will not in any way diminish their radicalism, their subversive challenge to orthodoxy

whether in education, economic development, or man-woman relations. When really great writers or thinker

become central, as Shakespeare has done for so long, they have a tendency to seem more and more radica

not tame or respectable.

Shifts in perception

Let me now consider some other shifts that have started to occur during this anniversary year, in the

perception and use of several aspects of Tagore's creativity. They are shifts to a position that is both morecentral, but also more radical, and have real potential for the future. The first is an the awareness of the

activist Tagore. One of the biggest triumphs of the anniversary year was the Tagore festival held in

Dartington in Devon, May 1-7, inspired and masterminded by Satish Kumar. Three different venues at

Dartington Hall (founded by Leonard K. Elmhurst with money from his American wife Dorothy, after he had

worked with Tagore at Sriniketan) were filled from morning to night with very well attended events: lectures,

recitals, dance performances and poetry readings. Satish Kumar commands a considerable following in

Britain through his editorship of the ecological magazine Resurgence. He is also the guiding light behind

Schumacher College at Dartington and the Small School at Hartland, and he acknowledges Tagore as a

major influence on his life and work. Through his wide network of international contacts, he was able to

attract as speakers big names such as the conservationist Jane Goodall, the new age guru Deepak Chopra,the environmentalist Jonathan Porrit, the educationist Anthony Seldon, and many prominent poets, dancers

and musicians. Many who attended or spoke at the festival did not know much about Tagore, but all were

committed to his values. With our world now facing unprecedented challenges from overpopulation, global

warming and environmental degradation, Tagore is likely to seem an increasingly compelling voice.


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Tagore with Jawaharlal Nehru, who took time off from a Calcutta trip in 1936 to visit Santiniketan

for a day. No record of the conversation exists. That was also the year when Nehru lost his wife, f

whom Tagore had held a condolence meeting at his ashram. Nehru shared a special relationship

with Tagore and sent his daughter, Indira, to study at Visva-Bharati. As its Chancellor from 1951

1964, he visited Santiniketan regularly for its convocation ceremony. He took rides on the ferris

wheel with the students at Poush Mela, ate khichri with them in the students' canteen, ran aroundand played with children.

I thought of Dartington at the Indian Council for Cultural Relations' (ICCR) conference on Tagore's vision o

the contemporary world at Azad Bhavan, in New Delhi, October 10-12, especially when I heard Ananda

Lal saying dryly about the exploitative dam in Muktadhara or the digging for gold in Raktakarabi, If that is

not topical, what is? I also thought of Dartington when I heard, at the same conference, Eiko Ohira speakin

so movingly about the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan on April 21 telling us how cherry

blossoms continued to bloom amidst the rubble. She quoted Eliot April is the cruellest month but took

strength and comfort from Tagore. Listening to my friend Dr Martin Kmpchen, speaking both in Delhi and

the seminar My Tagore; why Tagore in Ahmedabad on October 15, and hearing about his Tagore-inspire

work as a community activist in Santali villages close to Santiniketan, I again reflected on how vital it is alway

to keep this aspect of Tagore's vision in mind. It is a major reason for remembering him, and it attracts many

people worldwide.

Rabindrasangeet

A second major area where there has been a shift one that is particularly close to my heart is in

Rabindrasangeet, the unique and marvellous songs of Tagore. For Bengalis, and for Tagore himself, the song

are absolutely central, but for non-Bengalis worldwide, his songs have remained the least known, least

understood aspect of his creative genius. The reasons for this have nothing to do with the songs themselves o

the fact that they are composed in a language that very few non-Bengalis know. The main obstacle has been

in their domestication, their dare I say it ghettoisation'. The conventional way of performing them, with

harmonium and other instruments, metronomic tabla-rhythm, and excessive amplification; the ubiquity of

Rabindrasangeet at every kind of Bengali celebration or social occasion; have made them as alien to non-

Bengalis as British Christmas pantomime is to non-Britons, or Spanish bullfights are to non-Spaniards (or

were before the recent Catalan bullfighting ban). In my experience, even in India outside Bengal,


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Rabindrasangeet has had the effect of separating Tagore from others, not bringing him closer to them.

It has long been a dream of mine to persuade singers of Rabindrasangeet to perform without the clutter of

harmonium, tabla and other instruments. At Dartington, my friend Debashish Raychaudhuri and his daughter

Rohini gave a wonderful performance of Rabindrasangeet, set free, so to speak, from performance

conventions. Sung khali golay (with naked voice'), and combined with an explanatory conversation, they

were immediately made as moving to a foreign audience as the songs of Schubert are to audiences who may

not know a word of German. In Ahmedabad, we repeated the experiment, to a Gujarati audience who,

because of a well-established interest in Gujarat in Tagore and his songs, are normally quite happy to listen t

Rabindrasangeet sung in the conventional way. But for them, too, when they heard the songs sung with this

new directness and simplicity, the experience was revelatory. The ovations that Debashish and Rohini

received in both Dartington and Ahmedabad will remain with me as high spots of the anniversary year.

Speaking at Berlin University. Tagore spoke to packed halls during his first visit to war-ravaged

Germany in 1921. He revisited Germany in 1926 and 1930. Despite the adulation he received, th

German reaction to him was mixed and sometimes hostile.

I believe that this new way of performing Rabindrasangeet, which is largely a matter of bringing it up to globa

standards of performance, will have an increasingly powerful effect. Another manifestation of this sea change

is the recent recording by Swagatalakshmi Dasgupta of the complete Gitabitan (collected songs of Tagore)

with only tanpura as accompaniment. Hearing Rabindrasangeet sung in this way is like seeing an old master

painting after layers of grime and varnish have been removed. Alongside this revolution in performance come

scholarly work by musicologists, especially Dr Lars Koch in Berlin, who gave a fascinating presentation at th

The Many Worlds of Rabindranath Tagore', an international conference at the University of Chicago,October 27-28. Dr Koch has completed a major study in German of the songs of Tagore, published by LIT

Verlag, and his presentation implied that in this book he argues that corruption in the performance of

Rabindrasangeet set in very early on because the writing down of the songs in akarmatrik notation, and the

control of their performance by the Visva-Bharati Music Board, led to a rhythmic rigidity that was absent in

recordings of the songs by Tagore himself, or by disciples such as Sahana Devi.

Quality, insight and feeling


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Once it is understood what Tagore's songs actually are, then the door is wide open for all sorts of imaginativ

fusion experiments. When I hear the best of these experiments, I feel that they take us closer to the spirit of

the songs than the conventional way of performing them. In Ahmedabad, Professor Partha Ghose, whose

knowledge of Tagore's songs is as deep as his appreciation of Tagore's scientific interests, played us beautifu

arrangements of Rabindrasangeet that he has recorded in Kolkata with a string quartet. Recently, in the town

in Hexham near where I live in Northumberland, two fine local musicians performed arrangements of Tagore

songs by the French musicologist Alain Danilou (1907-1994), who translated the words into French and

English so that they fitted the melody, and added subtle piano accompaniments that bring out the latent

harmonies as perceptively as Partha Ghose's string quartet versions. What matters above all in

Rabindrasangeet, as in any great music, is quality, insight and feeling. This can be achieved in any number of

ways so long as one's starting point is the song as conceived and imagined by Tagore himself.

With Helen Keller, when he visited New York in 1930.

Rabindrasangeet brings me to the third area where I feel exciting changes are afoot and where there is real

potential for the future. Many of the best events in 2011 have been performances involving actors, dancers

and musicians. Flying Man ( pakshi-manab): Poems for the 21st century by Rabindranath Tagore at the

British Library on May 17 was one of them. Some of the greatest poems of Tagore, with a special relevance

to the anxieties and concerns of the 21st century, were read by me and two Bengali readers, in translation anin the original Bengali. Music was provided by Zoe Rahman (piano) and her brother Idris Rahman (clarinet),

two of Britain's finest young jazz musicians. They showed that deeply felt jazz improvisations, combined with

recitation, can give amazing new life and meaning to Tagore's poetry. On August 5-6, Akademi, the Centre

for South Asian Dance, produced Song of the City, a radically innovative dance production based on

Tagore. The dank and mysterious Southwark Playhouse Vaults in London were the venue, the choreograph

was Ash Mukherjee, who is trained in both Bharatanatyam and Western ballet, and the part-live, part-

recorded soundtrack combined Rabindrasangeet, recitation, and improvisations by another outstanding Briti


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jazz clarinettist, Arun Ghosh.

In Valladolid in Spain on October 4, the three city Tagore en Espaa festival coordinated by Indranil

Chakravarty reached a stunning climax with a performance that combined Rabindrasangeet from Paramita

Biswas, dance from Ananya Chatterjea, and flamenco from Jos Salinas and Ral Olivar. It was one of the

most memorable experiences of my life: to stand and compre a complex programme in Spanish, to a large

and rapturous audience, in a spirit of freedom, creativity and international cooperation that went right to the

heart of what Rabindranath Tagore was all about.

Remember me'

Let me end with Tagore's own voice. I cannot do that physically in a magazine article, but it is not difficult no

to find on the Internet Tagore's own rendering of his song Tobu mone rekho. The recording was played at a

number of the events this year: in Rijeka in Croatia on May 21, in Chicago on October 28, and in Hexham,

Northumberland, on November 27. Everyone absolutely everyone is moved by this recording as soon a

they understand the words.

Flanked by Sir Maurice Gwyer (right) and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan after a special convocation

held by Oxford University at Santiniketan on August 7, 1940, to confer on Tagore the degree ofD.Litt.

Among the things that I hope my own work in this anniversary year has given, especially in my translation of

Gitanjali for Penguin India, has been a new and transferable way of translating Tagore's songs. In Spain, my

translation of Tobu mone rekho was readily translated into Spanish, and I think it will not be long before

Spanish musicians turn this into a song of their own. Tagore wrote the song in 1887, and may not have been

thinking of himself or his future legacy at all. But it is impossible to hear it now without thinking of the song as


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prophetic, and when I hear Tagore sing it himself, with the rhythmic flexibility that is such a feature of his

poetry, prose and paintings, and with a heartrending catch in his voice in the last line, which suggests that he

had a lump in his throat and was scarcely able to get through it, I know in the core of my being that Tagore

was one of those creative geniuses who make one feel privileged to be human. For as long as we walk this

planet, and maybe one day other planets too, he will be remembered, and those who have participated in th

commemorations in 2011, and have travelled so far in his globetrotting footsteps, can take pride in what we

have done to ensure that he will be remembered.

Remember me, still remember me,

if I go far away,

still remember me

If old love gets covered by the mesh of new love,

remember me

still remember me

If I stay close by,

yet you cannot see whether, like a shadow,

I am present or not,

remember mestill remember me

If tears come to your eyelids

If tears come to your eyelids

If play ceases one day, one spring night,

still remember me

If work is stopped one day, one autumn dawn,

remember me

If I come to your mind,

yet heavy tears no longer brim

in the corners of your eyes

still remember me

Remember me, still remember me

William Radice is a British poet, writer, and translator. His translations of Tagore's poems and stori

are widely acclaimed. In August 2011, he retired from SOAS, London University, where he used

teach Bengali language and literature. His latest book is a new English translation of Gitanjali f

Penguin India.

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