Relevance of Rabindranath Tagore today

Scanning the newspaper for tributes to the great Bengali Bard, Rabindranath Tagore, I came across a presentation by Sujoy Prasad Chatterjee. And my mind raced back to an evening in the past; an evening of recitations and songs I had experienced in Bengal Club.(please note the word experienced) a year back. A friend of ours had invited both of us, husband and wife, to this musical evening in honour of the Bard. Being used to spending the evening watching Himesh Reshmaiya snorting out popular numbers or watching with mounting disbelief the progression of the fast paced, nailbiting episodes of Indian Idol( we live very ordinary lives) , we were a bit apprehensive of what the evening had in store for us.

Amongst the performers were Sujoy Prasad Chatterjee himself,singer Pramita Mullick, theatre personality Bijoylakshmi Burman, actors Arindam Sil, Chaitee Ghoshal, Parambratta Chatterjee amongst others. There were English renditions of various poems and plays. The English translations were so good that it added to the beauty of the originals. And the raw emotions which came across through the renditions made me get goose bumps . Rabindranath Tagore still had the power to thrill me in an age of remixes and Kaavya Vishwanathans. That is the genius of Rabindranath Tagore.

Like his English counterpart Shakespeare, Rabindranath Tagore is universal in appeal through time and geography. Their mastery over different genres be it the novel, a play or poetry or short story makes them stand out like a giant astride the world of Literature. If we cling onto him as being only precious to Bengal we would be doing him a great dishonour. He was a self proclaimed man of the world. Many of his works bear influences of foreign origin. His Purano sei diner katha is a take of from Auld lang syne. It was his genius that translated what could have been mere imitation to something which belongs to the ethereal and universal world of Tagore. Very similar to Shakespeare’s Hamlet bearing the strains of Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy but far far above Kyd’s packaging of motley happenings. It is this extra vision and complete mastery over their craft that makes them stand tall.
Yet today Shakespeare is more universally known than Tagore. Why?
The fault lies with us.
We cannot cling onto him and stifle him to death.
We have to let him go.
Go striding all over the world and let the world thrill to his words.
In today’s words and world he needs to be “packaged” and presented to todays youth. A change in medium and mode will not alter the quintessential Tagore that we know. It will just make him the universal genius he was. That is why presentations like those of Sujoy Prasad Chatterjee, Xaverians: Soumyojit Das Sourendra Mullick, Moubani Sorcar should be saluted and encouraged.
Go take Tagore on a world tour. He has been closetted in Bengal for far too long.


TRANSLATION OF AN EXCERPT OF TAGORE’S “SHESHER KOBITA”
Do you hear the footsteps of Time
Trampling upon our hearts and souls?
Awakening this muted cry….
Oh my friend
This vagabond Time
Engulfs me in its whimsical web
Carrying me to its chariot
To far far away lands
On its journey into the end
Far far away from you.

A thousand deaths have I died
And now am born to this new dawn.
The winds of Time
Hath scattered far and wide
My old forgotten name.
I cannot return
From yonder you see me
Yet you do not see.
Farewell my friend, farewell.

Someday, hence in a moment suspended
When the breath of the past
Shall lightly fan your cheeks..
On an autumn day
When the air will be filled
With the cry of fallen May,
There will you find me
For part of me hath you stolen and locked within your breast.

Hold onto that nameless dream
You dremt
But dream it wasn’t my friend
Illusion it wasn’t.
It was the truth , my friend
It was my love for you.

My love hath I given to you
Untarnished and new forever may it be
Though tarnished, I now float away
Down the tide of Time
Farewell, my friend, farewell