“What makes the poet the potent figure that he is, or was, or ought to be, is that he creates the world to which we turn incessantly and without knowing it and he gives to life the supreme fictions without which we are unable to conceive of it.”
-WALLACE STEVENS
Great leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi and learned men and women hailed him as their teacher. He was the recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature. As a poet he was near equivalent to luminaries like William Shakespeare, Kalidasa or Thiruvllavur. He was an educationist par excellence. He was one of the stalwarts to bring about a renaissance in Indian Literature during pre-independence days.
The nation would stand in salute on hearing the National Anthem when played. The great poet who gave this song to India was Rabindranath Tagore. The descriptive details in the earlier paragraph would cover a few of the great achievements of that eminent soul.
Tagore’s ancestors were opulent. They were of the opinion that riches were meant for helping and giving to others. Munificence overtook opulence, resulting in debts. Tagore’s father Devendranath Tagore took earnest efforts to wipe out the loan and succeeded eventually to the extent of again turning out the munificent.
Born to Devendranath Tagore and Sarada Devi on the 7th of May, 1861, Rabindranath Tagore was the last child with eight elder brothers and five elder sisters. It was natural that he was adored and loved by one and all.
Tagore in his youth enjoyed himself playing as a teacher and a Vedic scholar. Without friends to play with, Tagore rejoiced himself enjoying the felicity of solitude.
Seeing children in the neighbourhood going to school, Tagore pestered his parents to send him to school. Finally, winning his case, Tagore was in school. Very soon, he realized that it was a painful experience to spend days in school. Tagore felt that it was more of a jail than a school. To add to the pain, Tagore had to learn lessons from private tutors at home in the evenings. It was an irony that Tagore hated the English language in his youth.
When those days became unpleasant for Tagore, a call from his father to spend sometime in the Himalayas came as a pleasant surprise. Compared to the hardships experienced at home, Tagore felt that the time spent there was like an oasis in the desert.
The latent poetic instinct in Tagore got rejuvenated. Taking a long stroll in the mornings and evenings, he drank every bit of nature’s beauty. On his return to the abode, he spent time with his father learning history, astrology and literature.
Later, Tagore was sent to England and in his short sojourn of a year and a half there; he had ample opportunities to interact with learned people from different fields. This experience added to his brilliance.
Tagore married a pious lady by the name Mrinalini Devi at the age of 22, who gave active support to the poet. With her inspiration, Tagore’s creativity assumed increased dimensions.
Compassionate by nature, Tagore empathised with the poor. It was a burning desire in Tagore to open a university of a unique nature mostly functioning on our ancient tutelage system. When approached, Tagore’s father gave instantaneous consent. That was the birth of ‘Shantiniketan’ which was later rechristened as University of Vishwa Bharathi. The Nobel Laureate gave his entire belongings for its formation and maintenance.
The poet’s love for the country was great. To infuse patriotism in the public mind, Tagore wrote several poems. When the British Army was once unruly in handling a crowd, ending in genocide in Punjab, the agonized poet returned the ‘Sir’ title to the government.
Tagore in all wrote more than 3000 poems, 15 different books filled with articles touching on subjects like philosophy, religion, politics and literature. His autobiography was very famous. He was a voracious reader and a workaholic. ‘Gitanjali’ an anthology of 103 poems written at different times in the worship of God won him world fame. This compilation contributed its major share in inning the coveted Nobel Prize for literature in the year 1913. Tagore was the first Asian to win a Nobel Prize.
With his essential qualities as altruism and compassion, Tagore identified the presence of the Lord Supreme in nature’s beauty and hard labour. He was exhilarated by God’s wonders. His thought blossomed into beautiful poems. It would be a blissful experience to recall some of them.
When a labourer struggled hard to break a piece of rock, there appeared God. He was found dancing in ecstasy in a place where stones were broken to pieces to be used for remodelling the roads. He lived along with the workers under the scorching sun and the torrential downpour of rain. The Lord appeared in their unclean clothes. In a nutshell, Tagore advocated that a life close to nature identifying the existence of the Lord in nature’s splendour, compassion for other living beings and seeing God in the hard working labourer would easily pave the path for a happy life.
Tagore never allowed himself to be bound by the shackles of religion. He felt that religion was an effort to cage the unperceivable God within and He could appear in the form of a servant, a child, a mendicant or a king. The poet advocated the thought that while nobody could see God with the naked eyes, a person distancing himself from the world and its people would never see the God. Tagore was f the view that total independence was the priceless treasure that a man could long for and nothing could be more precious than that.
In spite of the name and fame that he had, Tagore was the epitome of humility. He was once asked as who could be the greatest poet of the era, for which pat came the reply that there was no one who could enjoy that supremacy. According to him, while the life in the vast expanse of the world was great with numerous countries, cities, rivers, mountains, deserts, plants and trees present, his mind was resting in a small corner.
On the 7th August 1941, Tagore left his mortal coil. Vishwa Bharathi and his creative literature would stay forever and his noble soul would be amidst us all the time.
Life is an eternal sacrifice at the altar of death!
ARTICLE BY: KAVYA P.
3RD YEAR, B.A. (PJOE)
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