Rabindranath Tagore:
“Rabindranath is the greatest figure in modern Indian Renaissance,” so observed Dr Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan. Tagore was one of the greatest specimens of human personality, and towered head and shoulders above his contemporaries. A giant among the intellectuals and almost Periclean in loftiness, Rabindranath bestrode the wide universe like a Colossus and claimed homage from East and West, from North and South. He was Mahatma Gandhi’s Gurudev, in fact, everybody’s Gurudev, whosoever happened to come under his influence. What manner of man he was, what ladders he climbed to scale the summits of glory, what inspiration came to him to open the flood-gates of wisdom and sublime poetry, what men he braced and rubbed shoulders with, and what tangible proofs of his greatness he left, forms an epic and is already a matter of history. Rabindranath belongs to the world, as the world once belonged to him. Small India and smaller Bengal could not contain him. He reached beyond the national frontiers to prove, to the glory of men and to the greater glory of God, that mankind is one and that genius knows no national boundary. He was the living interpretation of the soul of the East- the East where Christ and Buddha were born, where Confucius and Sankara preached their high philosophy, where Upanishads and the Avesta were composed. It has been rightly said that it was Tagore who for the first time made the people of the West realize fully the greatness of India. Before Gandhi, Tagore became known in the west as the representative of ancient Indian philosophy and culture. He was, in the words of fellow poets, Asia’s greatest cultural ambassador to the West.
Rabindranath Tagore was born on May 6, 1861. He was the youngest son of Maharishi Debendranath Tagore. Debendra Nath was a saintly man, an enthusiastic leader of the Brahmo Samaj and a big landlord. The Tagore family of Jorasanko is well known all over Bengal. It has always been in the van of the country’s progressive views and assumed undisputed leadership in matters cultural and social.
Rabindranath’s formal schooling was far from systematic. It was haphazard and by snatches. For some time, he read in a Convent School in Calcutta and then was educated privately at home. His father was a philosopher and a Yogi; his eldest brother was a poet; so was his elder sister, Swaran Kumari.
Rabindranath Tagore showed an aptitude for poetry at a very early age. He started composing poems when he was a mere boy. He went to England in his seventeenth year and studied for some time in the University College London. He was also for some time in the Brighton School living with another of his brothers, Satyendranath, who was the first Indian to be recruited to the Indian Civil Service. He came back to India with a lively impression of the West. In his autobiography, he has described some of his experiences and impressions of England.
Rabindranath Tagore had a very lively and imaginative mind. His hankering for self-expression brought him into the field of art and literature at a very early age. But age is never a bar to a genius. With an untired brain and prolific pen he soon heaped Essays upon Essays, Poems upon Poems, and novels upon novels. In fact, by the time of his death, he had left no branch of literature untouched. He went beyond. He wrote and sang songs, painted pictures, and directed dance recitals and lyrical dramas. He lectured, he taught, he philosophized. He had a few jokes to tell as well. He poured his heart out in complete abandon.
Rabindranath Tagore was a nationalist. He was also the leader of the Brahmo Samaj. The righteous indignations felt by him on the shameful occasion of Jallianwala Bagh firing and the Bengal Partition is well known. How firmly and protestingly. though politely, he renounced the British honour of Knighthood in those days when it was considered to be equivalent to a big jagir and khilat, is now a matter of universal knowledge. Rabindranath Tagore was not merely a brilliant intellectual, but also a man of character and dynamic personality. He exerted a hypnotic influence on all who came under his shadow. He was a lion tamer, yet soft as a flower. On matters of principle and conviction, he neither flinched nor compromised. The snub administered by him to the British Government- the implacable Great Mughal- as well as to the Japanese poet Noguchi on the issue of Japanese adventurist policy in China- are eloquent proofs of his independent and fearless views. As time went on Tagore ceased to be a man- he became an institution, an idea, a symbol.
Though Rabindranath Tagore was an educationist, reformer, leader and philosopher, yet he was especially born for one thing. And that was poetry. In 1912, he proceeded to England and translated into English a collection of his songs known as Gitanjali. He was awarded the Nobel Prize (£ 8,000) for literature in 1913. That was a proud day for Bengal and India, nay, for Asia herself, because he was the first in Asia to win. Europe’s greatest homage of respect and admiration. The same year he was knighted. Honours came to him thick and fast. He was conferred an Honorary Doctorate of Literature by Calcutta University.
Gitanjali is Rabindranath’s masterpiece and one of the world’s classics. Its hymns are comparable to the songs of the Old Testament and Sama Veda. What infinite passion and pathos of heart are compressed in the following lines-
(1) What Thou commandest me to sing, My Lord, it seems that my heart would break with pride; and I look to Thy face, and tear come to my eyes. (Gitanjali, Poem No. 2)
(2) I know not how thou singest, my Master! I ever listen in silent amazement. (Gitanjali, Poem No. 3)
(3) I would speak, but speech breaks not into song, and I cry out baffled. Ah, Thou hast made my heart captive in the endless meshes of thy music, my Master? (Ibid)
(4) Have You not heard His silent steps? He comes, comes and ever comes. (Gitanjali, Poem No. 45)
In his lecture tours in Europe and America and the Far East, Rabindranath Tagore carried the message of humanism and spiritualism. His Hibbert Lectures on the ‘Religion of Man’ is a mine of exhaustive intellectualism. Wherever he went he was received with the greatest veneration. To his University founded at Bolpur renowned as the Vishwabharati, pupils poured in from the distant corners of the earth. On his 70th birthday in 1931 was celebrated the Rabindra Jayanti and the famous Golden Book of Tagore was issued.
Rabindranath Tagore suffered tragic bereavements when in the middle of his youth. He married in 1883, but his wife died in 1902, his second daughter died in 1904, his father in 1905 and his youngest son in 1907.
Rabindranath Tagore passed away on August 7, 1941, at the ripe old age of 81. His writings include 35 poetical works, 40 plays, 11 storybooks and novels, over 50 collections of essays and over 3,000 songs. Many of his works have been translated into English. Tagore was a great idealist. He was the spirit incarnate of greatness. He leaves behind Rathindranath, his only surviving son.
