Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore
FRAS was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th century. The work of him was very popular at that time because it differed from what had become common, which is an academic or classical style of writing and music. His writings were not so much to give scientific or technical explanation, but the way he wrote was interesting. It was his personal understanding of nature and human beings, their relationship, and how they can connect all this through love in context.
Rabindra’s most prominent works include “Kalidasa Vatsa”, “Aranyakariputra Parampara”, “Acharnat”, “Ananda Mita Manushya Shanti”, and many more. These are known as “Ramayana”. They became a great influence on later writers like Swami Vivekananda and Nandalal Bose, for example. The term Ramayana means a book, while Vedanta meant God, and Kalidasa meant life. In our daily lives we see words like “Rajanagaraja”, “Srimanta Vaibhava”, and other similar things written by Srimanta, one-fourth of whom died before reaching the age of 30.
Ramayana refers to several stories in Sanskrit which have been adapted into different languages such as English, Hindi, Bengali, Marathi and Tamil. Among them are the 13 books and 12 chapters called Mahabharata, considered the greatest epic poem ever written. It was composed between 200 B.C. and 100 B.C. It has been translated into over 45 languages and is the longest surviving work of ancient poetry. It tells about the history of kings and kingdoms from India, and features themes like bravery, loyalty, selflessness, justice, truth, and power, love, duty, and devotion.
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The first book, the Ramayana, dates back to 1728. It is probably the story of King Ravana, a famous king, and the destruction made by Krishna. The second book, the Mahabharata tells us about King Dasaratha’s battle with Rama, a prince from the Yadav dynasty. The third book, the Satyajit Ray version narrates the adventures of Lord Krishna against Arjuna. It also contains some tales that belong to Jainism. Finally, there is another book by Dattatreya narrated by Ashwini Kumar. The original version of the Ramayana was given by Bharati, while the translations were done by Arundhati Roy and Soumitro Chattopadhyay.
The last book of the Mahabharata, the Sandhya, tells us about Lord Hanuman and Sri Krishna. However, it does not tell us where it occurs. Even though the story is told in verse form and includes many anecdotes about people, places, and events, it does not tell us how these happen. Therefore, the epic is called Mahabharata, after the capital city of the country, Pusa. The author describes the origin of Rama as being reborn from a sacred tree, whereas the death of Krishna is due to Shiva and his wife as punishment for killing her husband (Jansen, 2017). This story is the foundation of Hindu philosophy.
Rabindranath Tagore dedicated his entire life to making literature for humanity to read as a whole, and that too in order to understand its true meaning. An important characteristic of Tagore’s literary works was their ability to express emotions in an unusual and unmediated way, while keeping the poetic traditions intact. For instance, he uses metaphors and idioms rather than literal expressions to create images which help you visualize things. For example in his novel, “Aranyakariputra Parampara”. The main character, Karani, is described as sitting on a lotus chair. She says that she has no memory of having been seated on a lotus. So she feels uneasy when she hears someone say, “I am sitting on a lotus”. But then suddenly, she realizes herself seated there holding a bunch of flowers, and feeling grateful for this newfound knowledge. Although each person’s perception of a flower differs, they all feel happy when they come across something new, like discovering something beautiful in themselves. According to Tagore, the word flower is said to be ‘soul of the universe’ (Bolster, 1986).
Another technique used by Tagore was juxtaposition of two opposite qualities against each other. To do so, he often utilized irony. Another of his techniques was the use of similes to show the distance between two objects. Here is an example: in the opening lines of the essay “Kaleenu Akasham” (“Kalidasaya — Eminent Men)”, he talks about the role of women in society and states “Women’s roles are confined to bearing children… There are few instances where men have been seen to treat them with respect”. By putting emphasis on the fact that men treat the women badly, Tagore highlights the injustice in the treatment of females. Also, the comparison of the men with animals is very effective as it brings out the disparity between males and females. The metaphor compares humans to a dog and compares women to horses. All the animal images bring up questions within us such as, should men treat female animals badly? Perhaps, that's why they don't need any special laws for women to get equal rights to male counterparts.
Other than using metaphors and similes to express your feelings, Tagore used symbols like stones to represent grief, water to represent purity and sun on earth to symbolize happiness. You may see these symbols appear everywhere throughout his poems and essays such as a river flowing down a hill, a house built on mud, a snake and bird among others. Symbolism helps us relate to his ideas.
Although Tagore’s work is difficult to define, it appears to us to be somewhere between fiction and non-fiction. He lived in the era of modern enlightenment where people didn’t think and write like this anymore. In spite of the hardships he faced, Tagore’s contribution came as a beacon to hope that the world could overcome these challenges.