Rabindranath Tagore

Rabi
to
Rabindranath
My Boyhood Days.
Rabindranath Tagore.
“
So in the course of our life’s
journey, some angel from strange
and unexpected quarter may
cross our path, speaking the
language of our own soul, and
enlarging the boundaries of the
hearts possessions. She comes
unbidden, and when at last we
call for her she is no longer there.
But as she goes, she leaves on
the drab web of our lives a border
of embroidered flowers, and for
ever and ever the night and day
are for us enriched ”
-Rabindranath Tagore
My Boyhood Days
‘ A poet’s autobiography is
his poetry. Anything else is
just a footnote’
-Yevgeny Yvtushenko
-Gitanjali
-Rabindranath Tagore
The Gardener
The Text
Time play
Memory
Imagery
Didactic
Directions
Incorruptible honesty
Poetic text
Time play
Contrast
Metaphor
Now and Then
Contrast
“there was no gas then in the city, and
no electric light. When the kerosene
lamp was introduced, its brilliance
amazed us.”
“there were no trams then, no buses,
no motors.”
“there were no water-pipes laid on in
those days.”
“People today are much more grown-up
in every way than they were then. Then
we were all children alike, both young
and old.”
- Rabindranath Tagore
My Boyhood Days
Painting by Rabindranath Tagore
The Art Institute of Chicago
Now and Then
Metaphor
“ The clouds have had no rest since
yesterday evening. The rain is pouring
incessantly. The trees stand huddled
together in a seemingly foolish
manner; the birds are silent. I call to
mind the evenings of my boyhood.”
Painting by Rabindranath Tagore
The Art Institute of Chicago
Memory interchanges
"So many versions of just one memory, and yet none of
them were right or wrong. Instead, they were all pieces.
Only when fitted together, edge to edge, could they even
begin to tell the whole story.”
- Sarah Dessen
“our ‘jamadar’ Sobha Ram, who was a wrestler….”
“another story was connected with the thick-leaved Badam
tree at the western corner ….”
“there was a narrow passage, enclosed by latticed walls,
leading from the outer apartments to the interior of the
house.”
“then nine o’clock would strike, and Shyam would swoop
down on me like a hawk on a dove…”
- Rabindranath Tagore
My Boyhood Days
Imagery
“ ..display in their thought an imagery which I have
dreamt of all my life”. -W.B Yeats
adventure land
As Rabindranath would say about his
grandmother palanquin “ It was to me an
island in the midst of the ocean, and I
Robinson Crusoe.”
“cloud shadows danced on the ripples of the
stream, cloud shadows lay dark upon the
jungles of the further shore”
“I was torn up by the roots and transplanted
from one soil to another, and had to get
acclimatised to a new mental atmosphere.”
“when the sluices were opened the water
rushed in, gurgling and foaming like a
waterfall”
- Rabindranath Tagore
My Boyhood Days
Tagore Manuscript
Tagore Doodle Manuscripts
Didactic
“If mothers want their children to be
so healthy that they will be unable to
escape from the school master, I
recommend them to find a servant like
Brajeswar”
“Some people get hammered into
shape in the market to be goods of a
superior stamp.
It was my fortune to escape
almost entirely the impress of these
mills of learning”
- Rabindranath Tagore
My Boyhood Days
Incorruptible
Honesty
“she was enthroned at the
center of affection, and I
was only a neglected,
insignificant child”
“… I was always ready to
satisfy this craving for
playing the hostess”
Directions
“On the southern side of the
tosha-khana, a castor oil
burned dimly on a glass
stand..”
“ There was a narrow passage,
enclosed by laticced walls,
leading from the outer
apartments to the interior of
the house.. “
South facing balcony, east
facing window, room towards
north, terrace towards west...
Poetic text
"Always be a poet, even in prose."
- Charles Baudelaire
“Liony, liony, off with your head,
Liony, liony, now you are dead.
Woofle the walnut goes clappetry clap,
Snip, snop, SNAP!”
- My Boyhood Days
Vase -Painting by Rabindranath Tagore
National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi
Theme
Calcutta
Jorasanko Thakur Bari
Society
Education
Travel
Kolkata
‘The City of Joy’
“The Calcutta where I was born was
an altogether old-world place.
Hackney carriages lumbered about
the city …and the days went by in
leisurely fashion”
“At high tide the water of the Ganges
would flow along a masonry channel
at the side of the road”
“Now and again Jyotidada used to go
for change of air to a garden house
on the bank of the Ganges”
“when I went n to the roof my mind
strode the last blue of the sky
mingled with the last green of the
earth;”
Landscape-Painting by Rabindranath Tagore
National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi
The
Abode
Prolific and gifted painters
Scholar, artist, music composer and theatre personality
Known for his wrestling skills and rationale
Great scholar, poet and music composer
First Indian to join the Indian Civil Service
“Thou hast made me endless,
such is thy pleasure.
This frail vessel thou emptiest
again and again,
and fillest it ever with
fresh life.
This little flute of a reed thou
hast carried over
hills and dales,
and hast breathed through it
melodies eternally new.”
- Rabindranath Tagore
Gitanjali
“ Your flute plays in the
thunder:
No light note to hear.
I would wake to that tune:
O grant me such an
ear.
……”
- A few lines from the song ‘Your Flute
Plays in the Thunder’
A video still from Satyajit Ray’s Documentary on Tagore
Society
•
•
Painting by Rabindranath Tagore
National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi
Poet as an ‘Activist’
Traditions
Poet as an Activist
“Women used to go about in
the stifling darkness of closed
palanquins”
“An additional covering, a kind
of thick tilt, completely
enveloped the palanquin of a
rich man’s daughters and
daughters-in-law, so that it
looked like a moving tomb.”
“the house was then divided
into two suites of rooms. The
men lived in the outer, and the
women in the inner
apartments”
-
Rabindranath Tagore
My Boyhood Days
Brooding -Painting by Rabindranath Tagore
National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi
Poet as an Activist
“Why should you not let
woman empowered be
With right to conquer her own
destiny,
O Lord?
Why must I sit and watch
beside the road
With lowered head, in tired
patient wait
For the day ordained by fate
To grant my hopes? Why
should I gaze in space?
…..”
-Woman Empowered
Translated by Sukanta Chaudhuri
Woman -Painting by Rabindranath Tagore
National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi
Traditions
“Pan, like tobacco, played a
great part in reception of
guestss..”
“ In matters of hospitality,
people kept open house in
those days. There was no need
for a man to be intimately
know before he was received “
“ They have plenty of leisure.
For in those days girls were
not obliged to to go to school,
and I used to think how fine it
would have been to be born as
a girl “
Education
“My exercise books of all kinds kept from
beginning to end, the unrelieved whiteness
of a widow’s cloth. Confronted by such
unprecedented determination not to study,
my class teacher complained to…”
Jorasanko Thakur Bari now a part of
‘Visva Bharati University’ set up by
Tagore to promote the various
untraditional and liberal forms of
Education.
Poet as an Artist
Color
“This screen that thou hast raised is
painted with innumerable figures with
the brush of the night and the day. Behind it
thy seat
is woven in wondrous mysteries of curves,
Casting away all barren lines of straightness.
The great pageant of thee and me
has overspread the sky.
With the tune of thee and me
all the air is vibrant, and all ages pass
with the hiding and seeking of thee and me.”
- Rabindranath Tagore
Gitanjali
Color
Bird Fantastic-Painting by Rabindranath Tagore
National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi
“I came out alone on my way to my
tryst.
But who is this that follows me in the
silent dark?
I move aside to avoid his
presence
but I escape him not.
He makes the dust rise from
the earth
with his swagger; he adds his loud voice
to every word that I utter.
He is my own little self, my
lord, he knows
no shame; but I am ashamed
to come to thy door in his company”
-Gitanjali
Self Portrait 1935
Medium: Water color
Truth be told:
The Autobiographical Pact
“After these eighty years
even the picture of myself
that comes before me does
not correspond line for line
with the reality, but is largely
a product of the
imagination.”
-
Rabindranath Tagore
My boyhood days
References
 ‘Rabindranath Tagore’ by Narmadheshwar Jha published in PROSPECTS: the quarterly
review of education, UNESCO: International bureau of education, Paris
 Gitanjali ( Song Offerings )
 www.wikipedia.co
 Selected Poems Rabindranath Tagore – Sukanta Chaudhuri, Oxford India
Thank You!