rabindranath tagore part 1

7/31/2019 Rabindranath Tagore Part 1

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RABINDRANATH TAGOREMY LIFE IN MY WORDS

Selected & Edited: Uma Das GuptaReview: Satyendra Nath Dwivedi

Introduction

Lifes memories are not lifes history. Memories are the original work of anunseen artist. The variegated colours are not reflections of outside lights, butbelong to the painter himself, and come passion-tinged from his heart.

It is not easy to know oneself. It is difficult to organize lifes various experiencesinto a unified whole.

That words have meanings is just the difficulty. That is why the poet has toturn and twist them in metre and verse, so that the meaning may be heldsomewhat in check, and the feeling allowed a chance to express itself.

This utterance of feeling is not a statement of fundamental truth, or ascientific fact, or a useful moral precept. Like a tear or a smile a poem is buta picture of what is taking place within. If Science or Philosophy may gainanything from it they are welcome, but that is not the reason of its being.

We have to tread every single moment of the way we go on living our life, butwhen taken as a whole it is such a very small thing, two hours uninterruptedthought can hold all of it.

But then, will not this peaceful day, on the desolate sands by the placid river,

leave nevertheless a distinct little gold mark even upon the scroll of myeternal past and eternal future?

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PART ONE

MY LIFE

People who cling to an ancient past have their pride in the antiquity of their

accumulations, and in the sublimity of their high-walled surroundings. Theygrow nervous and angry when some lover of truth breaks open theirenclosure and floods it with sunshine of thought and life. Ideas causemovements, but they consider all forward movements to be a menaceagainst their warehouse security.

Our self-expression must find its freedom not only in spiritual ideas but inliterary manifestations.

We cannot create foundations, but we can build a super-structure. These twomust go together, the giving of expression to new life and the seeking of

foundations which must be in the heart of the people themselves. Those whobelieve that life consists of change because change implies movementshould remember that there must be an underlying unity or the change,being unmeaning, will cause conflict and clash. This thread of unity must notbe outside, but in our own soul.

My father drew from our ancient scriptures, from the Upanishads, truths whichhad universal significance, and not anything that were exclusive to any particularage or any particular people. We were ostracized by society and this liberated usfrom the responsibility of conforming to all those conventions that had not thevalue of truth.

The world of facts pleasant or unpleasant has its restricted range, butfreedom is given to us by the world of reality, the reality which is truth madeliving, which has to be the same assurance of its entity as I myself have tomy own self.

My mind seemed to touch the eternal realm of truth at the picture of the patteringrain upon the trembling leaves of the forest; and at that moment I was no longera mere student with his mind muffled by a spelling lesson, enclosed byclassroom walls, but one who suddenly realized for himself the unobstructedperspective in which the division between the subject and object vanished in alarge harmony of existence.

My father cherished a synthesis of Hafiz and Upanishads in his heart. Thecreation of beauty inspires such a mission of opposite elements. The creatormust be conscious of both the male and the female principles without which therecan be no creation.

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To the end of his life, I have observed, my father never stood in the way ofour independence. A passive acceptance by us of the correct and the properdid not satisfy him; he wanted us to love truth with our own hearts; he knewthat mere acquiescence without love is empty. He also knew that truth, if youstrayed from, can be found again, but a forced or blind acceptance of it from

the outside effectively bars the way in.

As he allowed me to wander about the mountains at my will, so in the quest fortruth he left me free to select my path. He was not deterred by the danger of mymaking mistakes; he was not alarmed at the prospect of my encountering sorrow.He held up a standard, not a disciplinary rod.

When in later life, I wandered about like a madcap, at the first coming of spring,with a handful of jasmines tied in a corner of my muslin scarf, and as I strokedmy forehead with the soft, rounded, tapering buds, the touch of my mothersfingers would come back to me; and I clearly realized that the tenderness which

dwelt in the tips of those lovely fingers was the very same as that whichblossoms every day in the purity of these jasmine buds; and that whether weknow it or not, this tenderness is on the earth in boundless measure.

In this great world we pass by the rooms where Mother sits. The storeroom isopen when we want our food; our bed is ready when we must sleep. Only thattouch and that voice are wanting. We are moving about, but never coming closeto the personal presence, to be held by the hand and greeted: You have come.

In infancy the loving care of woman is to be had without asking, and, being asmuch a necessity as light and air, is simply accepted without any conscious

response; rather does the growing child often display an eagerness to free itselffrom the encircling web of womens solicitude. But the unfortunate creature whois deprived of this its proper season is a beggared indeed. This had been myplight.

My sister-in-law (Jyotidadas wife) was a great lover of literature. She did notread simply to kill time, but the Bengali books she read filled her whole mind. Shewas greatly taken with the sweetness of Biharilal Chakravartis lyrical poemSharada Mangal. Most of them she knew by heart.

Poet Biharilal was a great admirer of Valmiki and Kalidasa. I remember how onceafter reciting a description of the Himalayas from Kalidasa with the full strength ofhis voice, he said: The succession of long a sounds here is not an accident.The poet has deliberately repeated this sound all the way from Devatatma toNagadhiraja as an assistance in realizing the glorious expanse of theHimalayas.

The Ganga shores had then not yet lost caste of the defiling touches of Englishcommerce. Both shores alike were still the undisturbed haunt of birds, and the

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mechanized dragons of industry did not darken the light of heaven with the blackbreath of their upreared snouts.

In all the insolence of my youthful vanity, I had written a criticism of MichaelMadhusudan Dutts epic Meghnadbadh. As acidity is the characteristic of

unripe mango so is abuse of the immature critic. When other powers arelacking, the power of pricking seems to be at its sharpest. I had thus soughtimmortality by leaving my scratches on that immortal epic.

With my father away in the Himalayas, my brothers were my guardians. Of them Iknew Jyotidada best. He never put restrictions on me. I argued with him anddiscussed things like an equal. He knew how to respect even a young lad likeme. The mental freedom he gave me was of great help in my growth.

He was one of the chief helpers in my literary and emotional training. He was anenthusiast himself, and loved to evoke enthusiasm in others. The great boon of

freedom which he allowed me, none else would have dared to give. Hiscompanionship made it possible for me to shake off my shrinking sensitiveness.It was as necessary for my soul after its rigorous repression during my infancy asare the monsoon clouds after a fiery summer.

Those in authority are never tired of holding forth the possibility of theabuse of freedom as a reason for withholding it, but without that possibilityfreedom would not be really free. And the only way of learning how to use athing properly is through its misuse.

My brother Jyotirindra unreservedly let me go my own way to self-knowledge,

and only since then could my nature prepare to put forth its thorns, it may be, butlikewise its flowers.

This experience has led to me to dread not so much evil itself, as tyrannicalattempts to create goodness. Of punitive police, political or moral, I have awholesome horror. The state of slavery, which is thus brought on is theworst form of cancer to which human society is subject.

It is an insult of his humanity if man fails to invoke in his mind a definiteimage of his own ideal self, of his ideal environment which it is his missionexternally to produce. It is the highest privilege of man to be able to live inhis own creation. His country is not his by the mere accident of birth, hemust richly and intimately transform it into his own, make it a personalreality. And what is more, man is not truly himself if his personality has notbeen fashioned by him according to some mental picture of the perfectionwhich he has within.

I believe that the capacity to love and respect is Gods greatest gift to man.

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There is something so persuasive about Gladstone and his words inevitably gostraight to your heart. He spoke a lot but everything he said was completelybalanced. There was nothing incomplete in what he said. He is forceful but doesnot ever shout; he gives the feeling that he believes every word he utters.

One thing struck me living with Scott family that human nature is the sameeverywhere. We are fond of saying, and I also believed, that the devotion ofan Indian wife to her husband is unique, and is not to be found in Europe.But I at least was unable to discern any difference between Mrs. Scott and anideal Indian wife. She was entirely wrapped up in her husband.

The non-civilized in me was sensitive; it had great thirst for colour, for music, formovement of life. Our city-built education took no heed of that living fact. Therelative proportion of the non-civilized and civilized in man should be in theproportion of water and land in our globe, the former predominating. But the

school had for its subject a continual reclamation of the non-civilized. Such adrain of the fluid element caused an aridity which may not be considered undercity conditions. But my nature got accustomed to those conditions, to the callousdecency of the pavement.

The tastiest dainty may not be relished when thrown at ones head. To employ anepic to teach language is like using a sword to shave with sad for the sword,bad for the chin.

The artist who fashions us takes every opportunity to mingle new elementsin his creation.

When I began to write Bhagna Hriday (Broken Heart) I was eighteen neither inmy childhood nor in my youth. This borderland age is not illuminated with thedirect rays of Truth; - its reflection is seen here and there, and the rest is shadow.

And like twilight shades its imaginings are long-drawn and vague, making thereal world seem like a world of phantasy.

Freedom first breaks the law and then makes laws which bring it under self-rule.

The strength gained by working, freed from the trammels of tradition, led meto discover that I had been searching in impossible places for somethingwhich was actually within myself. Nothing but want of self-confidence hadstood in the way of my coming into my own. I felt like rising from a dream ofbondage to find myself unshackled.

It was morning. I was watching the sunrise from Free School Lane. A veil wassuddenly withdrawn and everything became luminous. The whole scene was one

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of perfect music one marvelous rhythm. The houses in the street, the menmoving below, the little children playing, all seemed parts of one luminous whole

inexpressibly glorious That morning in Free School Lane was one of the firstthings that gave me inner vision, and I have tried to explain it in my poems. Ihave felt, ever since, that this was my goal: to express the fullness of life, in its

beauty, as perfection if only the veil were withdrawn'.

All my energies and my rejoicing were given to the immediate effort of producinga particular piece, whenever that happened, as if only the immediate mattered inobtaining the result. But I did come to realize that the end product is merely anoccasion, a pretext; it is the Creator within oneself who is continuously andunrelentingly providing for future arrivals, without an end in view but with aperpetual meaning for posterity.

I set out to write what was straightforward and simply, something just for myself,but it is Gods melody which transformed its meaning from the personal to the

universal. It is I who put a first stroke on the canvas but it is He who filled it withcolours I did not possess.

It is He who has broken down the limits within which my nature and self hadconfined me. Cutting across the path of pain and loss, He has connected my lifeto that which is vast and great.

It is this poet who knows everything about me, my good and my bad, who knowswhat is right for me and what is not, who steers my life through the propitious andadverse, whom I call my Jiban-debata, Lord of my life.

Anyone who loves to learn will always gain from learning. Those who arecalculating about learning have so little faith in it that they do not reach thespreading branches; they have to stick out their own arm to get at the fruit. Butbeing too short they remain like dwarfs in the world of knowledge.

Those who have innate faith are courageous and generous and enthusiastic.

Mans prime strength is in religion. Mans prime humanity is spiritual. Thephysical and material in man is dependent on time and space, but not so thespiritual which is eternal. The realization that we are a part of the eternal,that we are not just scattered little beings, is what makes for spirituality. Theindividual who feels this from within cannot manipulate and deviate from hisideal.

Emptiness is a thing man cannot bring himself to believe in; that which is not, isuntrue; that which is untrue, is not. So our efforts to find something, where wesee nothing are unceasing.I realized gradually that life must be seen through the window of death in order toreach the truth.

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On that morning in the village, the facts of my life suddenly appeared to me inluminous unity of truth. All things that had seemed like vagrant waves wererevealed to my mind in a relation to a boundless sea. I felt sure that some Beingwho comprehended me and my world was seeking his best expression in all my

experiences, uniting them into an ever-widening individuality which is a spiritualwork of art. To this Being I was responsible; for the creation in me is his as wellas mine.

I felt that I had found my religion at last, the Religion of Man in which the infinitebecame defined in humanity and came close to me so as to need my love andcooperation.

Not everything can be in ones control. We have to make do with what comesour way and dutifully do the best we can under the circumstances. That is allthat is humanly possible.

The joy of living separately is in writing letters to one another. It can be morerewarding than being together. When we write letters we can come closer toeach other with only a few words. What we say to each other when we meet canfade away in the instant excitement of meeting each other. Really and truly,writing letters can become a deeper and more intimate experience of knowingourselves than just seeing each other.

I do constantly try not to worry about our children. It is our duty to see to it thatthey are well-behaved and they get a good education. Beyond that it is a mistaketo dwell upon them. They grow up to their lifes work in their own way be it good,

bad or indifferent. It is, of course, true that they are our children, but they are alsoindividuals in their own right. We will not have much control over the way theylive their lives. It is in Gods hands how they turn out as human beings.

The future is uncertain no matter how we live. Therefore, it is only sensiblethat we should simply do our duty and not think of the outcome. We have toforever learn to take both good and bad and we must restrain ourselvesevery time there is an urge to deviate from that path. We have to understandthat we do not belong only to this life of ours. We have our past, and we canhave no prior knowledge about our future. Therefore, all that is possible is todo our work diligently, wherever we are and whatever the work is. We mustalso try to be happy and make others happy. If after that we fail it should notmatter to us. We must accept and remember that the results are in Godshands once we have done our part. We must at least try to free our mindsfrom expectations.

It is important for a newly married girl to be away from her parents so that shegets time and space to feel comfortable in her new home. The proximity ofparents can hinder this process because the two families are inevitably different

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in habit and taste. Even in little ways. With parents around, it is difficult for a girlto forget her earlier life.

We must forget our own joy and sorrow where our children are concerned.They are not in the world merely for our happiness. We must make room for

them so that they can mould their lives in their own way.

[To continue]

Review: Satyendra Nath Dwivedi

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rabindranath tagore part 1

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