Last March, I had gone to a SAJA authors event in New York. This weekend, browsing through weblogs, I ran into this description of the event. It captures the proceedings quite well. I don’t have much to add other than to say that I had foolishly carried a bunch of Amitav Ghosh books in the hope of getting them autographed. Ghosh had escaped right after the reading. I ran into other Ghosh fans forlornly hunting for the author during the cocktail hours. Lahiri did seem frosty. But I had quite enjoyed the extract from her story that she read. I felt the same sadness after listening to her that I felt after reading Pankaj Misra’s ‘Butter Chicken in Ludhiana’ from which Misra read during the event (Misra was awesome on stage and captured the heart of the crowd). They all found a rich motherlode of material in the gauche pettinesses of the middle class India and its subterranean racism. I realize that this is what all good writers are supposed to do. But the aloofness sometimes leaves me a little melancholic.
That is why Tagore's humanism is such a breath of cool air for me. The really pleasant surprise of that evening was Anita Desai. Her reading of Tagore’s letters brought back the uncomplicated smell of childhood. It was my last recourse as a child when there was nothing else to read at home (that and the Bengali almanac!).
I have retained very little of what I read of Tagore between Class two and Class ten (after which I read very little Tagore for a very long time). Except for an irritating habit of loud opinions on all things Tagore through the greater part of my twenties and a sometimes impressive ability to spout uninternalized bits and pieces of his poetry and songs, I have very little to show for it.
What I do remember are the letters that he wrote before he formed a firm worldview. They were a joy to read and accessible even to a child. In that gathering in New York city, Anita Desai unexpectedly brought two of these letters to life for me.
Some Bengalies find it hard to accept the fact that that Tagore is hardly mentioned anymore in the fashionable literary circles. I do not completely understand why writers move in and out of public consciousness. in case of Tagore- it can probably be partly explained by the fact that the political and cultural center of gravity in post-independent India moved in different and unexpected directions.
Part of it is probably the lack of good translations in English (this is unfortunately true of almost any good Indian writer not writing in English). As Andrew Robinson said so perceptively wrote about Ray and Tagore:
"I fear that his (
ed: Ray's) range may never be fully understood, given that the films describe Bengal, which (unlike Japan) is of little political, economic or cultural importance to the world – and in a language unknown even to most Indians.
…..Non-Bengalis now have at least two good reasons for wishing to learn that beautiful but elusive language.; to read Rabindranath Tagore on the original, and to follow Satyajit Ray’s films, ‘I think that is still true, but perhaps Ray’s name should now come first. In his time, Tagore’s fame far exceeded Ray’s – It was almost like that of his friend Einstein. – both as a man and an artist. Today, the picture is more confused. In the future I believe the world is more likely to watch Ray’s films (including his inspired Tagore adoptions) than to read, look at, sing and perform Tagore’s work. Tagore, however, will remain the more compelling, indeed legendary personality. For Tagore was an artist in life as Ray was in film.. Neither man, of course, lends himself easily to biography.”
I feel that the larger reason for Tagor's becoming so inaccessible lies in the fact that in Bengal we have managed to idolize him. Tagore (except for his songs) is more admired than understood. For a generation after his death, Tagore’s Santiniketan continued to produce people with a certain capacity of thinking outside the narrow contours of social, cultural or racial boundaries. But over time, Viswa Bhartati seems to have turned into a dry, parochial custodian for Tagore – they turned him into a God.
As a child, I remember reading an essay by Tagore called ‘Byaktipuja’ (idol worship of men) where he lamented the Indian tendency of putting great men on a pedestal and worshipping them. It is ironic that this is exactly what we have done to Tagore in Bengal.
It was perhaps not coincidental that the best write up on Tagore that I can find on the net is by Amartya Sen (he was named by Tagore). In spite of my mild and irrational sense of hostility towards Sen, I must admit that Sen does his subject justice.
Here is the essay.