Kazi
Nazrul Islam
কাজী নজরুল ইসলাম
Date of birth: 24
May 1899.
Profession: Poet, writer, song composer,
novelist, dramatist and
Language: Bengali.
Urdu
Nationality : Bangladeshi
Nationality : Bangladeshi
Ethnicity : Bengali
Notable work : Chal Chal Chal, Bidrohi,
"Agniveena" , Dhumketu , Bandhan Hara , Nazrul Geeti
, Notable award , Ekushey Padak , Padma Bhushan.
Spouse : Pramila Devi
Die : 29 August 1976.
Kazi Nazrul Islam , sobriquet
Bidrohi Kobi , known generally as Nazrul, was a Bengali
poet, musician and revolutionary who pioneer
poetic works espouse intense spiritual rebellion touching fascism
and coercion. His poetry and nationalist activism earned him the popular title
of Bidrohī Kobi . Accomplishing a large body of acclaimed works
through his life, Nazrul is formally recognized as the national poet
of Bangladesh
and greatly commemorate in India. He also collected the Bangladesh forces march
"The Song of Youth",
now known as "Chal Chal Chal".
Born into a Bengali
Muslim
Quazi Kazi
family, Nazrul conventional devout edification and worked as a muezzin
at a local mosque.
He learned of poetry, drama, and literature while working with theatrical
groups. After serving in the British Indian Army, Nazrul established himself
as a journalist in Calcutta. He assailed the British Raj
in India and preached revolution through his poetic works, such as "Bidrohi" and "Bhangar Gaan" , as well as his
publication "Dhumketu" . His impassioned activism in the Indian independence movement often led to
his imprisonment by British establishment. While in prison, Nazrul wrote the
"Rajbandir Jabanbandi" "Deposition of a supporting
Prisoner". explore the life and environment of the subjugated masses of
India, Nazrul worked for their setting free.
Nazrul's
writings explore themes such as love, freedom, and revolution; he opposed all
bigotry, including religious and gender. Throughout his career, Nazrul wrote
short stories, novels, and essays but is best known for his poems, in which he
pioneered new forms such as Bengali ghazals. Nazrul
wrote and composed music for his nearly 4,000 songs , collectively known as Nazrul geeti
, which are widely popular today. In 1942 at the age of 43 he began suffering
from an unknown disease, losing his voice and memory. It is often said, the
reason was slow poisoning by British Government but later a medical team in Vienna
diagnosed the disease as Morbus Pick, a rare incurable neurodegenerative disease. It caused
Nazrul's health to decline steadily and forced him to live in isolation for
many years. Invited by the Government of Bangladesh, Nazrul and his
family moved to Dhaka
in 1972, where he died four years later.
Contents Of His Life.
1 Childhood life
2 Rebel Poet
3
Revolutionary
4 Mass music
5 Exploring
religion
6 Later life
and illness
7 Criticism
and legacy
8 Renowned
Nazrul Sangeet singers
1. Childhood life Kazi
Nazrul Islam
Kazi Nazrul Islam was born
in the village of Churulia near Asansol in the Burdwan
District of Bengal Presidency. He was born in a powerful Muslim Taluqdar
family and was the second of three sons and a daughter, Nazrul's father Kazi
Faqeer Ahmed was the imam
and caretaker of the local mosque and mausoleum. Nazrul's mother was Zahida
Khatun. Nazrul had two brothers, Kazi Saahibjaan and Kazi Ali Hussain, and a
sister, Umme Kulsum. Nicknamed Dukhu Miañ literally "Mr Sad Man" the
One with Grief, Nazrul began attending the maktab and madrassa
run by the mosque
& dargah
where he studied the Qur'an and other scriptures, Islamic philosophy and theology.
His family was devastated with the death of his father in 1908. At the young
age of ten, Nazrul began working in his father's place as a caretaker to
support his family, as well as assisting teachers in school. He later became
the muezzin
at the mosque.
Attracted to folk theatre,
Nazrul joined a leto run by his uncle Fazl e Karim, working and travelling with
them, learning acting,
as well as writing songs and poems for the plays and musicals. Through his work
and experiences, Nazrul began learning Bengali and Sanskrit literature, as well as Hindu
scriptures such as the Puranas. The young poet composed many folk plays for his
group, which included Chashar Shong , Shokunibodh character from the epic Mahabharata),
Raja Jodhisthirer Shong from the Mahabharata , Data Korno , Akbor Badshah ,
Kobi Kalidas "poet Kalidas", Bidyan Hutum "the learned owl", and
Rajputrer Shong "the drama of a prince", In 1910, Nazrul left the
troupe and enrolled at the Searsole Raj High School in Raniganj
, and later transferred to the Mathrun High English School, studying under the
headmaster and poet Kumudranjan Mallik. Unable to continue paying
his school fees, Nazrul left the school and joined a group of kaviyals.
Later he took jobs as a cook and at the most famous bakery of the region Wahid's/Abdul Wahid
and tea stall in the town of Asansol. In 1914, Nazrul studied in the Darirampur
School Jatiya Kabi Kazi Nazrul Islam
University in Trishal,
Mymensingh District. Amongst other subjects,
Nazrul studied Bengali, Sanskrit, Arabic,
Persian literature and Hindustani classical music under teachers
who were impressed by his dedication and skill.
Studying up to Class X,
Nazrul did not appear for the matriculation
pre-test examination, enlisting instead in the Indian Army in 1917 at the age
of eighteen. He joined the British army mainly for two reasons: first, his
youthful romantic inclination to respond to the unknown and, secondly, the call
of politics. Attached to the 49th Bengal
Regiment, he was posted to the cantonment
in Karachi,
where he wrote his first prose and poetry. Although he never saw active
fighting, he rose in rank from corporal to havildar, and served as quartermaster
for his battalion.
During this period, Nazrul read extensively, and was deeply influenced by Rabindranath Tagore and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, as well as the
Persian poets Hafez, Rumi and Omar Khayyam.
He learnt Persian poetry from the regiment's Punjabi
moulvi,
practiced music and pursued his literary interests. His first prose work,
"Baunduler Atmakahini" "Life of a Vagabond" was published
in May, 1919. His poem "Mukti" , was published by the "Bangla
Mussalman Sahitya Patrika" ("Bengali Muslim Literary Journal")
in July 1919.
2. Rebel Poet
Nazrul left the army in
1920 and settled in Calcutta, which was then the "cultural capital" of
India . He joined the staff of the “Bangiya Mussalman Sahitya Samiti”
("Bengali Muslim Literary Society") and roomed at 32 College Street with colleagues. He
published his first novel "Bandhan-hara"(in 1920), which he kept
working on over the next seven years. His first collection of poems included
"Bodhan", "Shat-il-Arab", "Kheya-parer Tarani"
and "Badal Prater Sharab" and received critical acclaim.
Working at the literary
society, Nazrul grew close to other young Muslim writers including Mohammad
Mozammel Haq, Afzalul Haq, Kazi Abdul Wadud and Muhammad Shahidullah. He was a regular at
clubs for Calcutta's writers, poets and intellectuals like the Gajendar Adda
and the Bharatiya Adda. Despite many differences, Nazrul looked to Rabindranath
Tagore as a mentor and he and Muhammad Shahidullah remained in close
association. (In-1921) , Nazrul was engaged to be married to Nargis, the niece
of a well-known Muslim publisher Ali Akbar Khan, in Daulatpur, Comilla.
But on 18 June 1921 —the day of the wedding— upon public insistence by Ali
Akbar Khan that the term "Nazrul must reside in Daulatpur after
marriage" be included in the marriage contract, Nazrul walked away from
the ceremony.
Nazrul reached the peak of
fame with the publication of "Bidrohi"
(in 1922) , which remains his most famous work, winning admiration of India's
literary classes by his description of the rebel whose impact is fierce and
ruthless even as its spirit is deep Published in the "Bijli"
(Thunder) magazine, the rebellious language and theme was popularly received,
coinciding with the Non-cooperation movement — the first, mass
nationalist campaign of civil disobedience against British rule. Nazrul
explores a synthesis of different forces in a rebel, destroyer and preserver,
expressing rage as well as beauty and sensitivity. Nazrul followed up by
writing "Pralayollas" , and his first anthology of poems, the
"Agniveena" in 1922, which enjoyed astounding and far-reaching success.
He also published his first volume of short stories, the "Byather
Dan" and "Yugbani" an anthology of essays.
3.Revolutionary
Nazrul with his first son
Bulbul; his wife Pramila seated right and his mother-in-law Giribala Devi
seated left, behind whom stands Bulbul's nanny
Nazrul started a bi-weekly
magazine, publishing the first "Dhumketu" (Comet) on 12 August 1922. Earning the
moniker of the "rebel poet”, Nazrul also aroused the suspicion of British
authorities. "Anondomoyeer Agomone" a political poem published in
"Dhumketu" in September 1922 led to a police raid on the magazine's
office. Arrested, Nazrul entered a lengthy plea before the judge in the court. I
have been accused of sedition. That is why I am now confined in the prison. On
the one side is the crown, on the other the flames of the comet. One is the
king, sceptre in hand; the other Truth worth the mace of justice. To plead for
me, the king of all kings, the judge of all judges, the eternal truth the
living God... His laws emerged out of the realization of a universal truth
about mankind. They are for and by a sovereign God. The king is supported by an
infinitesimal creature; I by its eternal and indivisible Creator. I am a poet;
I have been sent by God to express the unexpressed, to portray the unportrayed.
It is God who is heard through the voice of the poet... My voice is but a
medium for Truth, the message of God... I am the instrument of that eternal
self-evident truth, an instrument that voices forth the message of the
ever-true. I am an instrument of God. The instrument is not unbreakable, but
who is there to break God?
On 14 April 1923 he was
transferred from the jail in Alipore to Hooghly
in Kolkata. He began a 40-day fast to protest mistreatment by the British jail
superintendent. Nazrul broke his fast more than a month later and was
eventually released from prison in December 1923. Nazrul composed a large
number of poems and songs during the period of imprisonment and many of his
works were banned in the 1920s by the British authorities.
Kazi Nazrul Islam became a
critic of the Khilafat struggle, condemning it as hollow,
religious fundamentalism. Nazrul's rebellious expression extended to rigid
orthodoxy in the name of religion and politics. Nazrul also criticised the Indian National Congress for not embracing
outright political independence from the British
Empire. He became active in encouraging people to agitate against
British rule, and joined the Bengal state unit of the Congress party. Nazrul
also helped organise the Sramik Praja Swaraj Dal, along with Muzaffar Ahmeda socialist political party
committed to national independence and the service of the peasant masses. On 16
December 1925 Nazrul began publishing the weekly "Langal” (Plough), and
served as chief editor. During his visit to Comilla
in 1921, Nazrul met a young Hindu woman, Pramila Devi, with whom he fell in
love and they married on 25 April 1924. Pramila belonged to the Brahmo Samaj,
which criticised her marriage to a Muslim. Nazrul in turn was condemned by
Muslim religious leaders and continued to face criticism for his personal life
and professional works, which attacked social and religious dogma and
intolerance. Despite controversy, Nazrul's popularity and reputation as the
"rebel poet" rose significantly.
4. Mass music
Nazrul on a hunting trip
with friends in Sundarpur, India
With his wife and young
son Bulbul, Nazrul settled in Krishnanagar in 1926. His work began to
transform as he wrote poetry and songs that articulated the aspirations of the
downtrodden classes, a sphere of his work known as "mass music."
Nazrul assailed the socio-economic norms and political system that had brought
misery. From his poem 'Daridro'
poverty, thou hast made me
great. Thou hast made me honoured like Christ
With his crown of thorns. Thou hast given me . Courage to reveal all. To thee I owe My insolent, naked eyes and sharp tongue. Thy curse has turned my violin to a sword...O proud saint, thy terrible fire. Has rendered my heaven barren. O my child, my darling one. I could not give thee even a drop of milk. No right have I to rejoice. Poverty weeps within my doors forever As my spouse and my child. Who will play the flute?
With his crown of thorns. Thou hast given me . Courage to reveal all. To thee I owe My insolent, naked eyes and sharp tongue. Thy curse has turned my violin to a sword...O proud saint, thy terrible fire. Has rendered my heaven barren. O my child, my darling one. I could not give thee even a drop of milk. No right have I to rejoice. Poverty weeps within my doors forever As my spouse and my child. Who will play the flute?
In what his contemporaries
regarded as one of his greatest flairs of creativity, Nazrul began composing
the very first ghazals
in Bengali, transforming a form of poetry written mainly in Persian and Urdu. Nazrul became the
first person to introduce Islam into the larger mainstream tradition of Bengali
music. The first record of Islamic songs by Nazrul Islam was a commercial
success and many gramophone companies showed interest in producing these. A
significant impact of Nazrul was that it drew made Muslims more comfortable in
the Bengali Arts, which used to be dominated by Hindus. Nazrul also composed a
number of notable Shamasangeet, Bhajan and Kirtan, combining Hindu devotional music. Arousing controversy
and passions in his readers, Nazrul's ideas attained great popularity across
India. In 1928, Nazrul began working as a lyricist, composer and music director
for His Master's Voice Gramophone Company. The
songs written and music composed by him were broadcast on radio stations across
the country. He was also enlisted/attached with the Indian Broadcasting
Company.
Nazrul professed faith in
the belief in the equality of women — a view his contemporaries considered revolutionary.
From his poet Nari. I don't see any difference . Between a man and woman. Whatever
great or benevolent achievements. That are in this world. Half of that was by
woman,
The other half by man. His poetry retains long-standing notions of
men and women in binary opposition to one another and does not affirm gender similarities
and flexibility in the social structure: Man has brought the burning, scorching
heat of the sunny day; Woman has brought peaceful night, soothing breeze and
cloud. Man comes with desert-thirst; woman provides the drink of honey. Man
ploughs the fertile land; woman sows crops in it turning it green.
Man ploughs, woman waters;
that earth and water mixed together, brings about a harvest of golden paddy.
However, Nazrul's poems
strongly emphasise the confluence of the roles of both sexes and their equal
importance to life. He stunned society with his poem "Barangana"
("Prostitute"), in which he addresses a prostitute as
"mother". Nazrul accepts the prostitute as a human being, reasoning
that this person was breast-fed by a noble woman and belonging to the race of
"mothers and sisters"; he assails society's negative notions of
prostitutes.
Who calls you a
prostitute, mother? Who spits at you? Perhaps you were suckled by someone as
chaste as Seeta.
And if the son of an unchaste mother is 'illegitimate', so is the son of an
unchaste father. "Barangana" (Translated by Sajed Kamal). Nazrul was
an advocate of the emancipation of women; both traditional and non-traditional
women were portrayed by him with utmost sincerity. Nazrul's songs are collectively
called as Nazrul Sangeet Nazrul geeti.
5. Exploring religion
Nazrul in the role of
Narad in the stage drama Dhruba
Nazrul's mother died in
1928, and his second son Bulbul died of smallpox
the following year. His first son, Krishna Mohammad had died prematurely. His
wife gave birth to two more sons — Savyasachi in 1928 and Aniruddha in 1931 —
but Nazrul remained shaken and aggrieved for a long time.
Come back my birdie! Come
back again to my empty bosom! Shunno e bookey paakhi mor aaye! Phirey aaye
phirey aaye!
His works changed
significantly from rebellious expositions of society to deeper examination of
religious themes. His works in these years led Islamic devotional songs into
the mainstream of Bengali folk music, exploring the Islamic
practices of namaz
(prayer), roza
(fasting), hajj
(pilgrimage) and zakat
(charity). This was regarded by his contemporaries as a significant achievement
as Bengali Muslims had been strongly averse to devotional music. Nazrul's
creativity diversified as he explored Hindu devotional music by composing Shama
Sangeet, bhajans
and kirtans,
often merging Islamic and Hindu values. Nazrul's poetry and songs explored the
philosophy of Islam and Hinduism.
Let people of all
countries and all times come together. At one great union of humanity. Let them
listen to the flute music of one great unity. Should a single person be hurt,
all hearts should feel it equally. If one person is insulted; it is a shame to
all mankind, an insult to all! Today is the grand uprising of the agony of
universal man.
The badnaa, a water jug
typical in usage by Bengali Muslims for ablutions and bath and the gaaru a
water pot typical in usage by Bengali Hindus, meet and embrace each other under
the peace of the new pact. There is no knife in the hand of the Muslim and also
the Hindu does not wield the bamboo any more! Bodna gaaru te kolakuli korey!
Nobo pact er aashnaai! Musholmaaner haatey naai chhuri! Hindur haatey baansh
naai!
Nazrul's poetry imbibed
the passion and creativity of Shakti, which is identified as the Brahman,
the personification of primordial energy. He wrote and composed many bhajans,
shyamasangeet, agamanis and kirtans. He also composed large number of songs on
invocation to Lord Shiva,
Goddesses Lakshmi
and Saraswati
and on the theme of love of Radha and Krishna.
Nazrul assailed fanaticism
in religion, denouncing it as evil and inherently irreligious. He devoted many
works to expound upon the principle of human equality, exploring the Qur'an
and the life of Islam's prophet Muhammad. Nazrul has been compared to William Butler Yeats for being the first
Muslim poet to create imagery and symbolism of Muslim historical figures such
as Qasim, Ali,
Umar, Kamal Pasha, Anwar Pasha and Muhammad.
His vigorous assault on extremism and mistreatment of women provoked
condemnation from Muslim and Hindu fundamentalists. In 1920, Nazrul expressed
his vision of religious harmony in an editorial in Joog Bani,
“Come brother Hindu! Come Musalman! Come Buddhist!
Come Christian!
Let us transcend all barriers, let us forsake forever all smallness, all lies,
all selfishness and let us call brothers as brothers. We shall quarrel no
more”.
In another article
entitled Hindu Mussalman published in Ganabani on 2 September 1922 he wrote - I
can tolerate Hinduism and Muslims but I cannot tolerate the Tikism . and
beardism. Tiki is not Hinduism. It may be the sign of the pundit. Similarly
beard is not Islam, it may be the sign of the mollah. All the
hair-pulling have originated from those two tufts of hair. Todays fighting is
also between the Pundit and the Mollah: It is not between the Hindus and the
Muslims. No prophet has said, ‘’I have come for Hindus I have come for Muslims
I have come for Christians.” They have said, “I have come for the humanity for
everyone, like light’’. But the devotees of Krishna says, “Krishna is for Hindus”.
The followers of Muhammad (Sm) says, “Muhammad (Sm) is for the Muslims”. The
Disciple of Christ is for Christian”. Krishna-Muhammad-Christ have become
national property. This
property is the root of
all trouble. Men do not quarrel for light but they quarrel over cattle.” Nazrul
was an exponent of humanism. Although a Muslim, he named his sons with both Hindu
and Muslim names: Krishna Mohammad, Arindam Khaled(bulbul), Kazi Sabyasachi and
Kazi Aniruddha.
6. Later life and illness
In 1933, Nazrul published
a collection of essays titled "Modern World Literature", in which he
analyses different styles and themes of literature. Between 1928 and 1935 he
published 10 volumes containing 800 songs of which more than 600 were based on
classical ragas.
Almost 100 were folk tunes after kirtans and some 30 were patriotic songs. From the time of his
return to Kolkata until he fell ill in 1941, Nazrul composed more than 2,600
songs, many of which have been lost. His songs based on baul, jhumur, Santhali
folksongs, jhanpan or the folk songs of snake
charmers, bhatiali and bhaoaia consist of tunes of folk-songs on the
one hand and a refined lyric with poetic beauty on the other. Nazrul also wrote
and published poems for children. Nazrul's
success soon brought him into Indian theatre and the then-nascent film industry.
The film "Vidyapati" ("Master of Knowledge") was produced
based on his recorded play in 1936, and Nazrul served as the music director for
the film adaptation of Tagore's novel Gora.
Nazrul wrote songs and
directed music for Sachin Sengupta's bioepic play "Siraj-ud-Daula".
In 1939, Nazrul began working for Calcutta Radio, supervising the production
and broadcasting of the station's musical programmes. He produced critical and
analytic documentaries on music, such as "Haramoni" and
"Navaraga-malika". Nazrul also wrote a large variety of songs
inspired by the raga
Bhairav. Nazrul sought to preserve his artistic integrity by condemning the
adaptation of his songs to music composed by others and insisting on the use of
tunes he composed himself.
Nazrul's wife Pramila Devi
fell seriously ill in 1939 and was paralysed from waist down. To provide for
his wife's medical treatment, he resorted to mortgaging the royalties of his
gramophone records and literary works for 400 rupees. He returned to journalism
in 1940 by working as chief editor for the daily newspaper "Nabayug"
("New Age"), founded by the eminent Bengali politician A. K. Fazlul
Huq. Nazrul also was shaken by the death of Rabindranath Tagore on 8 August 1941. He
spontaneously composed two poems in Tagore's memory, one of which,
"Rabihara" (loss of Rabi or without Rabi) was broadcast on the All India
Radio. Within months, Nazrul himself fell seriously ill and
gradually began losing his power of speech. His behaviour became erratic, and
spending recklessly, he fell into financial difficulties. In spite of her own
illness, his wife constantly cared for her husband. However, Nazrul's health
seriously deteriorated and he grew increasingly depressed. He underwent medical
treatment under homeopathy as well as Ayurveda,
but little progress was achieved before mental dysfunction intensified and he
was admitted to a mental asylum in 1942. Spending four months there without
making progress, Nazrul and his family began living a silent life in India. In
1952, he was transferred to a mental hospital in Ranchi. With
the efforts of a large group of admirers who called themselves the "Nazrul
Treatment Society" as well as prominent supporters such as the Indian
politician Syama Prasad Mookerjee, the treatment
society sent Nazrul and Promila to London, then to Vienna for treatment. Examining doctors said he had received
poor care, and Dr. Hans Hoff, a leading neurosurgeon
in Vienna, diagnosed that Nazrul was suffering from Pick's
disease. His condition judged to be incurable, Nazrul returned to Calcutta
on 15 December 1953. On 30 June 1962 his wife Pramila died and Nazrul remained
in intensive medical care.
On 24 May 1972, the newly independent nation of Bangladesh brought Nazrul to live in Dhaka with consent of the Government of India. In January 1976, he was accorded the citizenship of Bangladesh. Despite receiving treatment and attention, Nazrul's physical and mental health did not improve. In 1974, his youngest son, Kazi Aniruddha, an eminent guitarist died, and Nazrul soon succumbed to his long-standing ailments on 29 August 1976. In accordance with a wish he had expressed in one of his poems, he was buried beside a mosque on the campus of the University of Dhaka. Tens of thousands of people attended his funeral; Bangladesh observed two days of national mourning and the Indian Parliament observed a minute of silence in his honour.
On 24 May 1972, the newly independent nation of Bangladesh brought Nazrul to live in Dhaka with consent of the Government of India. In January 1976, he was accorded the citizenship of Bangladesh. Despite receiving treatment and attention, Nazrul's physical and mental health did not improve. In 1974, his youngest son, Kazi Aniruddha, an eminent guitarist died, and Nazrul soon succumbed to his long-standing ailments on 29 August 1976. In accordance with a wish he had expressed in one of his poems, he was buried beside a mosque on the campus of the University of Dhaka. Tens of thousands of people attended his funeral; Bangladesh observed two days of national mourning and the Indian Parliament observed a minute of silence in his honour.
7. Criticism and legacy
Kazi Nazrul's mazar (tomb)
near the Central Mosque, Dhaka University campus. Nazrul's poetry is
characterised by an abundant use of rhetorical devices, which he employed to
convey conviction and sensuousness. He often wrote without care for
organisation or polish. His works have often been criticized for egotism,
but his admirers counter that they carry more a sense of self-confidence than
ego. They cite his ability to defy God yet maintain an inner, humble devotion
to Him. Nazrul's poetry is regarded as rugged but unique in comparison to
Tagore's sophisticated style. Nazrul's use of Persian
vocabulary was controversial but it widened the scope of his work. Nazrul's
works for children have won acclaim for his use of rich language, imagination,
enthusiasm and an ability to fascinate young readers. British government banned
the magazine of Nazrul named Dhumketu because of publishing a political poem
"Anondomoyeer Agomone" on September 26, 1922. Nazrul is regarded for
his secularism. He was the first person to cite of Christians
of Bengal
in his novel Mrityukhudha. He was also
the first user of folk terms in Bengali literature. Nazrul pioneered new styles
and expressed radical ideas and emotions in a large body of work. Scholars
credit him for spearheading a cultural renaissance in Muslim-majority Bengal,
"liberating" poetry and literature in Bengali from its medieval
mould. Nazrul was awarded the Jagattarini Gold Medal in 1945 — the highest
honour for work in Bengali literature by the University of Calcutta — and awarded the Padma Bhushan,
one of India's highest civilian honours in 1960. The Government of Bangladesh
conferred upon him the status of being the "national poet". He was
awarded the Ekushey Padak by the Government of Bangladesh.
He was awarded Honorary D.Litt. by the University of Dhaka. Many centres of learning
and culture in India and Bangladesh have been founded and dedicated to his
memory. The Nazrul Endowment is one of several scholarly
institutions established to preserve and expound upon his thoughts and
philosophy, as well as the preservation and analysis of the large and diverse
collection of his works. The Bangladesh Nazrul Sena is a large public
organization working for the education of children throughout the country.
Nazrul Sanskriti Parishad is working with Nazrul 's life and works since 2000
in India.
8. Renowned Nazrul Sangeet singers
Renowned Nazrul
Sangeet/Geeti singers include Firoza Begum, Suprava Sarkar, Angurbala,
Indubala, Anjali Mukherjee, Jnanendra Prasad Goswami, Nilufar
Yasmin (deceased), Manabendra Mukherjee,Kanika Majumder, Dipali Nag,
Sukumar Mitra, Dhirendra Chandra Mitra, Dhiren Basu, Purabi Dutta, Nashid
Kamal,Ferdous Ara, Fatema-tuz Zohra, Shahin Samad, Ramanuj Dasgupta and Susmita
Goswami. Nazrul's direct students who recorded for HMV were Juthika Roy,
Girin Chakraborty, Binapani Devi, Dhiren Das, Suprava Sarkar, Harimoti, K.
Mullick, Nitai Ghatak, Abbasuddin Ahmed, Angurbala, Kanan Devi,
Dipali Nag, S. D. Burman, Mrinalkanti Ghosh, Geeta Basu, Kamal
Dasgupta, Dhirendra Chandra Mitra, Jaganyay Mitra, Satya Chowdhury,
Jnanendra Prasad Goswami, Kamala Jharia, Santosh Sengupta, Siddheswar
Mukhopadhyay, Indubala, Chittaranjan Das and Shailo Devi.
রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর
Born: Rabindranath Thakur
7 May 1861
Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India
Died: 7 August 1941 (Aged 80)
Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British
India
Occupation: Poet, Short Story Writer, Song Composer, Novelist.
Playwright, Essayist,
Painter.
Language: Bengali, English.
Nationality: India.
Ethnicity: Bengali.
Notable Work: Gitanjali, Gora,
Ghare-Baire,
Jana Gana Mana,
Rabindra Sangeet, Amar Shonar Bangla
(Other Works)
Notable Award: Nobel
Prize In Literature-1913.
Spouse: Mrinalini Devi
(M. 1883–1902).
Children: Five Children, Two Of Whom Died In Childhood.
Relative: Tagore Family.
He was highly influential in introducing the best of Indian culture to the West and vice versa, and he is generally regarded as the outstanding creative artist of modern South Asia.A Pirali Brahmin from Calcutta, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old.At age sixteen, he released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics. He graduated to his first short stories and dramas—and the aegis of his birth name—by 1877. As a humanist, universalist internationalist, and strident anti-nationalist he denounced the Raj and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy endures also in the institution he founded, Visva-Bharati University.
Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's Jana Gana Mana and Bangladesh's Amar Shonar Bangla.
Early life: 1861–1878
Debendranath had formulated the Brahmoist philosophies espoused by his friend Ram Mohan Roy, and became focal in Brahmo society after Roy's death. "Rabi" was raised mostly by servants; his mother had died in his early childhood and his father travelled widely. His home hosted the publication of literary magazines; theatre and recitals of both Bengali and Western classical music featured there regularly, as the Jorasanko Tagores were the center of a large and art-loving social group. Tagore's oldest brother Dwijendranath was a respected philosopher and poet. Another brother, Satyendranath, was the first Indian appointed to the elite and formerly all-European Indian Civil Service. Yet another brother, Jyotirindranath, was a musician, composer, and playwright.
His sister Swarnakumari became a novelist. Jyotirindranath's wife Kadambari, slightly older than Tagore, was a dear friend and powerful influence. Her abrupt suicide in 1884, soon after he married, left him for years profoundly distraught. After he underwent an upanayan initiation at age eleven, he and his father left Calcutta in February 1873 for a months-long tour of the Raj. They visited his father's Santiniketan estate and rested in Amritsar en route to the Himalayan Dhauladhars, their destination being the remote hill station at Dalhousie. Along the way, Tagore read biographies; his father tutored him in history, astronomy, and Sanskrit declensions.
He read biographies of Benjamin Franklin among other figures; they discussed Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; and they examined the poetry of Kālidāsa. In mid-April they reached the station, and at 2,300 metres (7,546 ft) they settled into a house that sat atop Bakrota Hill. Tagore was taken aback by the region's deep green gorges, alpine forests, and mossy streams and waterfalls. They stayed there for several months and adopted a regime of study and privation that included daily twilight baths taken in icy water. He returned to Jorosanko and completed a set of major works by 1877, one of them a long poem in the Maithili style of Vidyapati; they were published pseudonymously. Regional experts accepted them as the lost works of Bhānusimha, a newly discovered 17th-century Vaishnava poet. He debuted the short-story genre in Bengali with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"), and his Sandhya Sangit (1882) includes the famous poem "Nirjharer Swapnabhanga" "The Rousing of the Waterfall". Servants subjected him to an almost ludicrous regimentation in a phase he dryly reviled as the "servocracy". His head was water-dunked to quiet him. He irked his servants by refusing food; he was confined to chalk circles in parody of Sita's forest trial in the Ramayana; and he was regaled with the heroic criminal exploits of Bengal's outlaw-dacoits. Because the Jorasanko manor was in an area of north Calcutta rife with poverty and prostitution, he was forbidden to leave it for any purpose other than travelling to school. He thus became preoccupied with the world outside and with nature
Elaidaha: 1878–1901
Because Debendranath wanted his son to become a barrister, Tagore enrolled at a public school in Brighton, East Sussex, England in 1878. He stayed for several months at a house that the Tagore family owned near Brighton and Hove, in Medina Villas; in 1877 his nephew and niece Suren and Indira Devi, the children of Tagore's brother Satyendranath—were sent together with their mother, Tagore's sister-in-law, to live with him. He briefly read law at University College London, but again left school. He opted instead for independent study of Shakespeare, Religio Medici, Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra. Lively English, Irish, and Scottish folk tunes impressed Tagore, whose own tradition ofNidhubabu-authored kirtans and tappas and Brahmo hymnody was subdued. In 1880 he returned to Bengal degree-less, resolving to reconcile European novelty with Brahmo traditions, taking the best from each. In 1883 he married Mrinalini Devi, born Bhabatarini, 1873–1902; they had five children, two of whom died in childhood. In 1890 Tagore began managing his vast ancestral estates in Shelaidaha (today a region of Bangladesh); he was joined by his wife and children in 1898. Tagore released his Manasi poems (1890), among his best-known work. As Zamindar Babu, Tagore criss-crossed the riverine holdings in command of the Padma, the luxurious family barge. He collected mostly token rents and blessed villagers who in turn honoured him with banquets—occasionally of dried rice and sour milk He met Gagan Harkara, through whom he became familiar with Baul Lalon Shah, whose folk songs greatly influenced Tagore. Tagore worked to popularise Lalon's songs. The period 1891–1895, Tagore's Sadhana period, named after one of Tagore's magazines, was his most productive; in these years he wrote more than half the stories of the three-volume, 84-story Galpaguchchha. Its ironic and grave tales examined the voluptuous poverty of an idealised rural Bengal.
Santiniketan: 1901–1932
He gained Bengali and foreign readers alike; he published Naivedya (1901) and Kheya (1906) and translated poems into free verse. In November 1913, Tagore learned he had won that year's Nobel Prize in Literature: the Swedish Academy appreciated the idealistic—and for Westerners—accessible nature of a small body of his translated material focussed on the 1912 Gitanjali: Song Offerings. In 1915, the British Crown granted Tagore a knighthood. He renounced it after the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
In 1921, Tagore and agricultural economist Leonard Elmhirst set up the "Institute for Rural Reconstruction", later renamed Shriniketan or "Abode of Welfare", in Surul, a village near the ashram. With it, Tagore sought to moderate Gandhi's Swaraj protests, which he occasionally blamed for British India's perceived mental—and thus ultimately colonial—decline. He sought aid from donors, officials, and scholars worldwide to "free village[s] from the shackles of helplessness and ignorance" by "vitalis[ing] knowledge". In the early 1930s he targeted ambient "abnormal caste consciousness" and untouchability. He lectured against these, he penned Dalit heroes for his poems and his dramas, and he campaigned—successfully—to open Guruvayoor Temple to Dalits.
Twilight years: 1932–1941
He detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas: Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938); and in his novels: Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934). Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941).
His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell. He never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged eighty; he was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion he was raised in. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem. Between 1878 and 1932, Tagore set foot in more than thirty countries on five continents. In 1912, he took a sheaf of his translated works to England, where they gained attention from missionary and Gandhi protégé Charles F. Andrews, Irish poet William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, Robert Bridges, Ernest Rhys, Thomas Sturge Moore, and others. Yeats wrote the preface to the English translation of Gitanjali; Andrews joined Tagore at Santiniketan. In November 1912 Tagore began touring the United States and the United Kingdom, staying in Butterton, Staffordshire with Andrews's clergymen friends. From May 1916 until April 1917, he lectured in Japan and the United States. He denounced nationalism.
His essay "Nationalism in India" was scorned and praised; it was admired by Romain Rolland and other pacifists. Shortly after returning home the 63-year-old Tagore accepted an invitation from the Peruvian government. He travelled to Mexico. Each government pledged US$100,000 to his school to commemorate the visits. A week after his 6 November 1924 arrival in Buenos Aires, an ill Tagore shifted to the Villa Miralrío at the behest of Victoria Ocampo. He left for home in January 1925. In May 1926 Tagore reached Naples; the next day he met Mussolini in Rome. Their warm rapport ended when Tagore pronounced upon Il Duce's fascist finesse. He had earlier enthused: "[w]ithout any doubt he is a great personality. There is such a massive vigour in that head that it reminds one of Michael Angelo's chisel." A "fire-bath" of fascism was to have educed "the immortal soul of Italy ... clothed in quenchless light". On 14 July 1927 Tagore and two companions began a four-month tour of Southeast Asia. They visited Bali, Java, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Penang, Siam, and Singapore. The resultant travelogues compose Jatri (1929). In early 1930 he left Bengal for a nearly year-long tour of Europe and the United States. Upon returning to Britain—and as his paintings exhibited in Paris and London he lodged at a Birmingham Quaker settlement. He wrote his Oxford Hibbert Lectures and spoke at the annual London Quaker meet. There, addressing relations between the British and the Indians—a topic he would tackle repeatedly over the next two years—Tagore spoke of a "dark chasm of aloofness".
He visited Aga Khan III, stayed at Dartington Hall, toured Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany from June to mid-September 1930, then went on into the Soviet Union. In April 1932 Tagore, intrigued by the Persian mystic Hafez, was hosted by Reza Shah Pahlavi. In his other travels, Tagore interacted with Henri Bergson, Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, Thomas Mann, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, and Romain Rolland. Visits to Persia and Iraq (in 1932) and Sri Lanka (in 1933) composed Tagore's final foreign tour, and his dislike of communalism and nationalism only deepened. Vice-President of India M. Hamid Ansari has said that Rabindranath Tagore heralded the cultural rapprochement between communities, societies and nations much before it became the liberal norm of conduct. Tagore was a man ahead of his time. He wrote in 1932, while on a visit to Iran, that "each country of Asia will solve its own historical problems according to its strength, nature and needs, but the lamp they will each carry on their path to progress will converge to illuminate the common ray of knowledge." His ideas on culture, gender, poverty, education, freedom, and a resurgent Asia remain relevant today.
Works
Known mostly for his poetry, Tagore wrote novels, essays, short stories, travelogues, dramas, and thousands of songs. Of Tagore's prose, his short stories are perhaps most highly regarded; he is indeed credited with originating the Bengali-language version of the genre. His works are frequently noted for their rhythmic, optimistic, and lyrical nature. Such stories mostly borrow from deceptively simple subject matter: commoners. Tagore's non-fiction grappled with history, linguistics, and spirituality.
He wrote autobiographies. His travelogues, essays, and lectures were compiled into several volumes, including Europe Jatrir Patro (Letters from Europe) and Manusher Dhormo (The Religion of Man). His brief chat with Einstein, "Note on the Nature of Reality", is included as an appendix to the latter. On the occasion of Tagore's 150th birthday an anthology (titled Kalanukromik Rabindra Rachanabali) of the total body of his works is currently being published in Bengali in chronological order. This includes all versions of each work and fills about eighty volumes. In 2011, Harvard University Press collaborated with Visva-Bharati University to publish The Essential Tagore, the largest anthology of Tagore's works available in English; it was edited by Fakrul Alam and Radha Chakravarthy and marks the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth.
Music
Tagore was a prolific composer with 2,230 songs to his credit. His songs are known as rabindrasangit ("Tagore Song"), which merges fluidly into his literature, most of which—poems or parts of novels, stories, or plays alike were lyricised. Influenced by the thumri style of Hindustani music, they ran the entire gamut of human emotion, ranging from his early dirge-like Brahmo devotional hymns to quasi-erotic compositions. They emulated the tonal color of classical ragas to varying extents. Some songs mimicked a given raga's melody and rhythm faithfully; others newly blended elements of different ragas.Yet about nine-tenths of his work was not bhanga gaan, the body of tunes revamped with "fresh value" from select Western, Hindustani, Bengali folk and other regional flavours "external" to Tagore's own ancestral culture.
For Bengalis, the songs' appeal, stemming from the combination of emotive strength and beauty described as surpassing even Tagore's poetry, was such that the Modern Review observed that "there is in Bengal no cultured home where Rabindranath's songs are not sung or at least attempted to be sung ... Even illiterate villagers sing his songs". A. H. Fox Strangways of The Observer introduced non-Bengalis to rabindrasangit in The Music of Hindostan, calling it a "vehicle of a personality that go behind this or that system of music to that beauty of sound which all systems put out their hands to seize."
In 1971, Amar Shonar Bangla became the national anthem of Bangladesh. It was written—ironically—to protest the 1905 Partition of Bengal along communal lines: lopping Muslim-majority East Bengal from Hindu-dominated West Bengal was to avert a regional bloodbath. Tagore saw the partition as a ploy to upend the independence movement, and he aimed to rekindle Bengali unity and tar communalism. Jana Gana Mana was written in shadhu-bhasha, a Sanskritised register of Bengali, and is the first of five stanzas of a Brahmo hymn that Tagore composed. It was first sung in 1911 at a Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress and was adopted in 1950 by the Constituent Assembly of the Republic of India as its national anthem.
Paintings
At sixty, Tagore took up drawing and painting; successful exhibitions of his many works—which made a debut appearance in Paris upon encouragement by artists he met in the south of France were held throughout Europe. He was likely red-green color blind, resulting in works that exhibited strange colour schemes and off-beat aesthetics. Tagore was influenced by scrimshaw from northern New Ireland, Haida carvings from British Columbia, and woodcuts by Max Pechstein.His artist's eye for his handwriting were revealed in the simple artistic and rhythmic leitmotifs embellishing the scribbles, cross-outs, and word layouts of his manuscripts. Some of Tagore's lyrics corresponded in a synesthetic sense with particular paintings. Rabindra Chitravali, edited by noted art historian R. Siva Kumar, for the first time makes the paintings of Tagore accessible to art historians and scholars of Rabindranth with critical annotations and comments It also brings together a selection of Rabindranath's own statements and documents relating to the presentation and reception of his paintings during his lifetime. The Last Harvest : Paintings of Rabindranath Tagore was an exhibition of Rabindranath Tagore's paintings to mark the 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore.
It was commissioned by the Ministry of Culture, India and organised with NGMA Delhi as the nodal agency. It consisted of 208 paintings drawn from the collections of Visva Bharati and the NGMA and presented Tagore's art in a very comprehensive way. The exhibition was curated by Art Historian R. Siva Kumar. Within the 150th birth anniversary year it was conceived as three separate but similar exhibitions,and travelled simultaneously in three circuits. The first selection was shown at Museum of Asian Art, Berlin, Asia Society, New York, National Museum of Korea, Seoul, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Petit Palais, Paris, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Rome, National Visual Arts Gallery (Malaysia), Kuala Lumpur, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Ontario, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi
Theatre
At sixteen, Tagore led his brother Jyotirindranath's adaptation of Molière's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. At twenty he wrote his first drama-opera: Valmiki Pratibha The Genius of Valmiki. In it the pandit Valmiki overcomes his sins, is blessed by Saraswati, and compiles the Rāmāyana. Through it Tagore explores a wide range of dramatic styles and emotions, including usage of revamped kirtans and adaptation of traditional English and Irish folk melodies as drinking songs. Another play, Dak Ghar The Post Office, describes the child Amal defying his stuffy and puerile confines by ultimately "falling asleep", hinting his physical death.A story with borderless appeal gleaning rave reviews in Europe—Dak Ghar dealt with death as, in Tagore's words, "spiritual freedom" from "the world of hoarded wealth and certified creeds". In the Nazi-besieged Warsaw Ghetto, Polish doctor-educator Janusz Korczak had orphans in his care stage The Post Office in July 1942. In The King of Children, biographer Betty Jean Lifton suspected that Korczak, agonising over whether one should determine when and how to die, was easing the children into accepting death. In mid-October, the Nazis sent them to Treblinka. In days long gone by I can see the King's postman coming down the hillside alone, a lantern in his left hand and on his back a bag of letters climbing down for ever so long, for days and nights, and where at the foot of the mountain the waterfall becomes a stream he takes to the footpath on the bank and walks on through the rye; then comes the sugarcane field and he disappears into the narrow lane cutting through the tall stems of sugarcanes; then he reaches the open meadow where the cricket chirps and where there is not a single man to be seen, only the snipe wagging their tails and poking at the mud with their bills. I can feel him coming nearer and nearer and my heart becomes glad. His other works fuse lyrical flow and emotional rhythm into a tight focus on a core idea, a break from prior Bengali drama. Tagore sought "the play of feeling and not of action".
In 1890 he released what is regarded as his finest drama: Visarjan Sacrifice. It is an adaptation of Rajarshi, an earlier novella of his. "A forthright denunciation of a meaningless and cruel superstitious rite[s]", the Bengali originals feature intricate subplots and prolonged monologues that give play to historical events in seventeenth-century Udaipur. The devout Maharaja of Tripura is pitted against the wicked head priest Raghupati. His latter dramas were more philosophical and allegorical in nature; these included Dak Ghar. Another is Tagore's Chandalika Untouchable Girl, which was modelled on an ancient Buddhist legend describing how Ananda, the Gautama Buddha's disciple, asks a tribal girl for water. In Raktakarabi "Red" or "Blood Oleanders", a kleptocrat rules over the residents of Yaksha puri. He and his retainers exploit his subjects—who are benumbed by alcohol and numbered like inventory by forcing them to mine gold for him.
The naive maiden-heroine Nandini rallies her subject-compatriots to defeat the greed of the realm's sardar class with the morally roused king's belated help. Skirting the "good-vs-evil" trope, the work pits a vital and joyous lèse majesté against the monotonous fealty of the king's varletry, giving rise to an allegorical struggle akin to that found in Animal Farm or Gulliver's Travels. The original, though prized in Bengal, long failed to spawn a "free and comprehensible" translation, and its archaic and sonorous didacticism failed to attract interest from abroad. Chitrangada, Chandalika, and Shyama are other key plays that have dance-drama adaptations, which together are known as Rabindra Nritya Natya.
Novels
Tagore wrote eight novels and four novellas, among them Chaturanga, Shesher Kobita, Char Odhay, and Noukadubi. Ghare Baire The Home and the World through the lens of the idealistic zamindar protagonist Nikhil—excoriates rising Indian nationalism, terrorism, and religious zeal in the Swadeshi movement; a frank expression of Tagore's conflicted sentiments, it emerged from a 1914 bout of depression. The novel ends in Hindu-Muslim violence and Nikhil's likely mortal wounding. Gora raises controversial questions regarding the Indian identity. As with Ghare Baire, matters of self-identity jāti, personal freedom, and religion are developed in the context of a family story and love triangle. In it an Irish boy orphaned in the Sepoy Mutiny is raised by Hindus as the titular gora "whitey". Ignorant of his foreign origins, he chastises Hindu religious backsliders out of love for the indigenous Indians and solidarity with them against his hegemon-compatriots.
He falls for a Brahmo girl, compelling his worried foster father to reveal his lost past and cease his nativist zeal. As a "true dialectic" advancing "arguments for and against strict traditionalism", it tackles the colonial conundrum by "portraying the value of all positions within a particular frame not only syncretism, not only liberal orthodoxy, but the extremest reactionary traditionalism he defends by an appeal to what humans share." Among these Tagore highlights "identity conceived of as dharma." In Jogajog Relationships, the heroine Kumudini bound by the ideals of Śiva-Sati Her roue of a husband. Tagore flaunts his feminist leanings; pathos depicts the plight and ultimate demise of women trapped by pregnancy, duty, and family honour; he simultaneously trucks with Bengal's putrescent landed gentry. The story revolves around the underlying rivalry between two families the Chatterjees, aristocrats now on the decline Biprodas and the Ghosals Madhusudan, representing new money and new arrogance.Kumudini, Biprodas' sister, is caught between the two as she is married off to Madhusudan. She had risen in an observant and sheltered traditional home, as had all her female relations.Others were uplifting: Shesher Kobita translated twice as Last Poem and Farewell Song is his most lyrical novel, with poems and rhythmic passages written by a poet protagonist. It contains elements of satire and postmodernism and has stock characters who gleefully attack the reputation of an old, outmoded, oppressively renowned poet who, incidentally, goes by a familiar name: "Rabindranath Tagore". Though his novels remain among the least-appreciated of his works, they have been given renewed attention via film adaptations by Ray and others: Chokher Bali and Ghare Baire are exemplary. In the first, Tagore inscribes Bengali society via its heroine: a rebellious widow who would live for herself alone. He pillories the custom of perpetual mourning on the part of widows, who were not allowed to remarry, who were consigned to seclusion and loneliness. Tagore wrote of it: "I have always regretted the ending".
Stories
Tagore's three-volume Galpaguchchha comprises eighty-four stories that reflect upon the author's surroundings, on modern and fashionable ideas, and on mind puzzles. Tagore associated his earliest stories, such as those of the "Sadhana" period, with an exuberance of vitality and spontaneity; these traits were cultivated by zamindar Tagore's life in Patisar, Shajadpur, Shelaidaha, and other villages. Seeing the common and the poor, he examined their lives with a depth and feeling singular in Indian literature up to that point. In "The Fruitseller from Kabul", Tagore speaks in first person as a town dweller and novelist imputing exotic perquisites to an Afghan seller.He channels the lucubrative lust of those mired in the blasé, nidorous, and sudorific morass of subcontinental city life: for distant vistas. "There were autumn mornings, the time of year when kings of old went forth to conquest; and I, never stirring from my little corner in Calcutta, would let my mind wander over the whole world. At the very name of another country, my heart would go out to it I would fall to weaving a network of dreams: the mountains, the glens, the forest ."The Golpoguchchho Bunch of Stories was written in Tagore's Sabuj Patra period, which lasted from 1914 to 1917 and was named for another of his magazines. These yarns are celebrated fare in Bengali fiction and are commonly used as plot fodder by Bengali film and theatre. The Ray film Charulata echoed the controversial Tagore novella Nastanirh The Broken Nest. In Atithi, which was made into another film, the little Brahmin boy Tarapada shares a boat ride with a village zamindar. The boy relates his flight from home and his subsequent wanderings. Taking pity, the elder adopts him; he fixes the boy to marry his own daughter. The night before his wedding, Tarapada runs off—again. Strir Patra (The Wife's Letter) is an early treatise in female emancipation.
Mrinal is wife to a Bengali middle class man: prissy, preening, and patriarchal. Travelling alone she writes a letter, which comprehends the story. She details the pettiness of a life spent entreating his viraginous virility; she ultimately gives up married life, proclaiming, Amio bachbo. Ei bachlum: "And I shall live. Here, I live."Haimanti assails Hindu arranged marriage and spotlights their often dismal domesticity, the hypocrisies plaguing the Indian middle classes, and how Haimanti, a young woman, due to her insufferable sensitivity and free spirit, foredid herself. In the last passage Tagore blasts the reification of Sita's self-immolation attempt; she had meant to appease her consort Rama's doubts of her chastity. Musalmani Didi eyes recrudescent Hindu-Muslim tensions and, in many ways, embodies the essence of Tagore's humanism. The somewhat auto-referential Darpaharan describes a fey young man who harbours literary ambitions. Though he loves his wife, he wishes to stifle her literary career, deeming it unfeminine. In youth Tagore likely agreed with him. Darpaharan depicts the final humbling of the man as he ultimately acknowledges his wife's talents. As do many other Tagore stories, Jibito o Mrito equips Bengalis with a ubiquitous epigram: Kadombini moriya proman korilo she more nai "Kadombini died, thereby proving that she hadn't."
Poetry
Tagore's poetic style, which proceeds from a lineage established by 15th- and 16th-century Vaishnava poets, ranges from classical formalism to the comic, visionary, and ecstatic. He was influenced by the atavistic mysticism of Vyasa and other rishi-authors of the Upanishads, the Bhakti-Sufi mystic Kabir, and Ramprasad Sen. Tagore's most innovative and mature poetry embodies his exposure to Bengali rural folk music, which included mystic Baul ballads such as those of the bard Lalon. These, rediscovered and repopularised by Tagore, resemble 19th-century Kartābhajā hymns that emphasise inward divinity and rebellion against bourgeois bhadralok religious and social orthodoxy. During his Shelaidaha years, his poems took on a lyrical voice of the moner manush, the Bāuls' "man within the heart" and Tagore's "life force of his deep recesses", or meditating upon the jeevan devata—the demiurge or the "living God within". This figure connected with divinity through appeal to nature and the emotional interplay of human drama. Such tools saw use in his Bhānusiṃha poems chronicling the Radha-Krishna romance, which were repeatedly revised over the course of seventy years. Tagore's poetry has been set to music by composers: Arthur Shepherd's triptych for soprano and string quartet, Alexander Zemlinsky's famous Lyric Symphony, Josef Bohuslav Foerster's cycle of love songs, Leoš Janáček's famous chorus "Potulný šílenec" "The Wandering Madman" for soprano, tenor, baritone, and male chorus JW 4/43inspired by Tagore's 1922 lecture in Czechoslovakia which Janáček attended, and Garry Schyman's "Praan", an adaptation of Tagore's poem "Stream of Life" from Gitanjali.The latter was composed and recorded with vocals by Palbasha Siddique to accompany Internet celebrity Matt Harding's 2008 viral video. In 1917 his words were translated adeptly and set to music by Anglo-Dutch composer Richard Hageman to produce a highly regarded art song: "Do Not Go, My Love". The second movement of Jonathan Harvey's "One Evening" (1994) sets an excerpt beginning "As I was watching the sunrise ..." from a letter of Tagore's, this composer having previously chosen a text by the poet for his piece "Song Offerings"
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