Inspirational Ravindra Nath Tagore : Shail Agrawal

” When thou commandest me to sing it seems that my heart would break with pride; and I look to thy face, and tears come to my eyes.

All that is harsh and dissonant in my life melts into one sweet harmony—and my adoration spreads wings like a glad bird on its flight across the sea. ”

This was the magic his words weaved on me as early as I could remember, as a child , as a teen agar. Gitanjali, like many others before me, is one of my most favourite collections of verses; all these verses originally written in Bengali by Tagore have been translated in English by W.B.Yeats, an eminent English poet, and I feel indebted to him as a non Bengali that I could read and enjoy them.

Delicacy and simplicity with which words flow from Tagore’s pen carrying all the intensity and sincerity of feelings, is trully amazing and there lies the biggest strength of his creativity. Purest of pure, he was perhaps the quaint essence of a dreamer and visionary, completely in harmony with his creator and his own existence, yet an ordinary human being with trembling heart and an eager and questioning intelligence & fully aware of his limitations too, yet hopeful of right moment, hopeful of his blessing;

“The song that I came to sing remains unsung to this day. I have spent my days in stringing and in unstrunging my instrument.

The time has not come true, the words have not been rightly set; only there is agony of wishing in my heart.”

This pain of separation and helplessness is too intense for him and nothing less than total acceptance or union will quench his thirst.

“Clouds heap upon clouds and it darkens. Ah love, why dos’t thou let me wait outside at the door all alone.”

Complete union with ‘Him’ demands total submission but that is not possible because of the ‘self’ and its numerous desires and doubts. Here once again Tagore is at his best for me:

“Obstinate are trammels, but my heart aches when I try to break them.

Freedom is all I want, but to hope for it I feel ashamed.

I am certain that priceless wealth is in thee, and that thou art my best friend, but I have not the heart to sweep away the tinsel that fills my room.

The shroud that covers me is a shroud of dust and death; I hate it, yet hung it in love.

My debts are large, my failures great, my shame secret and heavy; yet when I come to ask for my good, I quake in fear lest my prayer be granted.”

He loves this life so he knows that he shall love death as well. One has to read again and again to enjoy fully that elusive game-plan or melody of his poems…almost like a Sufi or mystique with a lingering yet sweet ache Tagore leads us to those locked doors of self-realization. There is urgency yet he is relaxed almost with a child like simplicity.

“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 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.”

In his preface to Gitanjali Yeats wrote:

‘ We write long books where no page perhaps has any quality to make writing a pleasure, being confident in some general design, just as we fight and make money and fill our heads with politics—all dull things in doing—while Mr. Tagore, like the Indian civilization itself, has been content to discover the soul and surrender himself to its spontaneity. He often seems to have contrasted his life with that of those who lived more after our fashion, and have more seeming weight in the world, and always humbly as though they were only sure his way is best for him:

” Men going home glance at me and smile and fill me with shame. I sit like a beggar maid, drawing my skirt over my face, and when they ask me, what it is I want, I drop my eyes and answer them not.”

At another time, remembering how his life had once a different shape, he will say,

” Many an hour have I spent in the strife of the good and evil, but now it is the pleasure of my playmate of the empty days to draw my heart on to him; and I know not why is this sudden call to what is useless in consequence”

Innocence, simplicity that one does not find elsewhere in literature makes the birds and the leaves as near to him as they are near to our children, and the changes of the seasons great events as before our thoughts had arisen between them and us. At times I wonder if he has it from the literature of Bengal or religion, and at other times, remembering the birds alighting on his hand , I find pleasure in thinking it hereditary, a mystery that was growing through the centuries like the courtesy of a Tristan or a devine thought. Indeed, when he is speaking of children, this quality seems so much a part of himself. Though one is not often certain that he is not speaking of some saint or mystique,

“They build their houses with sand and they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they weave their boats and smilingly float them on vast deep. Children have their play on the seashore of worlds. They know not how to cast nets. Pearl fishers drive for pearl, merchant sail their ships, while children gather pebbles and scatter them again. They seek not for hidden treasures, they know not how to cast nets.”

If ever I want to meet any one, after Ram it will be probably this beard child-like saint.


Shail Agrawal
e.mail: shailagrawal@ hotmail.com
shailagrawala@gmail.com

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