hindol 5th issue july 2010

8/2/2019 HINDOL 5th Issue July 2010

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...

it is not my wish to end this life,but rather to go on living on this beautiful earthwith its sun-bathed forestsand glades of flaming blossoms;and to make an abiding homein the heart of its multitude -

and to weave strands of melodiesout of this world's eternal game of loveand sing of their joy and sorrows, tears and laughter.if I cannot, may I find,as long as I am on this earth,a place to live amongst youand to bloom for your pleasure,

fresh new blossoms of melodies every night and every day.accept them joyfully, I pray you!and - alas - once the flowers wilt, cast them away.

(Translated by Maitrayee Sen)


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This issue

is sponsored by

AMAL K GANGULI

and

PREETI GANGULI

NOIDA


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34 Payel Majumdar Poetry

34 Kritika Kirty Poetry

35 Supriya Jain A Weekend at Santiniketan - Going Places

38 Soumya Mukherjee Calcutta Cameo - A Vignette

40 Ajanta Dutt Holiday Homework - A Vignette

42 Sunil Guha Tagore through his Essays -A Tribute to Tagore

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Dear Mr. Pakrashi,

Thank you so much for sending me the magazine by email. As you

know, I am traveling and it was wonderful to be able to read the magazinein a foreign land. I am happy to read your excellent summary of the

memorable Ohetuk Adda on 9th May that I missed.

I am now in a small quiet town near Osaka /Kobe where Tagore

came on his first visit to Japan. His poetic mind was touched by this

picturesque country and he spared no words to express his feelings and

impressions in his travelogue. This area has a landscape where green

mountain and calm sea compete with each other in depicting nature

clad in its vibrant colors as spring unveils its beautiful face.

When I reached Japan in April first week, it was still the right time

for bird watching in the Pacific island area of this region. But wind,

rain and mist over the ocean made it difficult for bird lovers to watch

the winged angels that fly around this area. Their numbers were few

too. Surprisingly, our good old kites of slightly different feather were

there near the shore to catch the fish and satisfy us by letting them

being viewed by binoculars. There were fishing eagles hovering overthe rugged sea shore of high rocks whose silhouette looked like huge

giants bowing to the ocean, which was returning it by lapping on their

feet with cobra headed waves. Foamy whirlpools of ocean current

covered part of the shore. There was an air of mystery in the ocean

view and one could hear it groaning from its fathomless depth.

I was unlucky with my power of resistance that one needs for this

kind of weather and caught flu. That brought me back to this small

town where I had to have some treatment under the care of my close

Japanese friend. I should be back in Delhi by the first week of June.

Osaka

22.5.2010 Jyotirmoy Ray

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Of Green Sunshine in the Guava Orchard

Payel Majumdar

If life stops somewhere

And sinks in glad drunkenness

Wouldn't it be grateful

to do so here?

Footsteps follow shivering leaves

Only to quieten in wonderAt green sunshine in the guava orchard

Green-yellow muted music

And space for tolerance

Solitude of trees on tiptoe

And a happy-sad face

Dew drops on tree tops

And sleeping on the hard floor

Space for silence

Amidst green sunshine in the guava orchard

IllusionsKritika Kirty

The flickering lights throw shadows on the wall,

The tears, the laughter, they have seen it all.

Like old lovers they merge and separate,

Silently cursing their star-crossed fate.

Dancing like gypsies under the velvet sky,

To the rhythm of the flame burning low and high.

As the lights slowly die,

The shadows stumble and cry,And their tired bodies softly lie,

Putting out the flame with their weary sigh.

(Payel and Kritika are students)

Poetry


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The Rampurhat Express from Sealdah reached Bolpur

(Santiniketan) at 10.35 in the morning. There were five of us, my

mother, three other family members and I. We had bookings at "Babli",

a rural farm resort. The proprietor Aditya came to receive us and take

us to the resort. On the way we could feel not just the change in theweather but also the scenery - village women sitting on the roadside

selling vegetables, the red soil, lush green paddy fields, rows of

chhatim trees and date palms.

Maharshi Debendranath, father of Rabindranath Tagore, bought

some land and constructed a guest house here in 1863 and called it

'Santiniketan'. Almost 40 years later, Rabindranath started an open-

air school that gradually developed into an internationally renowned

university.Babli turned out to be a 12-acre farm with orchards, vegetable

gardens, ponds, pen and barn. Picturesque animal sheds housed the

cows, goats, ducks and chicken. Cows of a smaller size have been bred.

They have the hardiness of indigenous breeds and produce adequately,

are less disease-prone and are economically viable. There were puppies

all around the place, which was great fun.

Lunch was hot Bengali food - Bhaat, Sukto, Jhinge Posto, MugerDal, Chingri Macher Malai Curry. Aditya said we could have our own

personal bonfire for New Year's Eve. We assembled in the green fields

around 7.45 pm and sat on the benches. It was freezing, but as soon

as the bonfire was lit, our spirits revived. Sitting around the fire under

A weekend at Santiniketan

Supriya JainGreater Kailash-II

Going

Places


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the open sky singing Bengali folk songs was an out of the world

experience. Dinner was north Indian - mouth watering Barbeque

Chicken, Dal Makhni, Butter Nan and Tandoori Roti.Next morning, after a quick breakfast we headed out to explore.

Santiniketan has two rivers flowing through it: the Ajay and the Kopai.

We strolled on the banks of Kopai, dipping our feet in its cold waters.

As we were in Santineketan end-December we could see the

remnants of the Poush Mela. The fair is held between 7th and 10th of

the Bengali month of Poush, near about the time when the Gregorian

year is bid farewell and preparations are made to welcome the New

Year, with its new hopes and new promises. Poush Mela is celebrated

to commemorate the entry of Maharshi Debendranath Tagore into

Brahmo Samaj. It brings alive the traditional folk culture of Birbhum.

Talented bauls sing popular religious and folk numbers while

strumming their ektaras. Lively folk songs, dances, drama and other

soirees keep the large crowds glued to the fair grounds until the wee

hours of the morning. People buy trinkets, traditional music, copies

of Tagore's works and other heritage items from the fairgrounds.Though we missed the main fair, we went to the Mela Ground and

browsed through the stalls with their artistic handicrafts and printed

fabrics, leather bags, Kantha-stitch sarees etc. All this made us very

hungry, so we gorged on the piping hot pakoras and telebhajas, gulping

them down with steaming cups of tea. We left with the music of the

Santhals in the air and headed towards the Visva-Bharati University

campus, our raison d'etre in Santiniketan.

The main attractions are the various buildings of the campus. KalaBhavan is the art college of Santiniketan. It is still considered to be

one of the best art colleges in the world. The Kala Bhavan gallery

has paintings by Bengal's renowned artists like Abanindranath Tagore,

Gaganendranath Tagore and Nandalal Bose. The sculptures of

Ramkinkar Baij are also amongst the attractions.

Bichitra Bhavan was designed by Gurudev's son Rathindranath.

Also known as the Rabindra Bhavan, it houses a research institute anda museum. Rabindranath Tagore's Nobel Prize and several priceless

artefacts, including his pocket watch and his father's gold ring were

stolen from here in March 2004. Everything was under CBI probe -

of whatever little we could see, one was a replica of the Nobel Prize.

A Weekend at Santiniketan

Going

Places


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A library and a

general section with

a collection ofpaintings, letters

written by celebrities

and manuscripts are

housed in this centre.

Tagore's photographs

depicting his

lifestyle and voice

records are also

displayed here.

During our tour

around the Campus

we learnt that the

poet lived in the

Uttarayan Complex,

which is comprisedof several buildings

- Udayan, Konark,

Shyamali, Punascha

and Udichi (so

named because it was on the northern or 'uttar' direction). Mahatma

Gandhi had stayed at Shyamali. In 1941, he sent a birthday telegram

to Tagore saying "Four score not enough. May you finish five." Tagore

replied, "Four score impertinence. Five intolerable." Tagore died laterduring the year.

The other buildings we visited were the China Bhavan (Chinese

faculty), Patha Bhavan (the school), Sangeet Bhavan (school of dance

and music) and the prayer hall.

Our two-day holiday had come to an end and we headed for the

station at Bolpur to catch our train to Calcutta. Santiniketan did

certainly give us a 'college town' feel with its open spaces, institutionalbuildings and large student population.

(Supriya Jain is a student)

Sketch : Pulak Biswas

A Weekend at Santiniketan

Going

Places


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We all know how irksome holiday homework has been in the past.

Nowadays it is no better when teachers are vying with each other to

make it more creative, in order to get the best out of each student.

Today there are bureaus that have been set up in all major, and perhaps

all minor, cities to produce these holiday homework projects. If thechild is going to do it by herself or himself, then of course the parents,

most probably the mother, has to help by searching the internet and

going to the bazaar to buy picture charts and art materials.

It was better perhaps in the past when holiday homework was

standard one page of Bangla/Hindi and English hand writing practice

everyday, the maths exercises from the textbook (and the back of the

book where test papers are given), learning the tables from one to twenty,

reading all the readers in the various subjects and not much else.Intelligent students did all this in the first week of the holidays; average

students did the work slowly, especially when their mothers insisted

that they should sit by the kitchen where study time could be supervised.

Academically poor or playful students did not complete their homework

at all. They got scolded when school reopened, or had to stand in the

corner.

One such person (who recollected his memories from the past)recounted that he would visit his grandparents in Allahabad every

summer. His mother would pack his schoolbooks along with his clothes

and make him do his holiday homework at his maternal uncle's place.

But one summer she stayed behind in Calcutta, and that threw discipline

Ajanta Dutt

Chittaranjan Park,

New Delhi

Holiday Homework

Vignette


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Early Life

The illustrious Tagore family of Kolkata's Jorasanko had already

produced three generations of exceptionally able men when

Rabindranath was born on 7th May 1861 as the 14th child of

Debendranath and Sarada Debi. The time of his birth was significant.Following the failure of the 1857 sepoy mutiny, British rule had been

firmly established and Kolkata was the seat of British culture and

education in India. This was also the time when the Nationalist

movement started in India, the first manifestation of which was the

establishment of the Hindu Mela in 1867. Tagore's first recital of one

of his poems was at one of its sessions in 1875. Soon, another long

poemBonophool (Wild Flower) was published in theBharati magazine.

In his first series of poems the influence of the English poets Shelleyand Keats was quite discernible.

Rabindranath went to several schools but not being able to adjust to

the formal style of education could not complete schooling. However,

the Tagore household library was a storehouse of knowledge - it

contained many books written by scholars from the west and the east.

Also, the Tagore home was frequented by many learned intellectuals,

musicians, artists, etc. They too were a source of learning for youngRabindranath. His thirst for knowledge and a scientific outlook resulted

in a combination of tradition and experiment that characterized his

attitude to life.

Rabindranath was writing poetry from the age of eight and was

Tagore through his essays

Sunil Guha

Gurgaon, Haryana

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Tagore


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certainly shaping well as a poet. But the family was worried that he

was not getting any formal schooling! Debendranath decided to send

teenager Rabindranath to England with elder brother Satyendranath(first Indian ICS) for one more attempt at formal education. In September

1878, at the age of 17, Tagore sailed for England with Satyendranath to

prepare to become either an ICS or a barrister. He barely studied for a

few months at a public school in Brighton and at the University College,

London and returned home in February 1880 without a degree. His

family was greatly disappointed but even more was his own

disappointment! His sense of failure and hopelessness found expression

in a bunch of poems published in 1882 entitled Sandhya Sangeet(Music

of the Dusk).

He was then living at elder brother Jyotirindranath's Sudder Street

residence. One day he had a unique spiritual experience. Watching the

rising sun from the balcony, he felt an upheaval within his being which

lifted the dark shroud of his depression, yielding place to magnificent

light, incomparable beauty and boundless joy! He burst into a poem

Nirjharer Swapnobhango (Awakening of the Waterfall) as a suddenexperience of a vivid bond between nature and man. This gave us one

of the greatest lyrics of all times. But more importantly, it gave him in

early youth the guiding principle of his life. I have attempted an English

rendering of the opening lines of the poem :The sunrays fell upon my heart

How the bird-song of the morn

Pierced through the darkness of the dungeon

I don't know whyAfter such a long while

My heart lifted up enlivened

Oh dear ones, the sea is rising in waves

And I cannot hold any more

My heart's cravings

My heart's feelings!

The bunch of poems that he wrote soon after this experience was

entitled Prabhat Sangeet(Music of the Dawn). The following few yearssaw a huge outpouring of creative writing of all types.

Rabindranath married on 9th December 1883. Soon thereafter,

Debendranath gave him the responsibility of looking after the zamindari.

While doing so, he travelled a lot, during which, from 1890 to 1895 he


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stayed on a house-boat on the river Padma at Silaidaha in East Bengal

experiencing the natural beauty of rural Bengal and the joy and sorrows

of the rural people. This was one of his most fecund periods, duringwhich he also wrote Chhinnapatra (literally Tattered Letters, being a

collection of letters to his niece) and most of his short stories.

The Nobel Prize

In 1912, Rabindranath started the English translation of his Gitanjali

(Song Offerings). In November 1912 Gitanjali was published in London

and through Ezra Pound's efforts Chicago city's Poetry Magazine

published some of his poems.

In November 1913 Tagore was awarded the Nobel prize for literature"because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which,

with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own

English words, a part of the literature of the West".

The same year he received Calcutta University's D. Litt. degree

(Honoris Causa). The resolution was moved by the Vice Chancellor

Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee and seconded by Sir Gooroodas Banerjee andMr J.R. Banerjee. Just a year before his death, when a distressed

Rabindranath condemned Hitler as well as Japan for bombing China

during the Second World War, the Oxford University bestowed on him

the honorary degree of doctorate on 7th August 1940. It was during

this time that Tagore wrote his famous essay Shobyotar Shankat(Crisis

in Civilization).

A multi-faceted geniusIn considering Rabindranath's life and work, one is repeatedly struck

by the amazing versatility of his genius. He was essentially a poet but

his interests were not confined to poetry alone. In sheer quantity of

work few writers of the world can equal him. In addition, he was an

artist too. His writings include poems and songs on themes such as

love. worship, prayer, seasons, nature, patriotism etc. Almost all the

songs are with full notations. That these songs remain popular today

speaks eloquently of the timelessness of the lyrics and the tunes. He

wrote large number of plays, short stories, novels and essays besides

writing many letters and producing more than two thousand drawings

and paintings. His educational, social, economic and political beliefs


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and ideas as well as internationalism have found expression in his

famous essays. I have picked just a few to give the reader an idea.

Tagore on education:

Tagore believed in the organic wholeness of human beings, whichneeds for its well-being a general stimulation of all faculties. He believed

that the environs were more important than classroom teachings,

appliances and textbooks.

a) In The Vicissitude of Education (1906), he stressed that

Painting by Ranjit Singh Gill


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interpretation of the "Shantam, Shivam, Advaitam" phrase in the

humanistic terms of self-control, goodness and love, stating that "the

first stage towards freedom is the Shantam, the true peace, which canbe attained by subduing self; the next stage is the Shivam, the true

goodness, which is the activity of the Soul when the self is subdued.

And then the Advaitam, the love, the oneness with all and with God."

However, the history of Vishwabharati, despite Central Government's

support, had been one of decline after Tagore's death, mainly due to

three reasons - lack of financial support, drabness of the courses it

offered and gradual abandonment of its ideals, particularly after it was

converted into a central university in 1951 and was brought under the

University Grants Commission.

Tagore on economics

Tagore considered the rural economy of ancient India to be a

balanced one that ensured employment, security and contentment. He

felt that though the agrarian-cum- small industry structure had served

well in a simpler age but with increasing population, induction of highertechnology and new organizational structures were needed to augment

productivity and employment. He believed that unemployment was

not a necessary consequence of mechanization. Rather, rural community

development was essential, of which public health and mass education

were special components.

In his essay Co-operation, Tagore reiterated his view that if villagers

pooled resources, they could achieve that which was individually

impossible.In City and Village (1919), he contrasted the West's city-based

civilization with India's village-based culture that accepted nature as

an essential element in man's all-round development.

Tagore on Politics

Society and State (read out at a public meeting in Calcutta on July

22, 1904) and Presidential Address (read out at the Pabna session ofthe Bengal Provincial Conference in 1908) contain Tagore's political

ideal.

In his essayEast and West(1908), he reiterated his passionate belief

that India's special contribution to world civilization lay in the exaltation


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of the principle of unity in diversity.

Tagore sought a combination of the finest elements of the East and

the West. For him, a trip to Europe was almost a pilgrimage. His essayon theEve of Departure (1912), gives a clear indication of the spirit of

reverence with which Tagore viewed western values (in spite of the

strong political passions that divided Britain and India).

In The Changing Age, he points out how the West had profoundly

changed the Indian attitude to authority and freed Indians, perhaps

forever, from acquiescence with evil. Tagore conceived of a

decentralized and federal State in which local units (panchayats) would

play a more important role.

Tagore held that much of the politics of the day was merely

agitational. He accepted the ideal of nationalism but insisted that

independence would not be achieved by denouncing the British but by

the cultivation of the positive virtues of manliness and self-help. He

recognized the values of Indian and Western cultures but whenever he

felt necessary, he freely and fearlessly criticized his own countrymen

as well as foreigners. For instance, he had great admiration and affectionfor Mahatma Gandhi but he criticized what he felt were negative and

restrictive elements in the Mahatma's practices and policies. Thus, in

The Call of Truth (1921) and in Striving for Swaraj (1925), he challenged

some of the basic assumptions of the Mahatma, even declaring that

some of the latter's programs were against the principles he had himself

initiated.

Tagore was not a professional politician but the sufferings of the

Indian people moved him to political action and utterance of protest atevery critical stage of the national struggle. In 1919, in protesting the

atrocities at Jalianwala Bagh, he returned the knighthood bestowed

upon him by the British Government in 1915.

In this author's opinion, the two most important tasks before us today

are a) to revive the past glory of Vishwabharati and b) carry out active

research to recover the details of Tagore's frequent visits abroad

including his hitherto undiscovered correspondence with thinkers ofvarious countries.

(Sunil Guha is an economist and an essayist)


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Dwarakanath Tagore(1794 - 1846)

Grandfather of Rabindranath Tagore, Dwarakanath finds very meagre

mention in the former's works. Of medium build and indifferent

health, inherited zamindari from uncle (who was also the adoptivefather). Built highly successful businesses in money-lending, banking,

insurance, coal mining, shipping, ship repairing, warehousing,

brewing and production/trading/export (including silk, indigo and

opium). Reputedly tough businessman but generous human being.

Affectionately called 'Prince' by his European friends. Received

audience twice with Queen Victoria but failed to get baronetcy.

Wife Digambari withdrew from conjugal life as reaction to

Dwarkanath's penchant for liquor and non-vegetarian food, obliging

him to live in a separate building. Died and interred in England

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Ably aided by husband Satyendranath (Rabindranath Tagore's

elder brother) Gyanandanandini was the quintessential emerging'modern woman' of the 19th century. Though not formally educated

like some contemporaries, she was for a year the editor ofBalok.

However, she was not a significant writer, as a few other women

of the Tagore household. Lived with her husband (the first Indian

ICS) at his posting in Bombay, draped the Bengali sari in a new

fashion alongwith bodice and petticoat (which she later brought to

Calcutta), attended civilian parties (including a party at Raj Bhavanin Calcutta), introduced birthday celebrations and gifts, traveled to

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hindol 5th issue july 2010

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