This Bengali polymath, we all know, had redefined his regional literature and music. From his private bowers, he did reach out to the world through heaps of translations of his illustrious writings, penned at facile ease on his desk, in his own mother tongue. His august repertoire is like a goldmine that doesn’t deplete with time but only gets enriched among generations with each passing day.
World-wide popular as Gurudev, befittingly addressed by Mahatma Gandhi, the moniker aptly suited the former’s magnetic-spiritual personality, his long flowing strands and his saintly footlength robe. Rabindranath Tagore stands tall as a remarkable poet laureate, composer, singer-songwriter, novelist, short-story writer and playwright even after 150 springs have flown past, ever since his birth aeons ago in 1861 in the British-ruled India.
It is notable to hark back exactly a 100 years at this point of time only to make a mark of the coming year, i.e. 2013, which completes a centenary cycle of the litterateur winning the coveted Nobel Prize in Literature for his glorious tome of Gitanjali (Song-Offerings) as the first non-European and proudly, the first Indian recipient of the award. No doubt, the celebrations will almost coincide with the still ongoing commemoration programmes of the bard’s 150th birth anniversary.
Interestingly, the bard had always kept his vision’s eye wide ajar to let in the winds of change and novelty blow in. Reverberating the refrain from his song Shabare kori ahobaan... (I welcome all and sundry under the sun), the poet did show a sharp bent of mind to embrace every single entity, exotic or national, within his fold to further illuminate his abode with their newly-planted saplings.
It is true that going on a foreign tour or mingling with the expatriates doesn’t necessarily mean to uproot one’s own culture and get enormously disenchanted. Rather the outlet should serve as an opportunity to coalesce ties and forge new possibilities of cultural and educational exchanges. Tagore had fostered many such bi-lateral associations during his lifetime on his several overseas tours and invited home different personalities at his domicile of peace — Shantiniketan. His meeting with the noted English painter, draughtsman and art critic Sir William Rothenstein and that with German scientist Albert Einstein is not unknown to the world. Similarly, Tagore too had played a gracious host to a brigade of curious visitors and knowledge-seekers landing at his doorstep to gain enlightenment from his environs.
Tagore’s painstaking efforts to build, grow, foster and spearhead a citadel of learning and performing arts which would by far burgeon into a holistic institution of international standards, was never meant to go in vain as a futile dream.
From beautiful architectural edifices like Shyamali, Udichi, Udayan, Konarka, Punashcha to an open-air concept of teaching under a tree-canopy (Chhatim tala) via a medium of oral traditions which is a classic legacy of Indian academic heritage to training the avid-aspirants in the vintage craft of potters’ wheel, batik painting, planting of trees, growing vegetables (aligned to the present-day concept of organic farming), music-education (both vocal and instrumental) to emphasis on women’s education, wearing of light desi clothes in lieu of tight British uniforms on the campus — everything fell in place like a well-etched out canvas. There was this scent of free-spiritedness always spread in the air around.
Chronicles prove that over a century ago in 1901, Tagore had moved to Shantiniketan to sow the seeds of an ashram with a marble-floored prayer hall called The Mandir. This glass temple was designed as an experimental school amidst groves of trees, gardens and a library to keep the empty mind-pitchers filled in with treasures of general knowledge and information.
As a primary school, Shantiniketan was established on a barren land of Birbhum with a batch of few students in the early years of the last century. Wide expansive tracts of land and vast open space still encircle the educational aegis. Slowly and gradually, the centre became a major seat of Bengal’s revolutionising school movement, where the key notion was to develop an alternative education system to make India conscious of its legacy and potential.
Starting off with a school initially, he further extended it by forming a university post 1921 (reputed Visva Bharati varsity) and a centre for agronomic and craft studies in the annexed Sriniketan. Thus, Shantiniketan became the first and foremost international cultural and educational fortress in a nation still reeling under a colonial regime.
Among many a visitor who had touched down to get a fair share of Tagore’s blessings and his best wishes or simply feel inspired by his august presence in his close proximity, were two young travellers and artists — Frenchman Alain Daniélou and Swiss traveller Raymond Burnier, respectively.
Their inaugural trip to Shantiniketan took place in 1932 and like numerous sophists, scholars and thinkers of that age, they too fell under the hypnotic spell of the poet and his dream of building a seat of learning and creation. Reliable sources cite that Tagore had in fact asked the gentlemen to support a project to establish a network of schools of similar kind in Europe, affiliated to Shantiniketan. In response, they had extensively photographed Shantiniketan trying to capture the inner beauty of the poet’s dream project.
Incidentally after this eye-opening episode, Daniélou had diligently learnt Indian classical music and created the first musicology studies department in India, in Varanasi, along with Omkarnath Thakur. He also translated and orchestrated many of the poet’s songs, including the national song and the national anthem at the behest of the bard’s talented son Rathindranath. He was the first foreigner to be made a member of the Sangeet Natak Akademi. In 1949, the photographs which they had taken of Hindu temples were exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum in New York which was the first ever photo exhibition held there.
Organised by Alliance Francaise as part of the ongoing 150th birth anniversary of the bard and curated by Samuel Berthet, a year-long travelling exhibition of these rare photographs packaged as Tagore, The Universal Message, has been roaming across from India to Bangladesh with much fanfare. After successfully staging the collection in Kolkata (ICCR art gallery), early this year and at Chittagong in the beginning of May, the exhibition will once more travel to Dhaka, come July and finally return to the Indian capital New Delhi this October. The hitherto unpublished pictures were clicked by Burnier and Daniélou during their impactful tour of Shantiniketan. The experience was impressive and visceral for both the visitors, we presume.
In the Chittagong function, senior residents and living witnesses of Tagore’s Santiniketan were invited to share their fond memories of the versatile bard and his bay of peace. “It was indeed a historical moment with the presentation of snapshots taken during Tagore’s time and displayed for the first time, almost 80 years after they were captured. If you glance through the entire array, you would definitely understand and realise that this exceptional collage pays a perfect tribute to one of the greatest multi-faceted luminaries of the contemporary world,” shares Berthet.
Adding further, he elaborates: “We honestly want the Unesco to declare Tagore’s pioneering vision and his priceless casket of works as a precious asset to world heritage. He should be celebrated as a living artiste and not someone from a dead poet’s society. For no creative cauldron can be a passé. It keeps burning with immense possibilities to eternity. The poet was a secular humanist in true sense of the word, as one can notice from the beautiful specimens of heterogeneous architecture on the Shantiniketan buildings. Closely observe the intricate designs, columns and arches and you know that these are collective traits of Mughal, Buddhist, Gothic and Hindu-temple architecture, besides showing imprints of the ancient Ajanta Ellora caves. A man with a melting pot of ideas who remained much ahead of his times had always propagated the three essential pillars of education which hops from an individual’s private corner to a group of gregarious community to the pervasive nature outside one’s household.”