Rabindranath Tagore by Monideepa Sahu

Author:Monideepa Sahu [Sahu, Monideepa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788184759914
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2013-04-04T00:00:00+00:00

The Tagore family had been searching for sometime for a bride for Rabindranath. The ruler of a princely state in the Madras Presidency had a suitable daughter. Jyoti Dada escorted Rabindranath there to meet the girl. The brothers were presented to two ladies in the palace. One was a striking beauty and the other was plain. The brothers were naturally pleased at the sight of the lovely lady, only to learn later that she was the bride’s stepmother.

8

Shelidah

In 1891, Rabindranath shifted to Shelidah, now in Bangladesh, to manage the family estates. He stayed there for ten years, and tried in practical ways to improve the lives of the poor villagers under his charge. He spent much time travelling on the Padma River in his boat, going from village to village to supervise work on the estates. He came in close contact with the rural poor, felt a deep empathy for their trials and tribulations, and appreciated their innate qualities as human beings. It was during his stay in Shelidah that Rabindranath began writing short stories. His experiences and observations of human nature, his contact with the lives of ordinary people and their joys and sorrows, enriched his stories and novels.

In the estate headquarters in Shahzadpur, Rabindranath would enjoy ruling over a spacious building called the kuthibari, which was all for his own use. Every morning he would throw open all the doors and windows, and allow the light and air to bring in the essence of the outside world. He felt the mood and urge to write here as nowhere else. The heat, quiet and solitude of the afternoons, the warbling of birds and the cawing of crows would work their magic during the unlimited leisure time and carry Rabindranath into the world of imagination. It was on one such balmy afternoon that the idea of ‘The Postmaster’ (1891) took over his thoughts. This was one of Rabindranath’s earliest stories, and was later made into a moving film by Satyajit Ray in 1961. Rabindranath once met a real postmaster, upon whom he based the disenchanted and weary young man from Calcutta in the story. The real-life postmaster read the story and recognized himself, for though he was not from Calcutta, he shared the fictional postmaster’s urge to escape from the constraints of rural life.

Rabindranath’s short stories were unusual for his time. These pioneering tales connected with the soul of Bengal—the mischievous children; loving mothers and sisters; poor, hard-working villagers and other ordinary people. In those days, other noted writers from Bengal were composing fanciful and romantic stories about the heroic adventures of princes and feudal noblemen. These stories by Rabindranath’s contemporaries were based on history and legends, and were far removed from day-to-day reality. Rabindranath’s stories revolved around simple, true-to-life characters such as the village postmaster, the little orphan girl Ratan, and villagers such as Chidam and his proud and beautiful wife Chandara, who suffers a tragic fate. His tales brought to life the realities of rural Bengal. He also

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