Rabindranath Tagore Story & Poem Essay

A Nandalal Bose illustration for The Hero, part of the 1913 Macmillan release of The Crescent MoonThe Sadhana period, 18911895, was among Tagores or so fecund, yielding more than half the stories contained in the three-volume Galpaguchchha, itself a group of eighty-four stories. 18 They reflect upon Tagores 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 Tagores life in villages such as Patisar, Shajadpur, and Shilaida.Seeing the common and the poor, he examined their lives with a depth and feeling singular in Indian literature up to that point. 79 In The Fruitseller from Kabul, Tagore speaks in first person as a town-dweller and novelist who chances upon the Afghani seller. He channels the longing of those trapped in mundane, hardscrabble Indian urban life, giving play to dreams of a different exist ence in the distant and wild mountains 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 . . 80 Many of the other Galpaguchchha stories were written in Tagores Sabuj Patra period (19141917 also named for one of Tagores magazines). 18 A 1913 illustration by Asit Kumar Haldar for The first gear, a prose-poem in The Crescent MoonTagores Golpoguchchho (Bunch of Stories) remains among Bengali literatures most popular fictional works, providing subject matter for opusy successful films and theatrical plays.Satyajit Rays film Charulata was based upon Tagores controversial novella, Nastanirh (The Broken Nest). In Atithi (also made into a film), the untested Brahmin boy Tarapada shares a boat ride with a vi llage zamindar. The boy reveals that he has run away from home, only to wander around ever since. Taking pity, the zamindar adopts him and ultimately arranges his espousals to the zamindars own daughter. However, the night before the wedding, Tarapada runs offagain.Strir Patra (The Letter from the Wife) is among Bengali literatures earliest depictions of the bold emancipation of women. The heroine Mrinal, the wife of a regular(prenominal) patriarchical Bengali affection class man, writes a letter while she is travelling (which constitutes the whole story). It details the pettiness of her life and struggles she finally declares that she will not clear to her husbands home with the statement Amio bachbo. Ei bachlum And I shall live. Here, I live.Haimanti assails Hindu marriage and the dismal lifelessness of married Bengali women, hypocrisies plaguing the Indian middle classes, and how Haimanti, a sensitive young woman, mustdue to her sensitiveness and free spiritsacrifice her life. In the last passage, Tagore directly attacks the Hindu custom of glorifying Sitas attempted self-immolation as a means of appeasing her husband Ramas doubts. Musalmani Didi examines Hindu-Muslim tensions and, in many ways, embodies the essence of Tagores humanism.Darpaharan exhibits Tagores self-consciousness, describing a fey young man harboring literary ambitions. Though he loves his wife, he wishes to stifle her own literary career, deeming it unfeminine. Tagore himself, in his youth, seems to have harbored similar ideas about women. Darpaharan depicts the final humbling of the man as he acknowledges his wifes talents. As do many other Tagore stories, Jibito o Mrito equips Bengalis with a ubiquitous epigram Kadombini moriya proman korilo she more naiKadombini died, thereby proving that she hadnt.