Tagore's Activity
Tagore's writing is highly imagistic deeply
religious and imbued with his love of nature and his homeland.
His work are classics renowned for their lyrical beauty and spiritual poignancy.
His poems are actually song texts
as he composed a melody for them.
The musical aspect of poems is at times lost in translation.
Please tell the answer..
Answers
Explanation:
My main recollection of Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) lies not in his poetry, music, dramas, novels, or paintings, but rather with his “Jana Gana Mana” (Thou Art the Ruler of the Minds of All People), India’s national anthem. When I was a free-spirited little girl, probably in third grade, I remember school started every day with everyone singing this song. I also remember singing it in chorus on other occasions like Indian Republic Day, which honors the adoption of the country’s constitution on January 26, 1950. Sixty-eight years later, Tagore’s national anthem has not lost its charm and popularity. It still warms the hearts of millions and millions of Indians both in India and abroad.
Another one of my recollections is watching Tagore’s plays staged in my school’s auditorium. His dance dramas, such as “Chitrangada” and “Chandalika,” showcased his interest in different types of stories. For example, Tagore’s 1892 work “Chitrangada” is inspired by a story in the Hindu epic “Mahabharata.” The title character is the daughter of the king of Manipura and the wife of the great warrior Arjuna. Chitrangada and Arjuna meet during the latter’s expedition to Manipura. Arjuna asks the king for her hand in marriage, and the king agrees on the condition that Arjuna will stay with his wife in Manipura and that their children will be the heirs to the kingdom. Arjuna agrees to wed the princess, and eventually, their son Babruvahana is born to them.
In 1938, Tagore wrote “Chandalika,” a story that touches on the sensitive subject of the caste system in Hindu society. This work’s message is that all human beings are equal regardless of their social status, and it comes through the tale of a young girl, Prakriti, who is born to an “untouchable” caste, the Chandalis. Because of her caste, Prakriti suffers terrible discrimination and injustice. Even the vendors in her village shun her. One day, she happens to meet a Buddhist monk named Ananda, who approaches her and asks for water. At first, she refuses because she believes that water from a low-caste person’s hands is polluted, and that by offering it she would be committing a religious offense. But Ananda teaches her that all human beings are equal and that the difference between upper and lower castes is the product of an unjust society. Convinced by the monk’s kind words, Prakriti ultimately serves him water, an action that gives her joy and self-confidence.
Rabindranath Tagore was the youngest son of Debendranath Tagore, one of the founders of the 19th-century Hindu religious reform movement, the Brahmo Samaj. Although he had the opportunity for formal schooling in England, the young Rabindranath had little interest in formal education and returned to India before finishing his education abroad. At home, his father arranged for private tutoring, the flexible pace of which appealed much more to him than the school’s rigid curriculum. During this time, his intellectual horizon expanded and he developed a wide range of interests, especially in the arts.
In addition, Rabindranath grew up in a very musical environment. His elder brother Jyotirindranath used to experiment with different musical traditions, which exposed Rabindranath to classical, folk, devotional, and other genres of music. In his more than 2,000 compositions, he expresses all manner and category of human emotion. It is this range that makes his music appealing to everyone – old and young, rich and poor.
Another important dimension of Rabindranath Tagore’s legacy is his involvement with Shantiniketan, a town in Birbhum District in what is today the state of West Bengal in eastern India. After his father purchased the land in 1862, it was used for an ashram, a spiritual center for meditation, but Tagore eventually developed it into Vishva Bharati University, which – as its name indicates – integrated knowledge from all over the world (vishva) with the unique wisdom and spirit of India (bharati). The university also embodied its founder’s philosophy of education and social harmony. With his burgeoning interest in social reform in his later years, Tagore reached out to the poor and preached the principles of freedom and cooperation among all people regardless of caste and creed. In this respect, he was greatly influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s teachings. Both had great respect for one another, and Gandhi visited Shantiniketan on four separate occasions – twice with his wife Kasturba and twice alone.
Tagore’s life also included its share of grief. In 1902, his wife Mrinalini Devi passed away. Then, in succession, he lost his younger daughter, son and loving father. He was disconsolate for a long time. In his works, one can see the combination of personal sorrow and commentary on social and political upheavals in colonial Bengal in the early twentieth century: