The Living Dead

Honoring our poetic ancestors

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                                                    Tagore at his painting desk

The Year 1400*

by Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

          A hundred years from today

Who are you, sitting, reading a poem of mine,

                     under curiosity's sway - 

            a hundred years from today?

              Not the least portion

of this spring's morning bliss,

  neither blossom nor birdsong,

     nor any of its scarlet splashes

 can I drench it in passion

      and despatch to your hands

      a hundred years hence!

Yet do this please: unlatch your south-faced door,

              just sit at your window for once;

basking in fantasy, eyes on the far horizon,

                figure out if you can:

              how one day a hundred years back

roving delights in a free fall from a heavenly region

            had touched all that there was -

     the infant Phalgun** day, utterly free,

                     was frenzied, all agog,

while borne on brisk wings, the south wind

               pollen-scent-brushed

had suddenly arrived and in a flash dyed the earth

               with all youth's hues

              a hundred years before your day.

There lived then a poet, ebullient of spirit,

                his heart steeped in song,

who wanted to open his words like so many flowers

               with so much passion

             one day a hundred years back.

             A hundred years from today

                     who is the new poet

whose songs flow through your homes?

                   To him I convey

            this springtime's gladsome greetings.

May my vernal song finds its echo for a moment

                     in your spring day

in the throbbing of your hearts, in the buzzing of your bees,

                  in the rustling of your leaves

            a hundred years from today.

(Translated by Ketaki Kushari Dyson )

*1400 is the Bengali calendar year which is actually 1993. The poem was written on the 2nd of Phalgoon (first month of spring) 1302 (1895-96) of the Bengali calendar.

**spring

It is very difficult to render the original in translation. We miss the music, the suggestiveness, indefinable associations clustering round words and phrases of the original version. This comes to mind especially when we read Tagore in any language other than Bengali.

Born in a family that was at the forefront of the Bengal Renaissance Tagore was the youngest of the thirteen surviving children of his parents. He lost his mother at a very early age and mostly raised by servants. That was the beginning of the trail of death that he would have to tread for the rest of his life. In his long life of eighty years he had lost a young wife (he never remarried) and brought up his children with utmost care only to lose three of them and the only grandson to illness. He accepted death as part of his life gracefully.

Sukumar Ray, a contemporary Bengali poet summed up Tagore's poetry in the following words: Rabindranath's poetry is an echo of the infinite variety of life, of the triumph of love, of the supreme unity of existence, of the joy that abides at the heart of everything......The objective of love is a constantly readjusted incentive...now of a self-centered vanity, now of the youthful visions of life, of 'half a woman half a dream', now the sheer passion of living, now the supreme joy of renunciation, of selfish service.....And all this is a natural inborn process of emancipation. Tagore's poems on Death, as the 'last fulfillment of life', written at all stages of his career, are among the most remarkable of his contributions....'because I love this life I will love Death also', is the characteristic tone of his later works.

This remains as the fundamental principle of all his creations, be it poetry, short story, novel, play, music, dance-drama or even painting. He composed around 2230 songs creating a whole new world of music, Rabindrasangeet.

He passed away six years before India got Independence. So freedom is another aspect to be found in his works. He stresses upon the absence of external restraints while he also emphasizes on the inner freedom born of self-sacrifice, enlightenment, self-purification and self control. He wishes to set the spirit free.

In 1913 he received the Nobel Prize in literature for his anthology Gitanjali (Song Offerings) which contains his profound spiritual poems.

W B Yeats' introduction to Gitanjali is a most noteworthy read.

Tagore lived a life true to all the highest ideals.

Baishe Srabon that is 22 Shravan (the last month of the rainy season, this is 8th August this year) is the death anniversary of the poet, celebrated worldwide believing he continues to live with us in his creation.