Reading Time: 4 minutes
In all of his creative works, what touched Navodita is the poignancy and the deep feeling of emotion that flow with his thoughts – the sensitivity, the words and the meanings generated by every single sentence of his story or poem stand out to showcase not just his knowledge but also his deep-seated love for language and nationalism. She pays her tribute to the Bard, in the Special Feature, exclusively for Different Truths.
The first time I remember reading about Tagore was when I started mugging up the national anthem and its legendary poet, Rabindranath Tagore. However, as I grew older I read the Hindi story in our curriculum which remained my favourite for a long time- Kabuliwallah. As though Rabindranath Tagore’s chapters were not going to end, I came across yet another poem by him which remained my favourite along with Rudyard Kipling’s If – Where the Mind is Without Fear!
In all of his creative works, what touched me is the poignancy and the deep feeling of emotion that flow with his thoughts – the sensitivity, the words and the meanings generated by every single sentence of his story or poem stand out to showcase not just his knowledge but also his deep-seated love for language and nationalism.
Mini came from a traditional Bengali household. Yet Rahman could identify with the little girl’s likes, dislikes, tastes, jokes, and stories. As he tried to befriend her and become close to her, Tagore shows that no barriers of religion or caste or age, or geographical boundaries existed between them as he possibly imagined his little girl growing up in a distance. After several years of imprisonment when he is released, he decides to first visit Mini, the day she is getting married, when Mini’s father gets to know about why he had been so close to the girl. He immediately decides to give him some money to travel back to his land so he could reunite with his daughter even though that meant cutting down on some of the wedding festivities.
The most interesting feature was the character of Rahman. A man who has a soft nature, on one hand, could even get aggressive and would not accept a wrong (when a customer refused to pay) on the other is showcased well. It also shows how men living and working in a foreign land are misunderstood by most people (his only attraction with Mini being the fatherly love for the girl). He probably decided to kill his loneliness living in Calcutta by being friends with the girl.
Similarly, the poem Where the Mind is Without Fear seems to be like a prayer where Tagore is invoking
Yet Tagore remains close to my heart not only as a national hero, poet, painter and creator but also as one who understood life and its meaning closely than most nationalists, who were either too extremists or too moderate.
Tagore was a literary and a creative person, which I found more appealing.
Photos from the Internet
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