Tagore in the consciousness
Syed Badrul Ahsan is cheered by a new work on the bard
Fakrul Alam's involvement with Tagore studies goes quite a long way back in time. Hear him in his own worlds, "I have taken a scholarly interest in Rabindranath Tagore for less than a decade now but he has been part of my life from the dawn of my consciousness."
That statement sets the tempo of his truly scholarly study on the bard in Rabindranath Tagore and National Identity Formation. Of course, one more work on Tagore could well induce the reader into wondering about the need for new research on him. The difficulty as well as advantage of studying Tagore stem from the reality of the multidimensional nature of the man. That, in essence, could be the response to the question of whether there has not been a surfeit of Tagore research. The truth about Tagore, as we know it and as Fakrul Alam informs us yet once again, is the superhuman qualities that define the man. Everything about Tagore, says Alam, is larger than life. And so it is, a statement easily borne out by the unending and, one might as well add, increasing interest in the poet, both in Bangladesh and West Bengal and all across the Bengali diaspora.
For Tagore researchers and scholars, Alam's work provides a wide spectrum of choices where selecting and sifting through the myriad qualities of Tagore literature is concerned. The writer presents the poet in that all-encompassing aura of modernity, which fundamentally is to examine Tagore against the background of the innumerable contributions, with all their ramifications, he made in Bengali literature. Neatly segmented into two sections, Essays and Reviews and Occasional Essays, the work makes for easy reading --- and not just for those on the scholarly perches. The general reader, depending on the way he has approached Tagore, could spot in this book some, if not all, of the topics he has by and large associated with the bard.
That said, the wide range of subjects Fakrul Alam brings into his recollections of Tagore is reflective of the sustained studies he has put into the pursuit of the poet's intellectual dimensions. Alam's forte has over the past three decades and more been a study and teaching of English literature at Dhaka University as well as quite a few reputed private universities in the country. But that he has, like his colleague and contemporary Syed Manzoorul Islam, gone beyond what one would normally consider as his normal calling by venturing into studies of Bengali literature is a happenstance that enriches the region of scholarly research in the country. Alam begins with the matter of Tagore's influence on the formation as also formulation of the Bengali national identity in a part of the world that once was linked to communal politics. Essentially, therefore, the growth of Bengali nationalism has considerably to do with Tagore's place in the Bengali psyche. Alam underscores the point.
And then he moves on, to offer readers detailed images of the poet's relevance in Bengali life as well as in the world outside the old Bengal. That nature is fundamentally the school where the many lessons of life are imbibed comes through in his brilliant enumeration of the roles of Rabindranath Tagore and Henry David Thoreau in the essay, Luminous with Vision: Rabindranath Tagore, Thoreau and Life-Centred Education amidst Nature. It is one of the early ways in which Alam portrays the protean nature of Tagore thought and is briskly followed by other essays on the poet. Take the matter of Tagore translations and the attendant difficulties. Alam should know, for his involvement with Tagore translations has been of an intense sort of late. The writer chooses to discuss an entire gamut of issues in the field of translation in altogether three chapters, namely, The Gitanjali in Translation: A Miracle of Transformation; One Hundred Years of Rabindranath Tagore Translations and Some Problems of Translating Rabindranath Tagore's Poetry. The poet was of course quite cognizant of the impediments he faced in the area of translation. Alam makes note of a Tagore statement quoted by William Radice in this context: "I have done grave injustice to my work. My English is like a frail boat --- and to save it from an utter disaster I had to jettison the most part of its cargo. But the cargo being a living one it has been mutilated."
Fakrul Alam's reflections on Tagore and the Nobel Prize come loaded with details related to the award coming to him. To be sure, for a large section of literature-driven Bengalis, the Nobel and everything associated with it is already an important component of the public consciousness. But what Alam does is to explain, in minute detail, the entirety of the Nobel story in terms of its background as also in light of what followed once he had received the award. Obviously, Tagore's reputation as a poet was burnished by the award. On the one hand, Tagore's books achieved instant popularity across the globe. On the other, the poet was palpably transformed into a global figure. He visited Japan in 1916 and travelled to the West in 1920, dispensing his thoughts before audiences in such places as London. But, as Alam points out, his condemnation of war-mongering in Europe, his rejection of the knighthood in light of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of Indians by the British colonial power in 1919 did not exactly endear him to people in England. Lady Ottoline Morell was one of Tagore's critics. Matters were slightly better on the Continent, where Romain Rolland became a friend and Albert Schweitzer referred to him as the Goethe of India.
This work is a comprehensive study of the life and times of Rabindranath Tagore. And the charm in it comes through the clear lines of demarcation Fakrul Alam has set for himself. At one level, he approaches his subject from a totally academic point of view; at another, his individual perceptions of the poet glide into the narrative. This latter bit essentially comprises the reviews he has done of late of books on Tagore as also his thoughts on different aspects of Rabindrasangeet. His tribute to Debobroto Biswas comes from the heart, based as it is on his recollection of the concerts the legendary artiste performed at here in Bangladesh --- at the TSC and Ramna Park and on Bangladesh Television. Alam's Bengali spirit is kindled, as in the case of many other Bengalis, through increasing contact with Tagore music --- at home and in the larger social ambience. If Alam were to point to a specific period in time when Tagore made an entry into his life, it was in the depressing days of 1971 when many youths like him were confined to their homes lest they fall prey to the Pakistan occupation army on the streets. Calcutta Radio and Shwadhin Bangla Betar instilled the Tagore spirit, in abundance, into Fakrul Alam's psyche. The spirit has never abandoned him.
Proof of it is this work, one that readers ought not to miss out on.
Syed Badrul Ahsan is Executive Editor, The Daily Star.
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