Rabindranath’s literary works

Rabindranath’s Literary Works

There is no denying the fact that Tagore's literary reputation is disproportionately influenced very much by regard for his poetry; however, he also wrote novels, essays, short stories, travelogues, dramas, and thousands of songs. Of Tagore's prose, his short stories are perhaps most highly regarded; indeed, he is credited with originating the Bengali-language version of the genre. His works are frequently noted for their rhythmic, optimistic, and lyrical nature. However, such stories mostly borrow from deceptively simple subject matter — the lives of ordinary people.

The first time I had sung the National Anthem composed by Rabindranath Tagore, the rhythm and the tune touched my heart and magnified the love for Bangladesh. I started reading his short stories and poems, which he created for children gave me real pleasure. His power of simplification and showing the beauty of truth within little things for extensive exemplification for which my inquisitiveness feelings make him my favorite author. The Tagore's were of a cultured and wealthy family. Rabindranath Tagore was born in 7th May 1861 and died in 7th August 1941. His father, Devendranath, was one of the leaders of the Brahma Samaj. The poet's early life was spent in an atmosphere of religion and arts, literature, music and paintings. As an author, the trend of his life was early contemplated. He was brought up and taught on three languages- Sanskrit, Bengali and English.
Tagore's literary life outspread over sixty years, and he reminds one of Victor Hugo in the copiousness and variety of his work: over one thousand poems; nearly two dozen plays and play-lets; eight novels; eight or more volumes of short stories; more than two thousands songs, of which he wrote both the words and the music; and a mass of prose on literary, social, religious, political, and other topics. In addition to his English translations of some of his literary works; his paintings; his travels and lecture-tours in Asia, America, and Europe; and his activities as an educationist, as a social and religious reformer, and as a politician- and there we have, judged by quantity alone, the life work of a Nipple. Suffice it to say that his genius was no more than the capacity for taking infinite pains; but to note the element of steel and concrete that went to his making, and thus to dispose of the legend, that has grown in some quarters in recent years, of Tagore the pale-lily poet of ladies' table.
In 1901 he founded his school, the Santiniketan, at Bolpur as a protest against the existing evil system of education. The school was a great success and transfigured Viswabharati. On revisiting England in 1911 he brought with him the English Gitanjali, and it's publication in 1912 and the award of the Nobel Prize for literature the following year made him world-famous. This was the first award of that prize to an Asiatic. The rest of Tagore's life was spent at Santiniketan, except for several travels and lecture-tours in which he carried his message of human unity to all the important countries of Asia, America and Europe.
Tagore was a proud and ardent patriot. His most intense period of political activity was in the years following 1905, when the agitation against the partition of Bengal was at its highest speed. He renounced his knighthood in 1919 as protest against the Amritsar affair in a letter to the Viceroy, which is among the great documents of freedom. His patriotic poems and songs, particularly the latter, have passed into the common heritage of his country; the song "Bharata-bhagya-vidata" is now sung all over India and "Amar sonar Bangla" in Bangladesh as the national anthem. In this respect I would like to discuss a few of his books which have stirred my heart towards having an unbounded pleasure of spiritual as well as real cultural life.
HOIMONTI
It is a remarkable short story where Tagore has tried to reflect a contrast between the two families comprising of conservatism and modernism. Hoimonti was educated in modern system of education where her father had influenced her by proper knowledge, culture, heritage and means to retaliate the real life situation. But as ill luck would have it, she was married with Opu, a son of conservative family. This family believed in superstitions and social customs. Opu's father and mother had prejudice, which would influence Hoimonti tremendously. In the last Hoimonti was faded and her father-in-law was looking for another bride for his son.
BOLAI
This story is about a boy who doesn't have a mother and was brought up by his aunt. He developed the character, which is different from his age group. He has an uncommon fondness towards the plants and trees. Bolai would not tolerate if anybody would weed out any plants and trees. He thought that every plant has a unique life, which is unknown to everybody. He showed all his love and sympathy even for the tree which grew in an unsuitable place. In the last his most favourite tree was cut down when his father took to Shimla for higher studies. Bolai's aunt was shocked at the demolition of the tree, which she thought was the personification of Bolai.
SHESHER KABITA
It is a famous novel created by Tagore. The actress of the story is Labonno and the actor is Amit. The contrast and love affairs of them have been reflected in a significant manner. The book has the greatest literary value in the world. The real love an affair with high world literature has been vividly reflected here where the two craving personalities are eagerest to know each other. They were devoid of greed, jealousy, allusion and bad temperament and they know how to tackle the social confliction and criticism of social critics.
KABULIWALA
The main characters of this story are a girl named Mini and Rahmat the Kabuliwala. Kabuliwala is from Afghanistan; he sells things from door to door. Once she was introduced to Mini, the talkative girl who was five years old. The man has left his daughter who is of Mini's age back home. Mini and Kabuliwala developed a very good friendship. Kabuliwala used to bring dry fruits for Mini as present and showed the patience of listening to Mini. They used to tease each other about "going to in-laws house". For some reason the man has to go to prison for eight years. After coming from jail he wanted to meet Mini. But, at that time Mini's marriage ceremony was going on. In the past eight years she has forgotten her friend Kabuliwala. She was not friendly like her childhood and was feeling shy seeing him. Kabuliwala could feel the distance the time has passed between them and his daughter.
POSTMASTER
It is a short story by Rabindranath regarding a postmaster. The postmaster was transferred to a village post office of India. Here he met a girl named Ratan with whom he would always continue conversation hours after hours. One day the postmaster fell ill, Ratan has looked after him and in this way a close relationship was developed between them. When the postmaster was transferred to the town again the girl became shocked and she asked him to take her with him but the postmaster was not in a position to take her. Rattan lived with the sheer pain of the lovely memory; she had spent with the postmaster.
I like Rabindranath's book because I come to learn many things about the land, people and nature. We learn the problems, religion, culture and heritage of Bengali life. His books sometimes really create thrill, intuition and excitement for the readers by reflecting the social conflicts and contrast between conservative and modern educated people. Furthermore, his poetry ingrained in common life has been vividly contemplated in a significant manner, which stir my heart to a great extent.

Dramas

Tagore's experiences with drama began when he was sixteen with his brother Jyotirindranath Tagore wrote his first original dramatic piece when he was twenty — Valmiki Pratibha which was shown at the Tagore’s' mansion. Tagore stated that his works sought to articulate "the play of feeling and not of action". In 1890 he wrote Visarjan it has been regarded as his finest drama. In the original Bengali language, such works included intricate subplots and extended monologues. Later, Tagore's dramas used more philosophical and allegorical themes. Lastly, Tagore's Chandalika was modeled on an ancient legend describing how Gautama Buddha's discipline asks water of an tribal girl.

Tagore's plays also are important to Bengali literature. All of his plays have been repeatedly staged and re-interpreted over the years. His most famous play, perhaps, is Raktakaravi ("Red Oleanders") — the name of a red flower. It tells of a king who lives behind an iron curtain while his subjects have cruelty and death delivered upon them at the slightest pretext. People are forced to work in the mines so that the kleptocratic king and his cronies may render themselves even more wealthy. The play follows the heroine Nandini, who leads the people and finally the king himself towards the destruction of this artifact of subjugation. However, this ultimate victory is preceded by numerous deaths, most importantly that of Ranjan, Nandini's lover, and Kishore a young boy devoted to her. Tagore devoted much effort to Raktakaravi, with (at least) eleven extant revisions. However, Tagore's motivation in writing Raktakaravi is disputed, with some suggesting negative opinions formed during his visit to the mines of Bombay. Others attribute it to dislike of the West, while others think that a woman motivated him to create Nandini. Tagore's other notable plays include Chitrangada, Raja, Valmiki-Pratibha, and MayarKhela.

A drawing by Nandalall Bose illustrating Tagore's short story "The Hero", an English-language translation of which appeared in the 1913 Macmillan publication of Tagore's The Crescent Moon.

Tagore began his career in short stories in 1877—when he was only sixteen—with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). With this, Tagore effectively invented the Bengali-language short story genre. The four years from 1891 to 1895 are known as Tagore's "Sadhana" period (named for one of Tagore's magazines). This period was among Tagore's most fecund, yielding more than half the stories contained in the three-volume Galpaguchchha, which itself is a collection of eighty-four stories. Such stories usually showcase Tagore's reflections upon his surroundings, on modern and fashionable ideas, and on interesting mind puzzles (which Tagore was fond of testing his intellect with). Tagore typically associated his earliest stories (such as those of the "Sadhana" period) with an exuberance of vitality and spontaneity; these characteristics were intimately connected with Tagore's life in the common villages of, among others, Patisar, Shajadpur, and Shilaida while managing the Tagore family's vast landholdings. There, he beheld the lives of India's poor and common people; Tagore thereby took to examining their lives with a penetrative depth and feeling that was singular in Indian literature up to that point. In particular, such stories as "Cabuliwallah" ("The Fruit seller from Kabul", published in 1892), "Kshudita Pashan" ("The Hungry Stones") (August 1895), and "Athirst" ("The Runaway", 1895) typified this analytic focus on the downtrodden.In "The Fruit seller from Kabul", Tagore speaks in first person as town-dweller and novelist who chances upon the Afghani seller. He attempts to distill the sense of longing felt by those long trapped in the mundane and hardscrabble confines of Indian urban life, giving play to dreams of a different existence 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 .... ". Many of the other "Galpaguchchha" stories were written in Tagore's SabujPatra period (1914–1917, again, named after one of the magazines that Tagore edited and heavily contributed to). Tagore's Golpoguchchho ("Bunch of Stories") remains among the most popular fictional works in Bengali literature. Its continuing influence on Bengali art and culture cannot be overstated; to this day, Golpoguchchho remains a point of cultural reference. Golpoguchchho has furnished subject matter for numerous successful films and theatrical plays, and its characters are among the most well known to Bengalis. The acclaimed film director Satyajit Ray based his film Charulata ("The Lonely Wife") on Nastanirh ("The Broken Nest"). This famous story has an autobiographical element to it, modeled to some extent on the relationship between Tagore and his sister-in-law, Kadambari Devi. Ray has also made memorable films of other stories from Golpoguchchho, including Samapti, Postmaster and Monihara, bundling them together as Teen Kanya ("Three Daughters"). Atithi is another poignantly lyrical Tagore story which was made into a film of the same name by another noted Indian film director TapanSinha. Tarapada, a young Brahmin boy, catches a boat ride with a village zamindar. It turns out that he has run away from his home and has been wandering around ever since. The zamindar adopts him, and finally arranges a marriage to his own daughter. The night before the wedding Tarapada runs away again. StrirPatra (The letter from the wife) has to be one of the earliest depictions in Bengali literature of such bold emancipation of women. Mrinal is the wife of a typical Bengali middle class man. The letter, written while she is traveling (which constitutes the whole story), describes her petty life and struggles. She finally declares that she will not return to his patriarchical home, stating Amiobachbo. Eibachlum ("And I shall live. Here, I live").

In Haimanti, Tagore takes on the institution of Hindu marriage. He describes, via StrirPatra, the dismal lifelessness of Bengali women after they are married off, hypocrisies plaguing the Indian middle class, and how Haimanti, a sensitive young woman, must — due to her sensitiveness and free spirit — sacrifice her life. In the last passage, Tagore directly attacks the Hindu custom of glorifying Sita's attempted self-immolation as a means of appeasing her husband Rama's doubts (as depicted in the epic Ramayana). Tagore also examines Hindu-Muslim tensions in Musalmani Didi, which in many ways embodies the essence of Tagore's humanism. On the other hand, Darpaharan exhibits Tagore's self-consciousness, describing a young man harboring literary ambitions. 

In view of the above it is evident that though he loves his wife, he wishes to stifle her 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 via his acceptance of his wife's talents. As with many other Tagore stories, Jibito o Mrito provides the Bengalis with one of their more widely used epigrams: Kadombini moriya proman korilo she more nai ("Kadombini died, thereby proved that she hadn't").