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Elective English—III

Notes Asian Art, Berlin, Asia Society, New York, National Museum of Korea, Seoul, Victoria and
Albert Museum, London, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Petit Palais, Paris, Galleria
Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome, National Visual Arts Gallery (Malaysia), Kuala Lumpur,
McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Ontario, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi.

10.3 Novels

Tagore wrote eight novels and four novellas, among them Chaturanga, Shesher Kobita, Char
Odhay, and Noukadubi. Ghare Baire (The Home and the World)—through the lens of the idealistic
zamindar protagonist Nikhil—excoriates rising Indian nationalism, terrorism, and religious
zeal in the Swadeshi movement; a frank expression of Tagore’s conflicted sentiments, it emerged
from a 1914 bout of depression. The novel ends in Hindu-Muslim violence and Nikhil’s—likely
mortal—wounding.
Gora raises controversial questions regarding the Indian identity. In Ghare Baire, matters of
self-identity (jâti), personal freedom, and religion are developed in the context of a family story
and love triangle. In it an Irish boy orphaned in the Sepoy Mutiny is raised by Hindus as the
titular gora—”whitey”. Ignorant of his foreign origins, he chastises Hindu religious backsliders
out of love for the indigenous Indians and solidarity with them against his hegemon-compatriots.
In Jogajog (Relationships), the heroine Kumudini—bound by the ideals of Shiva-Sati, exemplified
by Dâkshâyani—is torn between her pity for the sinking fortunes of her progressive and
compassionate elder brother and his foil: her roue of a husband. Tagore flaunts his feminist
leanings; pathos depicts the plight and ultimate demise of women trapped by pregnancy, duty,
and family honour; he simultaneously trucks with Bengal’s putrescent landed gentry. The story
revolves around the underlying rivalry between two families—the Chatterjees, aristocrats now
on the decline (Biprodas) and the Ghosals (Madhusudan), representing new money and new
arrogance. Kumudini, Biprodas’ sister, is caught between the two as she is married off to
Madhusudan. She had risen in an observant and sheltered traditional home, as had all her
female relations.
Others were uplifting: Shesher Kobita—translated twice as Last Poem and Farewell Song—is his
most lyrical novel, with poems and rhythmic passages written by a poet protagonist. It contains
elements of satire and postmodernism and has stock characters that gleefully attack the reputation
of an old, outmoded, oppressively renowned poet who, incidentally, goes by a familiar name:
“Rabindranath Tagore”. Though his novels remain among the least appreciated of his works,
they have been given renewed attention via film adaptations by Ray and others: Chokher Bali
and Ghare Baire are exemplary. In the first, Tagore inscribes Bengali society via its heroine: a
rebellious widow who would live for herself alone. He pillories the custom of perpetual
mourning on the part of widows, who were not allowed to remarry, who were consigned to
seclusion and loneliness. Tagore wrote of it: “I have always regretted the ending”.

10.4 Stories

Tagore’s three-volume Galpaguchchha comprises eighty-four stories that reflect upon the author’s
surroundings, on modern and fashionable ideas, and on mind puzzles. Tagore associated his
earliest stories, such as those of the “Sadhana” period, with an exuberance of vitality and
spontaneity; zamindar Tagore’s life in Patisar, Shajadpur, Shelaidaha, and other villages cultivated
these traits. Seeing the common and the poor, he examined their lives with a depth and feeling
singular in Indian literature up to that point. In “The Fruit seller from Kabul”, Tagore speaks in
first person as a town dweller and novelist imputing exotic perquisites to an Afghan seller.
He channels the lucrative lust of those mired in the blasé, nidorous, and sudorific morass of sub
continental city life: for distant vistas. “There were autumn mornings, the time of year when

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