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Unit 10: Once There was a King by Rabindranath Tagore

Tagore’s remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, 1937 collection Notes
of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy
informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the
process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and
Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of
illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and
near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell. He never recovered.
Poetry from these valetudinarian years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended
with Tagore’s death on 7 August 1941, aged eighty; he was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko
mansion he was raised in. The date is still mourned. A.K. Sen, brother of the first chief election
commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled
operation: his last poem.
“I’m lost in the middle of my birthday. I want my friends, their touch, with the earth’s last love.
I will take life’s final offering, I will take the human’s last blessing. Today my sack is empty.
I have given completely whatever I had to give. In return if I receive anything—some love,
some forgiveness—then I will take it with me when I step on the boat that crosses to the festival
of the wordless end.“

10.2 Works of Rabindranath Tagore

Known mostly for his poetry, Tagore wrote novels, essays, short stories, travelogues, dramas,
and thousands of songs. Of Tagore’s prose, his short stories are perhaps most highly regarded;
he is indeed credited with originating the Bengali-language version of the genre. His works are
frequently noted for their rhythmic, optimistic, and lyrical nature. Such stories mostly borrow
from deceptively simple subject matter: commoners. Tagore’s non-fiction grappled with history,
linguistics, and spirituality. He wrote autobiographies. His travelogues, essays, and lectures
were compiled into several volumes, including Europe Jatrir Patro (Letters from Europe) and
Manusher Dhormo (The Religion of Man). His brief chat with Einstein, “Note on the Nature of
th
Reality”, is included as an appendix to the latter. On the occasion of Tagore’s 150 birthday an
anthology (titled Kalanukromik Rabindra Rachanabali) of the total body of his works is currently
being published in Bengali in chronological order. This includes all versions of each work and
fills about eighty volumes. In 2011, Harvard University Press collaborated with Visva-Bharati
University to publish The Essential Tagore, the largest anthology of Tagore’s works available in
English; it was edited by Fakrul Alam and Radha Chakravarthy and marks the 150th anniversary
of Tagore’s birth.

Example: With an infinite sympathy and rare psychological insight, Tagore works out
the emotional possibilities of different human relations.” For example, B.C. Chakravorty says
of “The Postmaster,” counted among Tagore’s finest short stories, “The story by itself is hopelessly
uninteresting. But it acquires immense interest on account of the passages of lyrical grandeur
which give a poetic expression to the feelings of the orphan girl and those of the postmaster.”
10.2.1 Music

Tagore was a prolific composer with 2,230 songs to his credit. His songs are known as
rabindrasangit (“Tagore Song”), which merges fluidly into his literature, most of which—poems
or parts of novels, stories, or plays alike—were lyricised. Influenced by the thumri style of
Hindustani music, they ran the entire gamut of human emotion, ranging from his early dirge-
like Brahmo devotional hymns to quasi-erotic compositions. They emulated the tonal color of
classical ragas to varying extents. Some songs mimicked a given raga’s melody and rhythm

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