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US scholars churn out wrong facts on Tagore
SATYA SAIN
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
SANTINIKETAN, Aug. 16. — Was Rabindranath Tagore born of Brahmin parents? Was he their eldest son? Well, so think two American editors.
Prefacing Tagore in the Great Stories by Nobel Prize Winners, the book’s editors, Leo Hamalian and Edmond L Volpe, say: “Sir Rabindranath Tagore was born in 1861 in Calcutta, the eldest son of a wealthy Brahmin.
[Please refresh your memory: Rabindranath was the eight child and the sixth son of the Brahmo (not Brahmin) leader, Maharshi Debendranath Tagore (1817-1905) and Sarada Devi (1821-1875).]
The book was originally published by Noonday Press. The Indian edition was brought out in 1994 by Rupa & Co. The book has 26 stories. It starts with Father by Bjornsterne Bjornsen (Norway), 1903 Nobel Laureate, and ends with II Tratoo de Apele by Boria Pasternak, who refused the award in 1958. Tagore’s story in the collection is Saved (Uddhar in Bengali).
What prompted the editors to include a lesser known story by India’s only Nobel Laureate in literature? Perhaps, its size. It is only of two printed pages and the shortest of the stories in the anthology.
Besides, it was published by Macmillian years ago. Obviously, the editors didn’t look beyond the published material. Many of Tagore’s better known stories are yet to be translated into English.
There are more surprises for Tagore scholars. Hamalian and Volpe credit Tagore, who won the Nobel in 1913, with having penned “about fifty dramas, a hundred books of verses, forty books of fiction, and books of essays and philosophy....”
Tagore was undoubtedly the most prolific writer of his time, but he didn’t churn out the masterpieces on such an astronomical scale. The hyperbole doesn’t add to Tagore’s glory as a writer.
“The figures seem to be quite inflated. Tagore lived long to produce volumes of corpus, but he had other pursuits such as painting and music, in which he equally excelled,” said Mr Prasanta Pal, Tagore’s biographer.
Poor homework led the editors to some more pitfalls. “When he (Tagore) was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1913, he was on a lecture tour of the United States,” they say.
Tagore was very much in Santiniketan when the news of his winning the Nobel prize reached him on 14 November. The poet had gone on a six-month tour of the USA that year, but he had left for his country on 14 April.
The editors’ knowledge of geography is no less curious. “In 1885, he (Tagore) went to Silaida (sic) on the bank of the Ganges, to oversee his father’s estate...,” they say.
How could the duo miss the Padma, that cradelled the poet for the best part of his life, for the Ganga? The year, too, was wrong. Tagore went to Shelidah in 1891 and stayed there till 1901, intermittently visiting Calcutta and Santiniketan.
The Shelidah years were perhaps the most productive part of Tagore’s literary life. During the decade, he wrote 59 short stories, including the one that got into the collection.
Uddhar was published in 1900 in Bharati, a literary magazine later edited by Tagore himself. It reveals the emotional conflict between a suspicious husband and a devoted wife. It’s, however, not a representative Tagore story.
Prof Amitrasudan Bhattacharya, a Tagore expert, said: “It’s nothing new. Tagore had all along been a soft target of so-called Western critics. And it was not always sheer ignorance, but a deliberate attempt at denigrating an Asian genius. Just recall the aftermath of his winning the Nobel award. But what is really deplorable is that things haven’t changed much after about a century.”
Tagore scholars want Visva Bharati to ask the editors and publisher of the collection to replace Saved by another piece, that reflects Tagore at his creative best.
They also want the incorrect biographical note to be withdrawn.
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