Remembering Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore was the best author in Indian writing; a Bengali writer, author, instructor, Nobel Laureate for Literature [1913]. He was awarded a knighthood in 1915, yet he surrendered it in 1919 in dissent against the Massacre of Amritsar, where British troops executed 400 Indian demonstrators.

Rabindranath Tagore’s 74th demise commemoration was on August 7. He was born on 7 May. [1861-1941]

I recall reading his novel ‘Gora’. Gora is more than a novel; it is an epic of India on the move at a critical time of present-day history, when the social conscience and intellectual awareness of the new intellectuals were in the throes of a great stirring. It is an examination, of complex  Indian social existence, with its abounding disagreements, or of the character of Indian patriotism, which draws its roots from re-developing Hinduism and extends its arms towards all-inclusive humanism.

Tagore is a splendid writer as he puts the reader before issues of India. Everything, even the characters, has a reason, an obscure significance. Gora is a masterpiece and cherished jewel in Bengali Literature. The excellent novel inspects the social life amid The British period in India. It is a mind-boggling story of religion, adoration, patriotism and conviction.

I additionally can’t overlook these motivating lines from his poems

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake 

Endless Time

Time is endless in thy hands, my lord.

There is none to count thy minutes.

Days and nights pass and ages bloom and fade like flowers.

Thou knowest how to wait.

Thy centuries follow each other perfecting a small wild flower.

We have no time to lose,

and having no time we must scramble for a chance.

We are too poor to be late.

And thus it is that time goes by

while I give it to every querulous man who claims it,

and thine altar is empty of all offerings to the last.

At the end of the day I hasten in fear lest thy gate be shut;

but I find that yet there is time.

*/The above post is a tribute to Rabindranath Tagore on his death anniversary /*