Aug 18, 2003 07:11 AM
108364 Views
(Updated Aug 18, 2003 07:16 AM)
Rabindranath Tagore’sGitanjali rightly deserves all the accolades it got – even the Nobel Prize. Gitanjali is a collection of over 100 poems, full of life, full of inspiration and full of color. Gitanjali speaks of birth of life, to the death, the nature and man’s quest for answers from God.
All the poems are of short length – probably around a page at the most, and in some cases around 2 pages. However the meaning they convey is simply tremendous. From the beginning poems inspiring people to live idol worship to the last poems on viewing death, each one of them is brilliantly composed and written. The author himself translated the original Bengali poems into English, giving it an authentic feel.
Be it song or rain, nature or god, each poems display the simplicity of thoughts. Simple repetitive lines add to certain poems, while other poems are just a collection of sentences joined together. However as said, it’s the content which forms the magic of the whole collection when read together.
Interestingly, reading poetry is different from reading a book and is a difficult task. The ideal way to read poetry is to read it little by little. If you are bang on reading all the 100 poems in one day (which if you want you could), then there is no magic left. Rather the correct approach to enjoying Gitanjali is to read several poems and think upon them. If necessary, read them again to grasp the meaning. The colonial English doesn’t help you either in understand the poem at first go. Try to grasp the feel of the poem to enjoy the meaning of the poem.
Nuances between God and Man’s tribulations with God are captured beautifully in this book. While one poem describes a person waiting for the temple gates to be opened, the other describes beautifully a woman who is ready and awaiting her lord to come and embrace her.
De-mystifying the joys of the nature is also one of Tagore’s favorite subject in the set of poems. The eagerness to await the rain, the eagerness to see the sun, each of those moods has been captured beautifully in the book.
Rain forms an important feature of this book, with many poems dedicated to rain itself. While one poem explains the joy of oncoming rain, the other brings about the mysticism of a stormy night. Tagore doesn’t require too many words to convey his meaning. His command over his thoughts automatically flow through his pen with supreme ease.
Always magical, always inspirational, these offering of songs by Tagore are treated with care and devotion. All the poems are soulful, light and melodious to read. Thats the beauty of Gitanjali, every poem is a melodious song of beautiful words which stay on a long time after you have read them.
No thought seems to be far away from Tagore’s brilliant pen. He writes about giving up God in one page and making work as worship, and in the very next poem he manages to describes the complete devotion of a human in god. Day after Day, O lord of my life, shall I stand, is easily one of the best composed poems in this collection.
As with many Indian authors who were not discovered by western world during the British era, Rabindranath Tagore’s poems too were discovered by W.B.Yeats. W.B.Yeats gives a beautiful and a fitting tribute as a preface to this edition. Anyone reading this book should not miss the preface of the book.
Though, given the brilliance of the poems in this collection, I must also add that some of them are the kind of poems that may not necessarily strike you or touch your heart. Some of the poems are just 3 or 4 lines, which when read as it is may not really mean much, however they may take time to settle over you.
However, that is too small a price to pay for such a lovely book. The best poems definitely are the ones where the author converses with god and the oncoming of death. Tagore devotes around 10 to 15 poems on death, and they express a gamut of emotions of a person seeing death – be it false bravery that he is not afraid of death, or about accepting death as a finality, the poems do definitely leave a mark on you.
Thou, Thy, and Thee are the most common words in this book. If you are not well versed with queen’s English, then it will be definitely difficult for you to follow the book. One must be very clear what these words mean before reading the book. A bit of trivia here – Tagore refused to don the title of ‘Sir’ given by Queen of England as part of the freedom struggle.
Around the same time as he was offered the title of Sir, he was also presented the Nobel Prize in 1914. His rendition of Jana Gana Mana formed the National Anthem of India later on. On the same note its interesting to note that not one poem of this book talks anything about freedom struggle or anything related to that.
Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force; that thoughts rule the world – how appropriate these quotes are by Ralph Emorson and how true they apply to Tagore. Tagore’s thoughts have lived on to fill people with joy, hope, inspiration to so many people around the world. This book too is nothing short of inspiration by that standards.
On the other hand, if you are deep into poetry and think of a poetry as a artistic vagary then Gitanjali may not be for you. Gitanjali emphasizes on words and not the structure – thus defining many normal norms of poetry – why some poems may almost feel like a one page story.
Refreshing, reliving and inspiring, these poems can be best enjoyed when read in the morning or late in the night before sleeping. The reasons for reading them at that time is when the mind is free and not about to dwell into the tensions of life. The magic of Tagore’s poetry can only be appreciated only if you are free to appreciate the smaller but beautiful details which Tagore notices and expresses them in such words.
Ending, this is one of the best collection of poems you can ever read. Read one a day, two a day, but read this book – it’s a collection of myriad thoughts penned together in one single book. Gitanjali is simply what it means – offerings to God. Read it to enjoy it.
