We missed celebrating Rabindranath Tagore's birthday by several days. Well, better late than never, so here goes. Here are three of Tagore's celebrated works, two short stories and a novel.
A clip from Charulata, the well known movie based on Tagore's short story, Nashta Need. The first is the well known song, O bideshini. Tagore, Ray, Saumitro Chatterjee and Ray's muse, Madhabi Mukherjee. The singer is Kishore Kumar. He wrote a very sweet letter to Satyajit Ray (Manek Mama) which essentially left the choice of fees to him!
The first scene from this movie is equally famous. Charu moving from room to room in her house, following the hawker's cries. It is clear she is bored out of her skull. The rest of the movie follows from her family's attempts to keep her amused and occupied.
The second is a celebrated novel, Sesher Kobita, sometimes translated as `The last letter' and sometimes as `Farewell my Friend', the eternal love story of Amit and Labanya, who went and married someone else, so that they could remain eternal lovers. The logic of this was always lost to conventional minds (a.k.a yours truly), but certainly makes for a sweet story. A recent take on this one starred Rahul Bose and Konkona Sen Sharma. See here the official trailer.
The last is a short story `The Castaway', the tale of Nilkanta, a castaway who finds refuge with Kiran and her husband Sharat, and who is made a great pet of by Kiran. Unfortunately, Kiran's brother in law Satish, arrives on the scene, and occupies all her time, leading to great jealousy on the part of Nilkanta, and also to stealing Satish's prized possession, a swan shaped inkstand, out of spite. Nilkanta leaves, Kiran finds out, and covers up for him.
Tagore's portrayals of women have always been sensitive and nuanced. He also portrays a society where they occupied privileged positions. It is surprising to think these stories were written a hundred years ago. Contemporary comments make it clear this was a small segment of society (perhaps people like the Tagore family) and was far from being the norm. Nevertheless the charm of the stories lies in their emotional veracity, which is sometimes lost in translation. This is where the power of the movies lies, they speak to audiences which cannot access the originals. Charulata's largest audience is in France, and Konkona's movie reaches out to a panIndia audience. While some of Tagore's work has been filmed by Ray and other great directors, a huge body remains unfilmed. We wish some guild of film makers would take up this challenge.
This blog post is by Neelima Gupte and Sumathi Rao.
