Bits of Life 2

M-8 Words-1025

shook her delicate frame, ‘Spurn me not for this last weakness; this, Madhav, this, may be our last meeting; I too , too deeply have I loved you – too deeply I love you still, to part with you for even without a struggle.”

When Matangini returns to Rajmohan after saving Madhav, Rajmohan turns on her savagely: “Woman, ‘he said fiercely, deceive me not. Canst thou? Thou little knowst how I have watched thee; how from the earliest day that thy beauty became thy curse,”


It is evident that the novelist is concerned about the drawbacks linked with such social institutions like family and marriage and their impact on the individual’s life.

To me his novel Anandamath was pretty engaging.

Ānandamaṭh is a patriotic tale of the revolt of the sanyasis or mendicants against the British forces of the East India Company, in 1882; it was a hard time for Bengal. There was a revolt among the ascetics of both Hindu and Muslim religions that joined forces together to rise against the East India Company who acquired their land.

Thus the British disrupted the local agrarian economy by replacing produce-based revenue collection with cash-based taxation, forcing peasants to sell crops at low prices to meet tax demands. It is a fight against the British colonial rule in India.

The novel Anandamath was written with this background in view.

Rabindranath Tagore-

Rabindranath Tagore is the star that shines brightly in the sky of Indian English Literature.

Rabindranath Tagore was a renowned Indian poet, writer, and philosopher. He was born on May 7, 1861, in Calcutta.
He was the first non-European and first Asian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 for his poetry collection, Gitanjali.

Affectionately known as "Gurudev” he reshaped Bengali literature and music with his extensive works.

Tagore composed the national anthems of two different nations: India ("Jana Gana Mana") and Bangladesh ("Amar Shonar Bangla").
He founded Shantiniketan in 1901, an experimental school promoting education in harmony with nature, which later became Visva-Bharati University.

Tagore was a prolific artist, having written over 2,000 songs, now known as Rabindra Sangeet, which are integral to Bengali culture.
He renounced his British knighthood in 1919 to protest the brutal Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
His notable literary works include novels like Gora and Ghare-Baire or The Home and the World.

Tagore began writing poetry at the age of eight and started painting in his late 60s, displaying immense creative range.
He passed away on August 7, 1941, leaving a profound legacy that continues to inspire globally.

Noble laureate Rabindranath Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in the year 1913 for his collection of poems called Gitanjali. Gitanjali means offerings of songs.
As the title suggests Geetanjali consists of lyrical songs.
Gitanjali is a collection of 103 English prose poems translated by Rabindranath Tagore from his original work written in Bengali into English. It was published in 1912 with an introduction by W.B. Yeats. It explores themes of deep devotion, spirituality, nature, and the human soul’s connection to the divine,

It begins with an impressively devotional line,
“Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure.”

Song thirty five of the text describes the kind of heaven that the poet wants live in.

“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;”

The kind of world he imagines is without racial or religious divide and it would be a country with a modern outlook.
I cannot forget the song one hundred three.
“"Like a rain-cloud of July hung low with its burden
of unshed showers let all my mind
bend down at thy door in one salutation to thee."”

July in India is at the heart of the rainy season. And the clouds are heavy and gray full of rain.
Metaphorically, the term “unshed showers” represent the poet’s unspoken feelings and spiritual longings.

The final total surrender to God is shown in the last lines of the poem.

Song ninety five of the collection has an appealing effect on the reader, particularly for those who fear death.
Its implications are many and various.

For example, embracing death is a natural occurrence.

“And because I love this life, I know I shall love death as well".

It emphasizes that the transition from life to death is a natural, peaceful, and familiar process, not to be feared.
Death is like the partner one is married to. Someone loving and someone you want in life.

“After the wedding the bride shall leave
her home and meet her lord alone in the
solitude of night.”

You can see that the poet captured the idea of traditional Indian bride leaving for her husband’s house.
In another song, the poet says

“Death, my death, come and whisper to me.”

This is a poignant plea by the poet to death, Personification of death is used effectively like in the poems of Emily Dickinson.
Death is depicted as the last fulfilment of life. We witness the current of life finally flowing to the final intimate moment with death.
There is a serene acceptance of death instead of fear.

The kind of language used in Gitanjali is noteworthy.
The use of archaic forms such as pronouns such as thou, thy, thee, thine, and thyself to address the divine elevates the style.
Structure is not metrical but it is highly rhythmic, lyrical and meditative in tone.
The use of simple language consisting of common nouns such as flower, heart, boat, cloud and stream to convey complex spiritual concepts.

In his introduction to Gitanjali, William Butler Yeats said, “I have carried the manuscript of these translations about with me for days, reading it in railway trains, or on the tops of omnibuses and in restaurants, and I have often had to close it lest some stranger would see how much it moved me.”
He was able to understand the spirit behind songs of devotion.

He knew that Tagore belongs to a tradition where religion and poetry went together for eons.
Tagore’s novel “The Home and the World” has a tightly