Rabindranath Tagore: The Myriad-Minded Man

by Krishna Dutta, Andrew Robinson

This is a biography of Rabindraneth Tagore who won the Nobel Prize in 1913, the first of only two Asian writers to do so. Today he is highly regarded in Bengal. He perceived that the ancient polarities of East and West would be compelled to meet in the 20th century. An educational, social, political and religious reformer, he wrote poetry, short stories, novels, essays and plays, and he painted and composed songs.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, India, Religion, Literature, Poetry

493 pages, Hardcover

First published February 16, 1995

Reviews

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5

[Tagore] replied [...] that he would much rather allow Shantiniketan to be 'strangled' by official mistrust than 'fettered' by official help.


"Japan is the youngest disciple of Europe — she has no soul — she is all science — and she has no sentiment for other people than her own. If things ever go wrong with England everything is beautifully made ready for Japan."

-Tagore writing to his daughter Mira, Chicago, October 1916

I bought this book at a humble library sale that I was occupying my time with while my sister, whom I was visiting at the time, was at work. It was one of those purchases that I made due to not seeing anything else of note and/or of presence on my TBR, although in terms of the acquisitions I've made with an eye on filling a gap in my knowledge, this is certainly one of the standouts. For while I was familiar with such types as Karel Čapek, Okakura Kakuzō, Mahatma Gandhi, Helen Keller, Albert Einstein, Franz Kafka, Yasunari Kawabata, Victoria Ocampo, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Ghandi, and so many other movers and shakers of the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries of the international scene, it is another thing entirely to watch a figure like Rabindranath Tagore touch each and every one of them in ways that may not have always succeeded in understanding or fruitfulness, but were never insignificant in the shared intent or the cross-cultural effort. It didn't hurt that Tagore himself was inordinately perceptive when it came to the nation-building choices that would eventually coalesce into full fledged fascism, and while he was more than susceptible to prioritizing aesthetics over communication, I can't help but think about how different (and how much worse) the world would have been without him. Indeed, the worse thing about this biography is its unwillingness to present Tagore without significant subjectivity in certain key respects. Thus you get authorial admonishments of Tagore not being more sympathetic to a white Anglo biographer, a sweeping pronouncement that the "West" has become less creative in everything save film since the 1940s, and a flyaway reference to Prince Nyabongo of the Toro Kingdom in modern day West Uganda as some 'African prince' who met with Tagore. It's worth keeping the 1995 publication in mind for a few of these things, but when I look at the Tagore biographies available to the modern reader that have been published since then and find only a 2019 work numbering less than 300 pages and having less than five ratings, what else is there that an Anglo autodidact like myself can resort to? As such, I'm glad that I picked this up, as both the ideals and the flaws of its subject and its composers reflect my own to such a degree that I have smile bemusedly and take what wealth of learning I garnered in the long run. I'm far from done with Tagore when it comes to an overall appreciation, but this tome was as good a start as one who doesn't know a lick of Bangla can expect to get in the 21st century.

[T]he Nobel committee of 1913 had not the foggiest notion that in far-off Bengal Tagore was a polemical critic of religious, social and political orthodoxy, and by no means friendly to Government. If they had read his Bengali essays, they would not have given him the Nobel Prize. (Today, by contrast, his prose writings would more likely have secured him the prize than his translated poetry.)

P.S. Have I mentioned that Tagore's 'Shah Jahan', a poetic meditation on that emperor commissioner of the Taj Mahal, is so much like my meditation on Emperor Hadrian in my review of Yorcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian that I nearly crawled out of my skin? Talk about incentive for believing in past lives.

[Sean de la Rosa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quote: "What I had possessed I was made to let go - and it distressed me - but when in the same moment I viewed it as a freedom gained, a great peace fell upon me."

Tagore was a Bengali poet, playwrite, musician and painter who received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913 (he wrote the Indian anthem). This account by Dutta and Robinson portrays a man enamoured with India. Whereas Gandhi, Tagore's counterpart of the same era, sought total independence from British rule, Tagore desired something far more Utopian: the synthesis of the best of east and west. The biography sets India in the early twentieth century where caste traditions burdened the general populace and child marriages were still extremely common (Tagore's first wife was only 9 years old). Continually travelling the world seeking funding for his school, Visva-Bharati, Tagore met some outstanding thinkers of his day: HG Wells, Einstein, Mussolini, Bernard Shaw, Yeats, etc. Tagore died at the ripe old age of 80, misunderstood and disillusioned by the world around him. His death is still mourned across India today.

I couldn't help but notice similarities between South Africa and India in those early days: a country fighting for its independence and a place as a culture and grouping of people who have a unique contribution to make. India seems even more alluring now after reading this biography.

[Anmol · Rating 3 out of 5]

I never knew that Tagore met Mussolini, and gave speeches at the Colosseum. I never knew that Hesse, one of my favourite novelists whose works I am currently re-reading in the German original, was an admirer of Tagore. All this and other fascinating anecdotes from this quite detailed biography make me even more interested in Tagore, but I think I agree with Satyajit Ray's opinion that Tagore's work, and especially his poems and songs, are untranslatable from the original Bengali. Now, as someone who has no plans to learn Bengali at least in the next few years, how should I approach Tagore's work? If I read English translations, as I did with Gitanjali a few years ago, I will inevitably find his work a bit dry and flat (as I did back then), because the poetic quality of the original is lost. I mentioned Hesse earlier - as much as I liked his work for its philosophical qualities when I read it in translation during my teenage years, now when I read him in German I realise how beautiful his prose really is. All that is lost by reading Tagore in English.

What about Hindi? I barely read literature in Hindi, and when I do, I often find that (this is particularly true for translations) it is too formal, too Sanskritised, too governmental even, and lacking in all the qualities that are necessary for good prose (Sanskrit itself, by contrast, is probably the most lyrical language I can read). Maybe it's my bias as a native speaker, but Hindi (and for that matter, my other languages, English and Punjabi) lack the lyrical quality of Bengali, French, and (despite the stereotypes) German to my ears. So while I could consider reading Tagore's stories or novels in Hindi translation, I will actively avoid his poetry until the day that I decide to start learning Bengali.

[Ursula McQ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tagore's life and work is so fascinating one wonders whether it's indeed possible to write a biography that isn't gripping. This book should be prescribed to a culture obsessed with a superficial form of "cultural diversity."

[Ram · Rating 5 out of 5]

The soul of indian literature and his vivid portrait

[Nick Bosco · Rating 4 out of 5]

This anthology is a great introduction to both the breadth and depth of Tagore and the way he sees the world. With the many different forms of writing and paintings shown here, it just goes to show what a unique mind he possesses and an encounter with Tagore’s work shouldn’t be taken for granted

[Samarth Bhaskar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another in the line of many heroes from pre and during-partition India