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    Glimpses of Bengal
    Glimpses of Bengal
    Glimpses of Bengal
    Ebook123 pages1 hour

    Glimpses of Bengal

    By Rabindranath Tagore

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    According to Wikipedia: "Rabindranath Tagore (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941), sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali poet, novelist, musician, painter and playwright who reshaped Bengali literature and music. As author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he was the first non-European who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. His poetry in translation was viewed as spiritual, and this together with his mesmerizing persona gave him a prophet-like aura in the west. His "elegant prose and magical poetry" still remain largely unknown outside the confines of Bengal."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSeltzer Books
    Release dateMar 1, 2018
    ISBN9781455408443
    Glimpses of Bengal
    Author

    Rabindranath Tagore

    Rabindranath Tagore, India's most well-known poet and litterateur and arguably the finest Bengali poet ever, reshaped Bengali literature and music. He became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.Gulzar, an acclaimed film-maker, lyricist and author, he is the recipient of a number of Filmfare and National Awards, the Oscar for Best Lyricist and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award.

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      Book preview

      Glimpses of Bengal - Rabindranath Tagore

      GLIMPSES OF BENGAL, SELECTED FROM THE LETTERS OF SIR RABINDRANATH TAGORE 1885 TO 1895

      Published by Seltzer Books

      established in 1974, now offering over 14,000 books

      feedback welcome: seltzer@seltzerbooks.com  

      Works of Rabindanath Tagore available from Seltzer Books:

      Chitra, a Play in Play in One Act

      Creative Unity

      The Fugitive

      Glimpses of Bengal

      The Home and the World

      The Hungry Stones and Other Stories

      The King of the Dark Chamber

      Mashi and Other Stories

      Sadhana the Realisation of Life

      Stories from Tagore

      INTRODUCTION

      BANDORA, BY THE SEA October 1885

      July 1887

      SHELIDAH, 1888

      SHAZADPUR, 1890

      KILIGRAM, 1891

      KILIGRAM 1891

      NEARING SHAZADPUR

      January 1891

      SHAZADPUR

      February 1891

      February 1891

      ON THE WAY

      February 1891

      CHUHALI, June 1891.

      SHAZADPUR, June 1891.

      SHAZADPUR, June 1891.

      SHAZADPUR, June 1891.

      SHAZADPUR, June 1891.

      SHAZADPUR, July 1891.

      ON BOARD A CANAL STEAMER GOING TO CUTTACK, August 1891.

      TIRAN. 7th September 1891.

      SHELIDAH,  October 1891

      SHELIDAH, 2nd KARTIK, October 1891

      SHELIDAH, 3rd KARTIC, October 1891

      SHELIDAH, 9th January 1892

      SHELIDAH, 7th April 1892

      BOLPUR, 2ND May 1892

      BOLPUR, 8th Jaistha May 1892

      BOLPUR, 12th Jaistha May 1892

      BOLPUR, 16th Jaistha May 1892

      BOLPUR, 31rst May 1892

      SHELIDAH, 31rst Jaistha June 1892

      SHELIDAH, 16th June 1892

      SHELIDAH, 2nd Asarh June 1892

      ON THE WAY TO GOALUNDA, 21st June 1892

      SHELIDAH, 22ND June 1892

      SHAZADPUR, 25th June 1892.

      SHAZADPUR, 27th June 1892

      SHAZADPUR, 29th June 1892

      SHELIDAH, 20th August 1892

      BOALIA, 18th November 1892

      NATORE, 2nd December 1892

      SHELIDAH, 9th December 1892

      BALJA, Tuesday, February 1893

      CUTTACK, February 1893

      CUTTACK, 10th February 1893

      CUTTACK, March 1893

      SHELIDAH, 8th May 1893

      SHELIDAH, 10th May 1893

      SHELIDAH, 11th May 1893

      SHELIDAH, 16th May 1893

      SHELIDAH, 3rd July 1893

      SHELIDAH, 4th July 1893

      SHELIDAH, 7th July 1893

      SHELIDAH, 10th July 1893

      PATISAR, 13th August 1893

      PATISAR, 26th (Straven) August 1893

      PATISAR, 19th February 1894

      PATISAR, 27th February 1894

      PATISAR, 22nd March 1894

      PATISAR, 28th March 1894

      PATISAR, 30th March 1894

      SHELIDAH, 24th June 1894

      SHELIDAH, 9th August 1894

      SHELIDAH, 10th August 1894

      SHELIDAH, 13th August 1894

      SHELIDAH, 19th August 1894

      SHAZADPUR,  5thSeptember 1894

      ON THE WAY TO DIGHAPATIAYA, 20th September 1894

      ON THE WAY TO BOALIA, 22nd September 1894

      CALCUTTA, 5th October 1894

      BOLPUR, 19th October 1894

      BOLPUR, 31st October 1894

      SHELIDAH, 7th December 1894

      SHELIDAH, 23rd February 1895

      SHELIDAH, 16th (Phalgun) February 1895

      SHELIDAH, 28th February 1895

      ON THE WAY TO PABNA, 9th July 1895

      SHELIDAH, 14th August 1895

      KUSHTEA, 5th October 1895

      SHELIDAH, 12th December 1895

      INTRODUCTION

       The letters translated in this book span the most productive period of my literary life, when, owing to great good fortune, I was young and less known.

      Youth being exuberant and leisure ample, I felt the writing of letters other than business ones to be a delightful necessity. This is a form of literary extravagance only possible when a surplus of thought and emotion accumulates. Other forms of literature remain the author's and are made public for his good; letters that have been given to private individuals once for all, are therefore characterised by the more generous abandonment.

      It so happened that selected extracts from a large number of such letters found their way back to me years after they had been written. It had been rightly conjectured that they would delight me by bringing to mind the memory of days when, under the shelter of obscurity, I enjoyed the greatest freedom my life has ever known.

      Since these letters synchronise with a considerable part of my published writings, I thought their parallel course would broaden my readers' understanding of my poems as a track is widened by retreading the same ground. Such was my justification for publishing them in a book for my countrymen. Hoping that the descriptions of village scenes in Bengal contained in these letters would also be of interest to English readers, the translation of a selection of that selection has been entrusted to one who, among all those whom I know, was best fitted to carry it out.

        RABINDRANATH TAGORE.

        20th June 1920.

       BANDORA, BY THE SEA,

      October 1885.

       The unsheltered sea heaves and heaves and blanches into foam. It sets me thinking of some tied-up monster straining at its bonds, in front of whose gaping jaws we build our homes on the shore and watch it lashing its tail. What immense strength, with waves swelling like the muscles of a giant!

      From the beginning of creation there has been this feud between land and water: the dry earth slowly and silently adding to its domain and spreading a broader and broader lap for its children; the ocean receding step by step, heaving and sobbing and beating its breast in despair. Remember the sea was once sole monarch, utterly free.

      Land rose from its womb, usurped its throne, and ever since the maddened old creature, with hoary crest of foam, wails and laments continually, like King Lear exposed to the fury of the elements.

       July 1887.

      I am in my twenty-seventh year. This event keeps thrusting itself before my mind--nothing else seems to have happened of late.

      But to reach twenty-seven--is that a trifling thing?--to pass the meridian of the twenties on one's progress towards thirty?--thirty--that is to say maturity--the age at which people expect fruit rather than fresh foliage. But, alas, where is the promise of fruit? As I shake my head, it still feels brimful of luscious frivolity, with not a trace of philosophy.

      Folk are beginning to complain: Where is that which we expected of you--that in hope of which we admired the soft green of the shoot? Are we to put up with immaturity for ever? It is high time for us to know what we shall gain from you. We want an estimate of the proportion of oil which the blindfold, mill-turning, unbiased critic can squeeze out of you.

      It has ceased to be possible to delude these people into waiting expectantly any longer. While I was under age they trustfully gave me credit; it is sad to disappoint them now that I am on the verge of thirty. But what am I to do? Words of wisdom will not come! I am utterly incompetent to provide things that may profit the multitude. Beyond a snatch of song, some tittle-tattle, a little merry fooling, I have been unable to advance. And as the result, those who held high hopes will turn their wrath on me; but did any one ever beg them to nurse these expectations?

      Such are the thoughts which assail me since one fine Bysakh morning I awoke amidst fresh breeze and light, new leaf and flower, to find that I had stepped into my twenty-seventh year.

       SHELIDAH, 1888.

       Our house-boat is moored to a sandbank on the farther side of the river. A vast expanse of sand stretches away out of sight on every side, with here and there a streak, as of water, running across, though sometimes what gleams like water is only sand.

      Not a village, not a human being, not a tree, not a blade of grass--the only breaks in the monotonous whiteness are gaping cracks which in places show the layer of moist, black clay underneath.

      Looking towards the East, there is endless blue above, endless white beneath. Sky empty, earth empty too--the emptiness below hard and barren, that overhead arched and ethereal--one could hardly find elsewhere such a picture of stark

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