Interview with Debjani Chaliha /Minakshi Basu, winner of the Rabindra Purashkar given by Sangeet Natak Akademi on the occasion of the 150^th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore, in 2012

  Debjani Chaliha was born at Shivsagar in Assam, on 10^th May, 1934.

I have known Debjani Chaliha since I was a child. She is a very dear friend of my mother’s. I had a list of questions related to ‘dance’ ‘gender’ and ‘empowerment’   that I wanted her to respond to, but after posing the initial question, what unfolded was a fascinating story, an oral autobiography, which made the interview format quite superfluous. This winding oral narrative, so integral to women as story tellers when script was not available to them,  when people sat around fires at night,  as they still do in African villages today, to hear that story that would give meaning to their lives and their lived existence. Debjani’s narrative, reaching far back into the past in her childhood, constructs her personal narrative from a little girl in a family of seven siblings, to her transformation into renowned artist. However,  in the process, it also provides fascinating glimpses of Assamese high cultural life in the early and middle decades of the 20^th century,  where often, as in the case of Debjani’s own maternal grandfather, a deep veneration for Rabindranath Tagore  existed, so much so that Rabindranath was an active influence on the development of Debjani Chaliha’s own aesthetic philosophy. There are vivid images of Kolkata in the 1950’s, of Dada Uday Shankar Ji and his wide affection for aspiring dancers, the Youth Festival that Nehru started in 1959 at Delhi, to encourage young talent. This interview which took place over three days, created a continuum between us, both women, mothers and daughters, who had taken  professional life seriously.

My question: Minakshi Mashi, how do you view women dancers with the idea of empowerment? Of course, there are many categories and classes of women performers, but if you had to judge the contribution of a classical woman dancer, how would you link the two?

This is how she responded:

I was first introduced to dance, the way little girls are often introduced to singing and dancing. We lived in the interior of Assam—in a tea garden. The name of the tea garden was Karangani Tea Estate. Tea Gardens at that time were very secluded. My father’s house (joint family) was at Shivsagar, which was 31 miles away, but because transportation was not that developed in those times, it seemed leagues away. These tea gardens were worlds of their own, cut off almost from the rest of the world.

I was introduced to singing and dancing by my mother. She had studied at Diocesan school in Kolkata, in the early 1920’s, and knew  how to sing, as well as play the violin and sitar. The first songs that she taught me were  ‘doordeshi shei rakhal chhele’ and ‘padprante rakho’ (Rabindranath’s songs) I had a spontaneous attraction for dance. In those days there weren’t other modes of entertainment. This is how we kept ourselves happy (thorugh song and dance).  Whenever guests arrived, my mother would say, ‘Aijani, will you please dance?’ So I was brought up in a culture in which song and dance were highly appreciated.

In my father’s house at Shivsagar, which was a joint family, conditions favorable to the development of the arts, prevailed. Song and dance were natural contexts of family life. We used to perform plays and song and dance recitals.

In the tea estates there were bihu dances and the santhal labourers originally from Bihar and the Chotonagpur areas, would dance; however, we did not participate in those dances.

At age 6-7, we came to Kolkata. That was around 1941. Rabindranath had just passed away.  Shortly after,  we soon went to Shantiniketan for a visit. At that point, I did not know any other language, other than Assamese.

I loved Shantiniketan. I told my parents that I wanted to study there. Song, dance and studies were part of the integrated academic programme at Shantiniketan. There were Manipuri dance classes. I attended some of these classes. Perhaps my very early initiation into Manipuri dance at Shantiniketan, directed my later choice to become a Manipuri dancer.

I came away from Shantiniketan when I was nine. I was then enrolled at Bani Vidya Bithi, a regular school where I also learnt  singing and dancing.  Manipuri, Bharat Natyam and Kathak, were all taught at this school, and one had to learn everything. This continued till I was in class 10. There was no specialization at that time.

Then when I studied for my intermediate degree at Ashutosh College, I became friends with Bhanu Singh. She was the daughter of famous nrittyaguru Brajabashi Singh. I used to go with her to her house. I took dance lessons with her father. We used to call him Master Mashay. I found out that I had a flair for Manipuri dancing and it became my intimate thing, thereafter. I started developing a very close relationship with this dance form. I went to many recitals and conferences with them.

Eventually I was admitted to Presidency College for the B.A. degree. However, I left shortly after and joined Lady Keane College in Shillong. I studied Philosophy. I thought it would answer many questions that Life awoke in me.  I was not doing dance seriously at all, then.

Then I came to Kolkata to study for the M.A. I was a student of Philosophy at the University of Calcutta. I resumed dance classes with MasterMashai, Brajabasi Singh. At that time, there used to be an Inter University Youth Festival, held at Delhi, every year. Nehru had started this from 1954. I started studying the M.A. from 1955. Nehru had started this festival, as a way of empowering the youth of the country.

I represented the University of Calcutta.

I gave a solo performance. Held in the Talkatora gardens.  

Guwahati University was represented by a Manipuri girl, who gave a solo performance in Manipuri dance.  It was a revelation.  As I watched her perform, I realized that whatever I had learnt till then was not the authentic thing. She demonstrated for me, what dance really could be like.  I wanted to learn the real thing, but was 21 years old only, and did not know how or where I could do that.

By that time I was already engaged to be married. My husband to be was on Probation in the Allied IAS Services, and I had two years (1956—1958), in which to do whatever I wanted to do.

Uday Shankar lived opposite my parental home on Golf Club Road, in Film Services (name of quarters). I used to be fascinated by his dance.  He was very affectionate towards me; he was extremely approachable and allowed me to go and watch his dance rehearsals.

The Academy of Dance, Drama and Music was established by the government of West Bengal in 1954. Uday Shankar was made the Dean for the Faculty of Dance.  Classes were held at Jorasanko. I used to go there by bus.

The Academy offered classes in Kathak, Bharat Natyam, Kathakali and Manipuri. It also offered classes in Dada Uday Shankar’s own style of dancing.

I asked her, whether Uday Shankar’s style was an amalgamation of classical Indian dance traditions. She said, ‘innovative’ not ‘amalgamated’. She continued:

It was an innovative style of dancing. There was no precedence for it in Indian traditions. He was not previously trained in any classical form of Indian dance. He accidentally arrived into the field of dance.

While studying painting in England/London with William Rothenstein, Uday Shankar came to know that the famous Russian dancer, Anna Pavlova, was looking for someone to play the role of Krishna to her Radha. Uday Shankar volunteered to dance.

Rothenstein told  him to take a month off from classes, go to the British Museum and study ancient Indian Art and iconography to form some idea of Indian dance or movement aesthetics.

After having done this, Uday  Shankar evolved his own innovative form, and danced with Anna Pavlova, who played Radha in her own distinctive way and within her own stylistics. Their joint presentation was a huge hit.

After this performance, Rothenstein told him to go back to India and study dance seriously. Uday Shankar came back to India and followed Rothenstein’s advice seriously. He travelled to the original centers of the different classical dance schools. He even observed beggars, who often do Radha/Krishna items. He developed the concept of the shadow in dance. He worked with Ramayana themes and the life of Buddha.

He also observed folk rituals and dance rituals in villages. This is how his art evolved.

Uday Shankar left no stone unturned in order to reach the heart of his Art. His was true sadhana.

 Dada Uday Shankar who had observed me for some time at the Academy of Dance, one day called me apart and told me that I should do Manipuri dance and that he would give me the name of a guru. This happened to be the same person who used to teach Manipuri Dance at the Uday Shankar India Cultural Centre at Almora. This centre had been functional between the years 1937—41. The name of the guru was Maisnam Amubi Singh.

When I went to Manipur to meet Amubi Singh, I saw how dance was a way of life in Manipur. It was not simply what people did for only the stage. But that it penetrated every aspect of life. That dance could be such a serious affair, is something I discovered at Manipur.

Amubi Singh asked me why I wanted to stay at Manipur and learn dance. I would have had to stay at his house, which did not even have a proper toilet. People in those days went to the pond to have a bath. I told him that I was serious about learning Manipuri dance. He said that his house would not be able to offer the comforts that I must be used to, and that I would definitely miss my parents. But I was determined.

From my Guru’s house I went to the Laihara Oba dance utsav. This was basically a Puja done in the presence of sylvan deities, worshipped at Manipur from the pre-Vaishnava days. Vaishnavism came to Manipur in the 18^th century.

At this utsav I saw for the first time how dance and empowerment were linked in the lives of women. The entire Puja or dance ceremony was conducted by the maibis, the female custodians of this dance cum Puja form. One would call them female purohits. They lived in special communities, interacted with the general populace, but somehow remained separate and distinctive.

When I went to the bazaar (haat), I saw that it was women who did the business. I was moved and deeply impressed.

I was with Guruji for two and half years. During this time (1957), my M.A. results had come out, and I had received a High Second class. I applied to a college at Imphal—Dhanamanjari College. I got the appointment.  For these two and half years, I taught during the day, and both the Principal of the college and Guruji, adusted their time schedules in a way that would cause me the least difficulty.

My husband- to- be completed his probationary period in 1960 and I came to Kolkata to be married.

Before I left Dhanamanjari College, the Principal announced that he would not let me go if I did not do a dance recital. I gave solo performances along with another of my Guruji’s dance scholars.

I had done the same when I left Sri Shikshayatan college, where I had worked briefly on a leave vacancy (1959—1960). This performance too was held in their college auditorium, Dada Uday Shankar ji came to the performance, and blessed me after it was over.

He was in the Railway Services, and I soon went to Jodhpur, where he was first posted. I practically gave up serious dancing, although I did conduct Chitrangada for one of the Durga Puja celebrations there. 

I turned my attention to cooking. My husband’s family was from Dacca. My mother in law would visit us and she insisted that I learn the distinctive Dacca style of cooking. This is a difficult style. She did not teach this to her daughters, because it would mean too much effort for them. However (with a smile) deeply concerned that her son would suffer the ill effects of any other culinary style, she taught it to me.

Today when my sisters in law are in any difficulty with this cooking, they consult me (smile).

 I asked her, why  she used the name ‘Debjani Chaliha’ when she was so clearly also Minakshi Basu? Did her passport have both names?

What unfolded was a fascinating story which provides an  interesting glimpse of the different set of premises that go with the different names; one wonders if there is a splitting of the self, and whether all performance artists who are women, can carry this split, especially since women have to play so many roles. The different names enact the gap that lies between the orders of Art and Reality. Minakshi Basu, the wife of Bhaiya Basu, Railway Officer, who is an expert in Dhaka style cuisine. Debjani Chaliha? The renowned dancer, replete and autonomous in her world of classical Manipuri dance.

This is the story behind the naming of the artist persona. Debjani was the name that came up in Yajna, which created the horoscope.  Her mother, ardently committed to the Arts herself, wanted to record two Assamese songs on the occasion of the centenary of  Sahityarathi Lakshmikant Bej Barua (1971) She asked her daughter Debjani/Minakshi to sing these two songs, which were recorded by HRC, at Kolkata. The first one composed by Bej Baura was ‘O mor aponar desh’ , which is a kind of national song in Assam. The other was a song from the first Assamese film and composed by Jyotiprasad Agarola: ‘loba buda kak/koi dalimi  nubune tak’.

My question: It was an act that was bold and singular at that time, wasn’t it, for a woman to ask her married daughter to adopt her maiden last name, Chaliha, in order to claim an identity that was outside her marriage?

 

Yes, it was. And the wonderful part of it all, was that my husband encouraged the persona name.

In 1970, I met Kulada Bhattacharya, who had recently returned from England with training in Media Studies, who lives in Guwahati now, and who  has been an important figure in Assamese television, in directing television  films and serials.  Kulada strongly advised me to take up  dance  seriously and make it a professional career.

Around this time, my mother who had been living at Kolkata since 1947, at 47 Uday Shankar Sarani, wanted to organize a dance show in which she wanted me to perform for my grandmother, who had never really seen me dance, professionally.

This program was arranged at my brother’s house at Sunny Park. It was actually the house of his wife’s Mamima, Romola Sinha,  who was the founder of the All Bengal Women’s Union Home. This house had a large verandah in which a performance could be staged. Friends and family came. The show was a huge success, and with a group of my friends, among  whom were Sasanka Pal and Dhrubo Shome and of course, Kulada, I decided to become a fully fledged professional dancer. 

I next gave a solo performance at Kala Mandir on September 29. 1970. I was 38 years old then. I played Radha and another dancer came to perform as Krishna. At that time no other dancer other than Bala Saraswati gave solo performances of this nature, and the show was a huge hit. A profit of 2000.00 was made from it.

I started getting invitations from many places. I was invited by the Rotary Club, by Max Mueller Bhavan.  My husband helped with advertisements. O.C. Ganguly did the posters.

I have done two tours in Assam. I have also given a solo performance at Rashtrapati Bhavan. I  was  invited by the Manipuri State Kala Academy in 1982, for workshops and seminars. 

I have evolved  my own dance curriculum which I shared with them. The chali, requires the use of both hands and feet, and in order to break students gently into this classical form, I have evolved my own structure which includes:

1.      Yogasana

2.      Dance exercises

3.      Rhythm exercises

4.      Steps

5.      Chali

I began my own dance school Metei Jagoi (Manipuri Dance) in the year 1971 and I began with six students. Today I have thirty and my troupe gives performances at Kolkata, almost every year.  

I wond the Raindrapuraskar, give to me by the Sangeet Natak Akademi, on the occasion of Rabindranath Tagore’s 150^th birth anniversary, in 2012.

It would have been nice to have a fuller closing section to this interview or fascinating oral narration; However, time constraints and logistics prevented that. I learnt a great deal from these interactions. Most importantly, mother daughter continuums are very important in most womanly achievement, and the continuum may also include grandmothers. One spectacular example of a mother-daughter empowered continuum from recent Bengali history,  is that of Swarnakumari Devi and Sarala Devi Choudhurani (Rabindranath’s older sister and niece). There are many others too. One can think of Gangubai Hangal and Hirabai Barodekar (classical musicians). Other mother-daughter clusters that I can think of include Sarojini Naidu and Padmaja Naidu,  Mridula Sarabhai and Mallika Sarabhai, Manjushree Chaki Sarkar and Ranjabati Chaki Sarkar, Sumitra Sen, Indrani and Sraboni Sen. I am sure there are many more that I am leaving out. Woman’s achievement is thus often a generational affair.

Class too plays a significant role, whereby higher class positioning facilitates the accessibility of resources and learning tools.  In addition, the support of progressive families is very necessary, in order  for a performance artist especially, to flourish, since the performance arts require significant interface and negotiation of spaces outside the ‘home’.

Interview conducted and commentary written by Sreemati Mukherjee, Associate Professor, Department of English.

   

 

 

   

 

 

Rani Rashmoni: Queen, ‘woman of the people’, temple builder

and Sri Ramakrishna’s early patron

(Published in Special Issue: Bengaliness)

If women tell the story of the nation from the mid-nineteenth century in Bengal and India, in many significant ways, then Rashmoni is certainly one such iconic figure whose life and actions had far reaching social and spiritual implications. The Rani’s dates (1793—1861) are not strictly those of the second half of the nineteenth century, but her life is characterized by the kind of energy, vision and zeal that characterizes the lives of women like Kadambini Ganguly (1861--1923), Anandi Bai Joshi (1865—1887) who were India’s first women doctors, Rasasundari Devi (1810—1900), Kailashbasini Devi (dates unavailable), Krishnabhabini Dasi (1862--1919), who were writers. The emergence of these women in the second half of the nineteenth century enacted a shift in gender paradigms which established women as having acquired greater self-sufficiency, self-articulation, and sense of social responsibilities than they had before.  

Indeed, Rani Rashmoni’s acts of social benevolence and politics of resistance to unfair practices of the British government actually outstrips the achievements of most of the doctors and writers mentioned above. Her sensitivity to the suffering of the poor, her dislike of harsh and oppressive measures, affected in tangible and immediate ways the lives of the poor with positive benefit.  Her actions have a sweep and an expanse that put her in the company of leaders whose decisions impact the lives of many.  She is also iconic from the point of view of the historic Ramakrishna movement. In The Master as I saw Him, Nivedita writes that Swami Vivekananda had been deeply impressed by the fact that a ‘...woman of the people had been, in a sense, the mother of that whole movement of which all the disciples of his Master formed parts. Humanly speaking, without the Temple of Dakshineshwar there had been no Ramakrishna, and without Ramakrishna no Vivekananda, and without Vivekananda, no Western Mission’. (234).

Born to poor parents herself, she was married into the prodigiously wealthy Das family of Janbazar. Her father in law Pritaram Das had amassed vast amounts of wealth through business in bamboo, buying goods from auctions and re-selling them to the British, as well as other business ventures.  Her husband Babu Rajchandra, well acquainted with Prince Dwarakanath Thakur, Kaliprasanna Singha, Akrur Dutta, Lord Auckland and John Bebb of the East India Company, was a person of rare social benevolence (Gambhirananda, 631). He also built the famous Babu Ghat of Kolkata as well as the Babu Road which is today the Rani Rashmoni Road.  It was at his wife’s behest, who had been shocked at the dangerous and ill-kempt condition of the banks of the Ganga that he had engaged in this act (Gambhirananda, 631). He also constructed a dwelling at Nimtala for those who were close to death and wanted to die by the side of the Ganges. He donated 10,000 rupees for upgrading the government library at Metcalfe Hall (Gambhirananda, 631). Rashmoni, who was conferred the title of ‘Rani’ by the common people of Bengal, was innately benevolent herself and continued this tradition initiated by her husband.  What is perhaps worth noting in this case is that Rashmoni was not born an aristocrat but was naturally able to imbibe a tradition of large benevolence that is characteristic of the best aristocratic traditions in 19^th century Bengal.

Among some of her most spectacular acts of social benevolence was forcing the British government to withdraw the tax on those who fished in the waters of the Ganges. When those poor fishermen who were affected by this tax appealed to her, she bought the fishing rights of the entire stretch of the Ganga from Ghushuri to Metiabaruz. She used bamboo and ropes to stall the free passage of all boats and ships which had to travel in these waters. When the British Government complained, she said that the steam from the boats and the ships was harming the lives of the fish, so she could not allow it. Whereupon, the British returned her money and withdrew the tax on the Ganga waters that the poor fishermen had to pay ( Gambhirananda, 635)

Once on Shoshti or the day before the Puja of the Goddess Durga, her priests went to the Ganga ghat (banks) singing loudly with accompanying musical instruments. It was early in the morning. Some Englishman who lived close to Babughat had his sleep disturbed. He complained to the British administration and the Rani was issued a fine. As Swami Chetanananda says in the ‘Rani Rasmani’ chapter of his They Lived with God ‘Rasmani was infuriated that the government had acted against a religious observance’(8)  She paid the fine but had wooden barricades erected at both the Janbazar and Babu Ghat ends. As a result a large part of this important road became unusable for the British.  When the British government asked her for an explanation she said that it was her property and she could do as she wished.  Later on the request of the British she had the barricades removed and her fine was also revoked by the Government. (Gambhirananda, 633-634). 

It is obvious from the incidents narrated above that she was very sensitive to the needs of the poor and unhesitant to take bold and extraordinary moves to alleviate their distress even when it involved her in conflicts and confrontation with the colonizing authority. In this she is exemplary in terms of her courage. There were few women of her time, except perhaps the Rani of Jhansi who could play a public role and dispense with public responsibilities with so much courage and decisiveness. She creates a very powerful model of womanhood within the context of contemporary India. With women like Rani Rashmoni, Nawab Faizunnessa of Comilla (Ray, 54), Begum Shamshi Firdaus Mahal of Murshidabad (Ray, 54) Rani Swarnamoyee of Kasimbazar  new models for women’s public philanthropy were created and new historiographies of women in India were consequently made possible.  Of all the names mentioned above, it is Rani Rashmoni who was not aristocratic by lineage and who belonged more definitively to the first half of the nineteenth century than the second.

Even when compared to the great women devotees within the Ramakrishna Movement, Rashmoni far outstrips all, in the degree and level of her interface with the greater world outside the home. If new dynamics of ‘ghar’ and ‘bahir’ were being created at that time then Rashmoni certainly creates a very compelling example of how a village woman, defying restrictions of both caste and gender, could play such a decisive role in determining policy and a politics of resistance to colonial authority. However during the time of the Sepoy Mutiny she extended help to the British by providing them with ‘food, livestock and other necessities’( Chetanananda, 9). These women, as well the ones mentioned early on in the paper, define important historical moments, and were responsible for causing a radical shift in the common perception of women as actors and movers. Of course, she was empowered by wealth, as was the Rani of Jhansi, yet, at the same time she demonstrates uncommon boldness, as well as unwavering confidence in her decisions. Of course, many of these decisions were also taken in consultation with her youngest son-in-law, Mathur Nath Biswas who was the manager of her vast estates.  

Courage and boldness notwithstanding, she was extremely traditional in the expression of her spiritual inclinations and expressions. Rani Rashmoni fulfilled all the social obligations of the zamindar in an elaborate and grand manner. A large part of this was holding various pujas in her estate or in her house. Her hosting of   Durga Puja, Jagaddhatri Puja, Dol Utsav, Rash Utsav, Lakshmi Puja, Basanti Puja, Kartik Puja and Saraswati Puja, were more or less all spectacular affairs, with many gifts given to the poor, to Brahmins, and many modes of traditional enjoyment provided for those participating in these festivals (Gambhirananda, 634).

She was used to hearing her father read out from the Ramayana, Mahabharata, and Puranas when she was a child and continued the practice of having scripture read every day at her in-laws‘ residence. She must have been well versed in the scriptures because she personally directed the stone carvings of various inscriptions from the Upanishads and other holy texts of Indian tradition at various places of the Dakshineshwar temple. She was innately pious and never missed a day of the performance of daily puja to Raghunath Ji her practice of japam.  

If we move out of the contexts of historical documentation and  cultural analysis  and enter the world of hagiography, even then one would come across notions that the Rani had to be truly exceptional in terms of spiritual merit, to be the builder of that temple in which Sri Ramakrishna was the pujari and where he achieved the greatest consummation of his spiritual nature or genius. And such karmic logic and philosophies would not be irrelevant, because only great preparedness in one life or several can facilitate such effective action. The link between the Rani and Sri Ramakrishna is profound, because it was within these temple precincts, that the entire lila of Sri Ramakrishna, or the divine drama centred on him, was played out. It was here that some of the greatest personalities of Calcutta at that time, congregated and gathered and it is principally around these interactions and observations of Thakur’s daily life that ‘M’ wrote his great hagiographical cum historical text, the Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita.

From available sources like Swami Gambhirananda, Swami Chetanananda as well Sishutosh Samanta one learns that Rani Rashmoni received a vision of the Divine Mother Kali while  about to set out on a journey to Varanasi in 1847. The vision instructed her to build a temple dedicated to Mother Kali on the banks of the Ganga.  She had great difficulty in procuring land. No one sold her any in the Bally and Uttarpara areas (Chetananda,11). Eventually she bought 20 acres at Dakshineshwar, part of which had a bungalow in which an Englishman had once lived and the other part was an abandoned Muslim graveyard which had the remains of a Muslim holy man (Chetanananda, 11--12).

It took her seven to eight years to build the temple which was completed in 1855. It was Rashmoni’s desire that afternoon food be cooked every day at the temple and offered to the Deity. However caste restrictions made this difficult. No Brahmin priest would be willing to perform this worship of offering. Rani Rashmoni sent out letters to various pundits asking for an opinion. They all replied in the negative.  Eventually Sri Ramakrishna’s older brother Ramkumar Chatterjee passed the opinion that if the temple be made over to a Brahmin then the food could be offered. The Rani was delighted and spent a huge sum of money having the deity installed. This installation was accomplished on the tithi of the Snan Jatra (31.5.1855) of Jagannath, Balaram and Subhadra. Rashmoni spent 50,000 rupees for the land, 160,000 rupees for building an embankment, 900,000 for the temple complex which had a Radha Krishna temple and twelve Shiva temples besides the main Kali temple.  She spent 200,000 for the dedication ceremony.

Another personality related to the Rani and deeply and integrally linked to Sri Ramakrishna’s life prior to 1871 was the Rani’s son-in-law Mathur Nath Biswas (1815--1871). As Sishutosh Samanta says of Mathur Nath in Rani Rashmoni r Antaheen Jibanbrittye (Part III), ‘before 1882 was there any other great devotee of Sri Ramakrishna?’ (76) (translation mine). Samanta says that within Ramakrishna literature, Mathur Nath Biswas has been identified as that householder disciple who was his most preeminent ‘rasaddar’ or ‘provider of food’. Although the word ‘food’ is used as the most basic reference in this translation, ‘rasaddar’ actually means ‘provider of household expenses’. In the later part of Thakur’s life, after the passing away of Mathur Nath Biswas, Sri Ramakrishna’s most noteworthy ‘rassadars’ were Shombhucharan Mallick,  Balaram Bose and Surendranath Mitra. It was Mathur Nath Biswas who recognized in the young Sri Ramakrishna, a vast spiritual potential, and thus in spite of the young pujari’s very eccentric and odd ways of worship, backed him wholeheartedly, and also became his ardent devotee. Mathur was twenty one years older to Sri Ramakrishna.

Sri Ramakrishna became the priest of the Kali temple within a year or so of the dedication of the temple. As Chetanananda says,‘the love and respect which Rani Rasmani and Mathur had for Sri Ramakrishna and the support they gave him were quite amazing when on realizes how strange his behaviour was at that time and how much criticism about him came to them from other temple officials’ (15).

One incident that has become a byword of the Ramakrishna-Rashmoni relationship is when Sri Ramakrishna slapped Rani Rashmoni for being unmindful while he sang devotional songs to Mother Kali. Even though all the temple attendants present were outraged the Rani accepted Sri Ramakrishna’s censure of her because she knew that she had been preoccupied with thoughts of the outcome of a court case while the puja went on. This ability to accept the truth with humility, goes even further to win our respect for this woman who could have easily chosen to be offended since she after all, was Sri Ramakrishna’s patron.

Rashmoni died in 1861. Before that she transferred the land in Dinajpur that she had bought for maintenance of the Dakshineshwar temple, to the temple Trust. The great immersion of the Rani in the spiritual thought and culture of India is borne out by the inscriptions that she had carved on stone at various points of the temple precincts. At the entrance to the temples are these quotations from the Svetasvatara Upanishad:

That eternal and indivisible Brahman is present in all living creatures, is the secret self of all selves, is all pervasive, and is the cause of everything. He is the refuge of all. He is beyond all attributes, he is the eternal witness of all that happens and consciousness supreme (Samanta, 47).

He is the Lord of all Ishwaras, of all Devas, the supreme Master among all Masters, the owner of the universe, we know Him ( Samanta, 47).

Rashmoni’s life provides food for a great deal of thought which may not be exhausted in an essay of this length. On the one hand she fulfilled the demands of traditional Indian womanhood in being an obedient and loving daughter completely given to the principles of hard work and humility that characterize the life of the poor in Indian society. When she became a daughter-in-law in one of Kolkata’s wealthiest families, she fulfilled that role too with finesse and grace. She could never be faulted with having adopted extravagant and lavish habits. She was often the inspiration behind many of the altruistic ventures of her husband Rajchandra. When she came into her own, she exhibited rare independence and acumen in handling her own affairs and her vast estate. After her husband’s early demise, Prince Dwarakanath Tagore came to see her saying that he could offer his services as manager of her estate. She first asked him whether he had returned the money that the Prince owed her husband. After it was satisfactorily returned through a land deal, she politely told Dwarakanath that to act as manager to her estate was too far beneath him and would make her extremely uncomfortable (Chetanananda, 6-7). 

Rashmoni is multifaceted and many splendored. She creates new models of womanhood and gives opportunities for new historiographies of women in India. Her life is woven in a fabric that makes her ‘pratahsmaraneeya’ or ‘worthy of remembrance everyday’.

Works Cited:

Chetanananda, Swami. They Lived with God. St Louis, Missouri: The Vedanta Society of St. Louis. 1989.

Gambirananda, Swami. Sri Ramakrishna Bhaktamalika. Kolkata: Udbodhan Office. First Complete Edition, June, 2005.

Samanta, Shishutosh. Rani Rashmoni-r Antahhen Jiban Brittwe. Kolkata: Basanti Press, 2009.

Ray, Bharati. Early Feminists of Colonial India: Sarala Devi Chaudhurani, Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. 2002.

Sister Nibedita.  The Master as I saw Him. Kolkata: Udbodhan Office. 34^th Reprint, 2014.

Melody and Divine Eros in “dialogue” in the songs of Rabindranath Tagore

[This is a very well researched scholarly piece of writing. It was published in the RKM Institute of Culture Bulletin in October and November of 2015. If a reader or scholar wishes to borrow any material from this essay they are requested to kindly cite the original. Thank You]

In his ground breaking work A Historical Study of Indian Music (1980) Swami Prajnanananda posits that “Keshav Chandra and others established a new kind of Brahma Samaj, which brought some new cultural and religious revivals in the nineteenth century. There appeared many musicians and composers who enriched the domain of classical Bengali songs, composed on the image and idea of traditional Hindusthani music like dhruvapada, kheyal, thumri, tap kheyal, etc., known as brahma-samgita. The composers like Jyotirindranath, Satyendranath, Dvijendranath, Rabindranath and others of the memorable Tagore House as well as Sir Jatindra Mohan Tagore, Sir Sourindra Mohan Tagore, Ksetra Mohan Goswami and other inspired the music atmosphere of Bengal. 

…It is to note in this connection that Rabindranath Tagore created a separate class of song, samgita, though it was nourished by all types of Indian classical and folk songs of Bengal and another places. …He was a man of rare genius and intellect and his musical compositions brought a renaissance in the field of music. His songs are divided into main six classes, puja, prakiti, prema, anushthanika, swadesa, and vichitra (208-209).

In this essay we are going to study the powerful and rich dialectic of song (language), melody and philosophy in Tagore’s puja songs, which constitutes the largest section of the Gitabitan, which is a compendium of Rabindranath’s songs. We will chart through them the fascinating mutations and transfigurations of his spiritual and aesthetic development, its rich synthesis and fusion of several diverse spiritual and aesthetic traditions, beginning with an early rootedness in Brahmo upasana music, to his final and triumphant assertion of the human being as the ultimate arbiter of value in the universe. In their meeting on July 14th, 1930, Rabindranath tells Einstein“ .The infinite personality of Man comprehends the Universe. There cannot be anything that cannot be subsumed by the human personality and this proves that the truth of the Universe is a human truth” (qtd. in Satyendranath Ray, 186). This dialogue and dialectic including Upanisadic philosophy, Baul epistemology and Vaishnav madhura (sweetness) and also elements of Western music, provides perhaps one of the richest charts of the evolution of a poet’s mind, philosophy and aesthetics, somewhat akin to William Wordsworth’s in The Prelude (begun in 1798, and published posthumously in 1850).

In the opinion of this writer, as spiritual songs, some particularly, of the Brahmo upasana phase and even later, accommodating as they do, a premeditated semi classical structure and set sentiments, lack the ultimate earthiness that the songs of Ramprosad (1723--1775 ) or Lalon Fakir have (1774--1890 ), where the very soil of Bengal becomes eloquent, and centuries of yearning for the divine speak out. Their failure to arouse the kind of strong affect that the songs of Ramprosad and Baul songs do, is because of their sophisticated diction moulded and formed by a cultivated urban sensibility, fed by the rich intellectual and cultural currents of the period we call the Bengal Renaissance, in which his family played a definitive role. Another reason would be the intricacy and complexity of the tunes and their rhythm or tala. Some of these early songs, say a song like “Chirasakha He” or “My eternal Friend” (1899, Gitabitan, 413), is essentially a tappa, which is a short, intricate, fast, raga based form of music, borrowed from Lucknow traditions of classical music, that would require rigorous classical training to even sing.1 Indeed, other songs too composed during this period, like “Eki Labonnye purna pran”,or, “Oh, my heart fills with this indescribable sweetness,” (1893, Gitabitan, 539) set to the South Indian raga Purna Sadaj,” even though reflecting Vaishnava sentiments, is so intricate, that only a cultivated, initiated auditor would be able to enter its aesthetics, effortlessly.2 As his art matures, and his spiritual struggles become more intense, the melodies, even if following a raga pattern, impact the auditor with sustained feeling and a sustained economy of melody, an example of which is “Dhai jena mor sakal bhalobasha” “ Let all my love flow towards you my Lord” (1910, Gitabitan, 94), where the poetry and the melody consummate in a moment of perfect beauty. Some of Rabindranath’s swadeshi songs, however, composed around 1905—1907, and often set to Baul tunes, have a greater readiness of appeal, 3

Overall, his song oevre represents a landmark moment of consummation and mastery of the musical genius of Bengal, that has irrevocably changed its musical landscape and given it a distinctive tradition that is richly diverse, and relevant to our times. Rabindranath’s greatest legacy apart from his poetry, many of which he transformed into songs and studied in this paper, are his songs, known as Rabindrasangeet. In my essay, I will be looking at songs between the period 1883—1941, although emphasizing the poems/songs that feature in Gitanjali (1910) Gitali (1914), and Gitimalya (1914), the period being roughly, 1909—1914. I will also look beyond this period to certain key songs in support of my argument. I will be referring to the Gitobitan, for song numbers. I will also look at some of his prose writings, among which will be Atmaparichay (1917), The Religion of Man (1930), and some letters written to Hemantabala Devi and collected in Chithipotro, Vol. 9.

It is small wonder that Rabindranath Tagore (1861--1941) and Swami Vivekananda (1863—1902), Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858--1937), should represent the consummation of the energies of the nineteenth century Renaissance in Bengal, which was similar to its 15th to 17th century European counterpart, in advocating Reason and Logic as epistemological tools, fostering a spirit of enquiry and asserting the value of human endeavour. In short, this period too was marked by unprecedented developments in the growth of language, literature and scientific knowledge. In terms of its humanistic emphasis, attention was paid to the emotional, psychological and even spiritual dereliction of women’s lives, circumscribed by incarceration in the zenana or inner chambers of a house. As proof of the investment in improving women’s conditions by leading intellectuals and reformers of this period, namely Raja Rammohun Roy (1772-1833), Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar (1820-1891), Akshay Kumar Dutta (1820—1886 ), Dwarikanath Ganguly ( 1844--1898 ), naming only some, we have at this time, the Abolition of Sati Act (1829), the Widow Remarriage Act (1856), and the establishment of Bethune School for girls in 1849, which later became Bethune College in 1879. Kadambini Basu (Ganguly) and Chandramukhi Basu were the first women graduates of the University of Calcutta in 1883, and Kadambini Ganguly, graduated as the first woman doctor, qualifying from Bengal Medical College, in 1886.The first Indian railways, operating from Bombay to Thana, was also an event that marks this period (1853). In the realm of Bengali literature, again only to name a few, we have the writing of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, the signal contributions of the great litterateurs Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838--1894) and Michael Madhusudan Dutt (1824-1873), and also women writers like Kailasbasini Devi ((1830--1895), and Swarnakurmari Devi (1855-1932), Rabindranath’s older sister, among others.

The Tagore family, from the time of Rabindranath’s paternal grandfather Dwarakananth Tagore (1794-1846), a close friend of Rammohun, then his father Maharshi Devendranath Tagore (1817--1905), and finally through Rabindranath and his older brothers, particularly Dwijendranath and Jyotirindranath, impacted upper class Bengali society at that time, in meaningful and significant ways, that gave a definitive turn to its cultural norms and directions. In Jyotirindranath Tagore’s Jivankatha, he refers to how his older brother Dwijendranath, would readily sit down to compose Brahma Sangeet, the minute he heard interesting tunes, including classical bandishes, and how along with other brothers, Rabindranath and himself, would immediately follow suit (14). It is easy to infer therefore, that the atmosphere of the Jorasnako house, resonated with music all the time. It is not surprising therefore, that as the consummation of all this celebratory and remarkable family energy, we should have the colossal genius of Rabindranath Tagore, leave a final and definite imprint on Bengali literature and music. The flowering of his literary genius took Bengali literature, perhaps to an ultimate point of excellence, never equalled ever, the international recognitionbfor which, came with the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. In his Life of Ramakrishna Romain Rolland has included Rabindranath in the same category as Goethe (xxii).

In Jibansmriti the poet speaks of how his early education was carefully supervised by this father, how he studied from Peter Parly’s Tales (317), Sanskrit from Mugdhobod (318) and Upakramonika (320). We also learn that when it was time for Rabindranath to have his upanayan, Debendranath Tagore created his own structure of the ceremony by selecting certain slokas from the Upanishads, and Tagore refers to how he and two others sat with Becharam Babu on one of the verandahs of the Jorasanko house, learning the slokas to perfection, (306 ). He also tells us that he gloried, and immersed himself in the sound of the Gayatri mantra soon after, and imaginatively tried to explore the furthest reaches of the sound world the mantra conjured, (307) He participated in upasana when his father took him to Dalhousie, and these upasanas too mainly constituted Upanisadic slokas (320).

Rabindranath wrote songs for Brahmo upasana pretty early in his life, and all Rabindranath’s older brothers, Dwijendranath, Satyendranath and Jyotindranath, had written songs for Brahmo upasana and in the Jivansmriti he speaks of how his older brother Jyotirindranath and he were once summoned by Debendranath to Chuchra (Hooghly district), where he had sung several Brahmo upasana songs for his father among which is the well known song “although the eyes yearn to see you my Lord, you are in the very eyes, (1886, Gitobitan , 487) and pleased his father had given him a prize of 500 rupees. (317) 2 He also mentions how he would often sing for Debendranath in the evenings, while his father looked out into the garden of Jorasanko, and moonlight flooded the verandah (316-317).

Many of these songs which l locate in his early Brahmo upasana phase, uphold the “ananda” aspect of Sat-Chit-Ananda or the “Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute” that Saguna Brahman or Brahman with Attributes, is supposed to have. A Brahmo upasana song that belongs to this phase of his compositions would be “Anandaloke Mongolaloke Biraja, Satyasundara” (“Oh, Lord Manifest Yourself in the Light of Joy and Benediction, Thou who art Truth and Beauty Personified,” 1893, Gitobitan ,476 ) modelled on a Rig Vedic hymn. “Bhuvaneshwara He” or “O Lord of the Universe,” (1906, Gitabitan, 122) set to raag Yaman, has a soaring musical appeal and is a sincere prayer for release from lowly impulses like anger and jealousy in the self. It is noteworthy to mention at this point that of the many Hindustani classical and some Carnatic ragas that Rabindranath set his songs to, the raag Behag was certainly one of his most favourite, and the raag Bhairavi was another, the poet also having set innumerable songs to this raga. “ “Let Shanti fall on us like the silent rain,”(1896, Gitabitan, 410), “Ananda flows through the universe,” (1894, Gitabitan, 326), and or “Come to me Oh my lord in the deepest regions of my heart,” (1894 Gitabitan,11), where the Lord is referred to as “anondomoya” or “full of Joy,” are songs in this order.

As Satyendranath Ray says in Rabindranather Bishwaser Jagat that belief in God was “swatasiddha,”(53) or “ natural and spontaneous” in Rabindranath. After the initial Upanisadic phase, which of course deeply permeated Rabindranath’s life till the very end, in attempting to talk about Rabindranath’s art, philosophy, music and religion, one could not do it without recognizing the deep core of Vaishnava influence on his thought. Developing after the rigorous monism of Advaita and its dismissal of the world of name and form as Maya, and “shunyata” or “emptiness” as the ultimate goal in Buddhism, Vaishnav philosophy, takes the world seriously. In Jivansmriti he mentions the deep delight that reading Jaydev’s Gita Govinda gave him (308).

In his poem, Vaishnavkabita (1892), literally meaning “Vaishnav Poem,” Rabindranath speaks about how poetry, melody, love and spirituality come together in a Vaishnav response, and addressing the poet who has written the poem he says,

Tell me truly dear Vaishnav poet/ where did you get this picture of Love/ Where did you learn this song of love, yet full of the pain of separation/ Whose eyes made you think of the tear filled eyes of Radha?

In Religion of Man (1930), Rabindranath says, The Vaisnava poet sings of the Lover who has his flute which, with its different stops, gives out of the varied notes of beauty and love that are in Nature and Man. Those notes bring to us our message of invitation. They eternally urge us to come out from the seclusion of our self-- centered life into the realm of love and truth (100—101). In his book Padavali’r Tattwasoundarya O Kabi Rabindranath, Shivaprasad Bhattacharya explains that the Krishna of the Vaishnava tattwa is not that of the Mahabharata, the Gita or the Srimadbhagavatam. He is that Krishna who may be understood through Rabindranath’s song “Amara parana jaha chay tumi tai, tumi tai go” or, “Oh you are the One that my heart yearns for” (1888, Gitabitan, 142) (1) .Bhattacharya goes on to further say that the Krishna of the Vaishnava devotee, is He through whom we get to know the world in its varied and multifarious forms and through whom we also get ultimate knowledge (1). He is engaged in divine sport or lila, usually with his consort Radha (1), and Radha could easily be extended to include all devotees of Krishna. He is thus the One through whom the Vaishnava experiences all that is beautiful and meaningful and full of rasa (experiential sweetness) in this world, a feeling for example reflected in Tagore’s song, “You have come down to Earth my Lord, because you love me, and without me your Love would be meaningless,” (1910, Gitabitan, 294).

This tattwa also merges with Shakta tattwa where the Divine Unity is seen in the conjunct figures of Shiva and Shakti or Brahman (Krishna) and Shakti (Radha). Refracted through this Shakta epistemology, Radha also becomes Adhyashakti (Kathamrita, 630) or Brahman’s Hladini form that allows the lila of form, color, beauty, emotion to take place, in infinite combinations and variations. The most important bhavas through which the Vaishnav worships Krishna are madhura (love) shanta (quietness), dasya (servanthood) and vatsalya (childlike worship of God) and sakhya (friendship) These bhavas are all mentioned in the Ramkrishna Kathamrita too and vatsalya which is to relate to God as a parent, is how Ramakrishna related to Kali whom he called the “Divine Mother”. In the Kathamrita Sri Ramakrishna posits that “Sreemati (Radha) had “madhur bhava.” (65) He further adds that within the “madhur bhava” there is “shanta, dasya, sakhya, vatsalya” (64) and adds that “I have the attitude of a child.”(65). And Shivaprasad Bhattacharya claims that “happiness over love,” or “Premananda”, “happiness in the world,” “Bhumananda”, and “experience of the ultimate happiness of Brahman,” or “Brahmananda,” come together in the madhura bhava, the bhava with which Radha worships Krishna (55).

We may easily see that this is a state that we may ascribe to Rabindranath, as many songs enact the magical fusion of love, nature and God, with each form or category of love, flowing into the other, making the whole an indescribable union that though contained in language, promises to flow beyond it. For instance in a song like “Jaage Natha Jocchona Raate,” or, “The Lord wakes up on a moonlit night” (1910, Gitobitan, 536), how are specific parameters of experience to be drawn? Ultimately, although through the hermeneutics of rasa, a portion of this experience should reach the sahrdaya or perfect auditor, also remains a purely subjective experience, that Love often is. In the Kathamrita, Sri Ramakrishna says, “One cannot say what Brahman is.” (900).

Of all the bhavas, madhura is the most celebrated because it was the bhava of Radha. It brings to mind the famous composition by 16th century Vaishnav saint, Vallavacharya, who lists the innumerable qualities of the “Madhur” (Sweet) Krishna: His lips are sweet, His face is sweet/His eyes are sweet, His smile is sweet/ His heart is sweet, His walk is sweet/ Everything is sweet about the Lord of sweetness. All eight stanzas of this song end with the refrain which translates into “everything is sweet about the Lord of Sweetness.” 4 One is also reminded in this context of 15th century Vaishnav saint Narasin Mehta, who composed the bhajan “Vaishnava Jano to,” so dear to Gandhi ,the first lines of which translate into “Vaishnava people are those who/ Feel the pain of others/Help those who are in misery,/But never let ego or conceit enter their mind.” It is obvious therefore, that Vaishnavism, penetrated very deep into the collective consciousness of India, over many centuries and is linked to the cultivation of Love in its widest and forms, and includes both Love for the Lord, as well as one’s fellow human beings.

On 14th Kartik, 1921, Rabindranath writes to Brojendranath Seal of which I offer the English translationThe intermingling of Vaishnava literature and the Upanishads have created the inner climate of my mind. Just in the way nitrogen and oxygen mix.” (Vishwabharati Patrika, 1880 shak, Baishak-Asad).

In Atmaparichay (1917), Rabindranath says, If in my writing there is any religious feeling, then it is the divine bond of Love between the jivatman and the paramatma. To experience that, is to have spiritual feeling or understanding. In this supreme love relationship, on one hand you have dwaita and on the other advaita, on one hand separation and on the other, reunion, on one hand bondage and on the other, freedom. Within this power and beauty, form and its appreciation, the finite and the infinite, have all become One (qtd. in Pratima Ray, 131).

The Vaishnav mode of lila suited Rabindranath not only because the Radha/Krishna dyad brought the finite/infinite dialectic and dialogue together, but through his own Radha mode, he could endlessly reveal, refract, recast his many moods and modes of perception, of being and becoming in the world, through the senses and the spirit, through language and through melody. It gave him infinite pleasure to read and write his many splendored volitions within this classical mould, of metaphysics, epistemology and poetry. In Rabindranather Dharma-Darshan Pratima Ray posits, that Rabindranath was both a Dwaitavadi (dualist)and an Advaitavad (monist), but as a Dwaitavadi he does not locate the telos in Vrindaban, but in himself, in the union of his greater Self with his lesser Self . She also posits that he liked the easy metaphysics of the Vaishnavites and the Baul poets (132).

Music is one of the chief modes through which Rabindranath’s “prem” or Love expresses itself. He has a great deal to say about the centrality of music as a cosmic reality and also of course love, through the route of Vaishnava and Baul epistemology and theology and practice of “everyday life” in Religion of Man (137--138 ). We have a song in which Rabindranath expresses the primal Reality of musical sound that winds itself through the heart of the mortal poet: Ki dhwani baje/gohona chetana majhe or “Oh that sound that resonates through the profoundest depths of my Being,” (1931, Gitobitan, 79). In Religion of Man (1930), he says,

..the pure essence of expressiveness in existence is offered in music. Expressiveness finds the least resistance in sound, having freedom unencumbered by the burden of facts and thoughts. This gives it a power to arouse in us an intimate feeling of reality. …a meaning which is undefinable, and yet which grips our mind with a sense of absolute truth (137—138).

In the same book quoting another unnamed poet he claims,

We are the music makers/We are the dreamers of dreams (118).

Thus, madhura is often the bhava of Tagore in many songs, an early one being “Oh, this night that passes, can never be brought back” 1893, Gitabitan, 247). Significant songs with heart rending melody in this mode, are “eki labonnye purna pran,’ or “Oh, this overwhelming sweet feeling that fills my heart, “ (1893, Gitabitan, 539)the kirtan “O Lord I only see you sometimes,”(1885 Gitabitan,394 ) or another kirtan where he addresses the Lord as “Jeevanballav” or “O the Lord of my Life,”(1894, Gitabitan, 480) We find Rabindranath in a moment of radical recasting and bold re--envisioning of the Lord/devotee lila in where the Lord and the devotee are equally desperate for each other’s love. He addresses the Lord as “Kangal” or “beggar”, (1879, Gitabitan, 35), and the song begins, “Oh, You Beggar, you have made me into a beggar,” and its haunting melody and intricacy of its semi classical form, give it an almost incomparable beauty in the genre of Bengali semi-- classical or ragpradhan (song based on a raga ) music. It is interesting though that another of Rabindranath’s contemporaries, Rajanikanto Sen ( 1865--1910 ), has an unforgettable song where he too calls the Lord a “kangal sakha” or a “friend” who is also a “beggar”.

In a crop of songs written during 1909—1910, the feeling between the Lord and his devotee, who often inhabits the radha mode of being, deepens. In the song “Aha tomar shonge praner khela,” or “Oh, my Lord I am engaged in the game of Love with you,” (1910 Gitabitan, 88), the poet speaks through the persona of Radha and says “ drops of blood from my heart will thereby stain your upper garment” (translation mine). Another song in the obviously Radha mode and written at the same time, is the classic, “Megher pore megh jomecche/andhar kore aashe,”or “Clouds pile up on clouds…I wait for you to come,” (1909, Gitabitan-32), set to raag mishra Sahana, where the poet makes a passionate entreaty to the Lord to please come as he waits by his cottage door, and dark clouds fill the air with sombre expectation.

We could simply read the song as a magnificent expression of the yearning of the spiritual poet Rabindranath, but one can just as easily locate the paradigmatic structure of Radha’s oceanic yearning for Krishna in the song, whereby the poet persona merges into the archetypal figure of Radha, who embodies passionate longing. Thus myth, gender, the contingent and poetry, intersect each other to create a text, whose melody and affect, stir and trap the auditor into a state of permanent longing and expectation for the melody to recur and fulfil itself. Such is the world of the best of Tagore’s songs, many of which celebrate longing for the Beloved/Lord. Another song that powerfully evokes the pain of absence of the Beloved One, the Beloved Krishna or “Monmohan bondhu” is, “Bedona ki bhashai re, marme marmoriya,”( “O pain that seeps through every pore of my being,” 1931, Gitabitan, 246).

Death circumscribed Rabindranath’s life, with his beloved sister—in-- law Kadambini committing suicide in 1883, his wife dying in 1902 aged only thirty, Renuka Devi (Rani) aged thirteen, in 1903, and Samindranath (Shami), aged ten in 1907 aged ten and Madhurilata (Bela) aged thirty, in 1918. Rabindranath had lost three children by the time he was fifty seven. Therefore, many of the later songs that are also addressed to a “bondhu” or “friend,” a “priyo” or “beloved,” have a dark and brooding quality about them, giving us a sense of pain that cannot be reconciled. In many of these songs, Rabindranath’s own sense of being burdened by his ego, of not being able to let go, intensifies the nature of the struggle, waged both within and without the self.

The high affect of songs like, “ Shudhu tomar bani, noi go he bandhu, he priyo, majhe majhe praane tomar, parash khani diyo,” or (“ Please Lord, let me feel your touch, not just hear scriptural wisdom,” (1914, Gitabitan, 37), seems to ride a fine line of distinction between devotion as devotion and devotion as eros. For the mortal poet, the Lord’s words must translate into touch, because the heart recognizes and yearns for the “parash” or “touch,” rather than the dry abstractions of philosophy. In the song quoted above, an ultimate experience is craved, but God is requested to become contingent and embodied, to be accessible to a human register of affect, where the poet feels that He is holding his hand. Yet in “Sakal janam bhore, O mor doradiya,” or, “Through many lifetimes O compassionate One,” (1921 Gitabitan, 163), the poet admits with deep humility that although he has not made any preparations for the Lord’s worship in the darkness of his heart, the Lord waits patiently for his devotee, because he is a “daradiya,” or one who matches the devotee’s yearning, and desperation through his perfect empathy.

Thus Rabindranath’s many addresses to the Lord, “Pranesh” (Lord of my Life, 1893) to “Jeevanballav” or “the one who holds my heart” (1894 ), to “ Probhu or “Master, Lord,” (1910) to “daradiya,” “compassionate One”, (1921) “Manmohan bondhu” or “the friend who my mind thinks is most beautiful” (1931) to “Shyamala Sundara” or “Beautiful Green One,” (1937) offers us a trajectory that is vast and multi-layered and no less complex intricate and affect ridden than a true epic of love, between Radha and Krishna. From madhura, to sakhya, dasya, including the vyakulata (yearning) , akulta (yearning), viraha (pain of separation) and abhimaan (injured pride), Rabindranath seems to go through the whole gamut of feelings and bhavas that pertain to Radha/Krishna lila. In effect, Rabindranath’s songs carrying an explicit or implicit Radha/Krishna dyad, with the poet playing many forms of Radha, constitutes one of the richest expressions and variations of bhakti bhava in Bengali literature. It is a universe of Radha/Krishna lila, a sub--tradition if one likes, in a religious/cultural tradition that has endured for centuries, even outside India.

This essay on Radha/Krishna affect would not be complete without a slightly more detailed analysis of the song “Jage Natha Jocchona rate” or “the Lord awakens on a moonlit night,” (1910). Nature, Love, the Lord, melody and classical structure (the fourteen beat Dhamar), come together in a magnificent fusing of many traditions. The song marks one of Rabindranath’s most dramatic moments of cultural and historical intervention within aesthetic/musical/devotional/ Vaishnav/Upanisadic traditions where Nature, Divine Being, Music and the divinely gifted human sensibility, simply become coextensions of each other. It might be interesting to also mention in this context that in the famous Devimahatyam stotra of the Sri Sri Chandi, one of the beautiful attributes of the Devi, is that She is “jyotsnaroopa” (285) Atulprasad Sen (1871--1934) also has an unforgettable song in which the same madhura bhava of Vaishnav upasana richly surfaces in the incredible metaphor where moonlight and the Lord practically become one, because moonlight leads us to “neelkanta” or the blue Krishna.

Another seam in his poetry came from the Sahajiya or baul cultural sub--sect in Bengal. In his Rabindranather Bishwas-er Jagat Satyendranath Roy says that Rabindranath stated that once at Jorasanko, Kolkata, when he was young, he had heard a Baul from Shilaidaha sing. Shilaidaha was a place in East Bengal, where the Tagore family had zamindari land where Rabindranath later spent many creative hours amidst the natural beauty of the place, immortalized in a great deal of his poetry. The words were: Where will I get Him/ Who my mind yearns for/ I have lost him and look for him everywhere ( qtd. in Satyendranath Roy, 84).

Roy says that in this language could easily be read to mean the classic wisdom of the Upanishads which mean, “Know that Purusha, if you have to know at all, otherwise you will undergo the pain of Death.”( 84). Although, the words “Moner Manush” or “the One in my mind” is said to have come to Rabindranath from a song by Baul poet Lalon Fakir, we can easily see how this song becomes the now famous song by Tagore, set to a beautiful but common Baul tune, “Amar moner manush acche praane,” which means that “ the One who is my Own, is in my Heart,”(1910, Gitabitan, 549) Another song from the same phase has very similar wording, “O amar mon jakhan jagli na re/tor moner manush elo dware,” or, “ Oh, my mind you did not awaken when the One of your Heart came to you.” (1910, Gitabitan, 550) It is easy to see how these words may easily be mistaken as words dedicated to a mortal beloved. That is just the point of the Baul epistemology; the mortal and the divine flow into each other, in infinitely various and enchanting forms and it becomes impossible to demarcate between the two. That this is Rabindranath’s own point of view becomes obvious in the way he refers to them in his collection of poems called Patraput: They look for God in His own place/outside all barriers and boundaries/ in the separation/reunion matrix of those they love ((Rabindra Rachanavali, Vol. 20, poem 15, 42, lines 4-10)

I have seen their sadhakas so many times/ holding his ektara and immersed in music/ looking for that beloved one/ in lonely places quoted (Rabindra Rachanavali, Vol. 20, poem 15, 42, lines 14—20)

In Religion of Man, explicating his own position vis à vis the world, music, song, experience, love and the relationship of the finite I to the infinite I, Rabindranath summarizes the song of the Baul poet (191): It goes on blossoming for ages, the soul –lotus, in which I am bound, as well as thou, without escape. There is no end to the opening of its petals and the honey in it has so much sweetness that thou, like and enchanted bee, canst never desert it, and therefore thou art bound, and I am, and mukti is nowhere (191).

In Religion of Man, Rabindranath also refers to 15th century Bhakti poet Kabir, Nanak and Dadu, none of whom, had tried to find God outside mortal frames of existence that defined our lives. In the introduction to the volume of translated dohas (poems) of Kabir that Evelyn Underhill translated with Tagore, and of which she writes the introduction, Underhill refers to how Kabir posits that He (God) is “the Mind within the mind” (xxiv). Underhill further explicates that for Kabir, “..creation is the Play of the Eternal Lover; the living, changing gtwoin expression of Brahma’s love and joy.” (xxx) Kabir is compared to the musical mystic Richard Rolle (xxxiv ), and other mystics like St. Francis, St. Teresa, Catherine of Sienna (xxxiii), who lived in joyful union with God. The reference to Rolle is doubly significant because Rolle, Kabir, Rabindranath and Swami Vivekananda, all believed in the cosmic centrality of music.

This discourse also brings us into contiguity with Romantic poets, Wordsworth (1770—1850) and Keats(1795—1821), who have celebrated both the world of Nature particularly, and the volitions of the poet. In his “Preface to the Second Edition of the Lyrical Ballads” written in 1800, Wordsworth describes the poet, who although like other men, is different because he is: endowed with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, ….a man pleased with his own passions and volitions, and who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him…(437)

In a letter to Benjamin Bailey written in 1817 Keats says, “I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart’s affections and the truth of imagination—What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth (473).

In Atmaparichay (1917) where he affirms the principle of magic, surprise and wonder that pervades the universe and surfaces in the human capacity for wonder and for perceiving this magic, he asserts that to him even the tiniest speck of dust is magical and wondrous (200).5 He then goes on to write the following lines that are also quoted as being central to his life and vision: I do not crave mukti through renunciation/ with deep delight among the many bonds that bind me to this world/ I will seek mukti. (Rabindra Rachanavali, 24, 203)

So, through the collection of poems entitled Gitanjali (1910) Gitali (1914), and Gitimalya (1914), and even as early as Naivedya (1901),he develops his own sense of his Jeevandevata or the “Lord of his Life”, who is not Krishna per se, nor the Upanishadic Brahman, but the One in whom the little “I” and the big “I” meet in his very own being, and between whom there are eternal crossovers and transitions. This finally leads to his firm conviction that there was nothing greater than man and it is the “Mahamanav” ( Rabindranath’s last song is written on the “mahamanav,” 1941) or “Great Man” in which he sees the redemption of the human race. Rabindranath had great respect and admiration for the Buddha, as did Vivekananda.

In 1930, Rabindranath published Religion of Man, which along with the series of lectures known as the Hibbert Lectures delivered at Oxford in 1930, and also at the University of Manchester in 1930, includes the continuum of his thoughts in this area, Rabindranath says, “The idea of the humanity of our God, or the divinity of Man the Eternal, is the main subject of this book.”(5) He also tells Einstein in their meeting on July 14th, 1930, “..The infinite personality of Man comprehends the Universe. There cannot be anything that cannot be subsumed by the human personality and this proves that the truth of the Universe is a human truth” (qtd in Satyendranath Ray, 186).In Religion of Man, he quotes Sahajiya (Baul) poet Chandidas ( ) as his last word on the subject: Listen, O brother man…the Truth of Man is the highest of truths; there is no other truth above it (226).

In Religion of Man, explicating his own position vis à vis the world, music, song, experience, love and the relationship of the finite I to the infinite I, Rabindranath summarizes the song of the Baul poet (191): It goes on blossoming for ages, the soul –lotus, in which I am bound, as well as thou, without escape. There is no end to the opening of its petals and the honey in it has so much sweetness that thou, like and enchanted bee, canst never desert it, and therefore thou art bound, and I am, and mukti is nowhere (191).

In Religion of Man, Rabindranath also refers to Bhakti poets, Nanak, Kabir 213, Ravidas and Dadu (212),none of whom, had tried to find God outside mortal frames of existence that defined our lives. In the introduction to the volume of poems that he translated with Evelyn Underhill. Underhill refers to how Kabir posits that He (God) is “the Mind within the mind” (xxiv). Underhill further explicates that for Kabir, “..creation is the Play of the Eternal Lover; the living, changing gtwoin expression of Brahma’s love and joy.” (xxx) Kabir is compared to the musical mystic Richard Rolle ( xxxiv ), and other mystics like St. Francis, St. Teresa, Catherine of Sienna (xxxiii), who lived in joyful union with God. The reference to Rolle is doubly significant because Rolle, Kabir, Rabindranath and Swami Vivekananda, all believed in the cosmic centrality of music.

It is important for purposes of extending the discursive implications of this essay on Rabindranath by bringing in references to Vivekananda at certain crucial points. The two men certainly met, although were mostly silent about each other, Rabindranath often having expressed bitterness towards sannyasis, for instance in poem number 7 of Prantik where he denigrates “vairagya” as “madness” that ensues from “ingratitude” towards the beauty and loveliness here on earth. (quoted in Pratima Roy, 41). As Aditya Prosad Mazumdar mentions in Chintanayak Rabindranath and Vivkenanda, they met at a tea party arranged by Sister Nivedita, but in a letter that Nivedita writes later to Josephine Mcleod (30th January, 1899), there is no mention of any comment made by Rabindranath about Vivekanandaor vice versa ( 27 ). Vivekananda gives voice to the same belief in the human being, the triumphant humanism of the Renaissance in Bengal, the belief in the greatness of power that issues from Brahman in the individual person, at the Chicago Address in 1893, Swamiji says to the assembled audience: “Allow me to call you, brethren, by that sweet name—heirs of immortal bliss—yea, the Hindu refuses to call you sinners. Ye are the Children of God, the sharers of immortal bliss, holy and perfects beings Ye divinities on earth—sinners? It is a sin to call a man so. .. (7).

The concern for the lowly and the poor that we see later in Rabindranath’s work, manifests itself much earlier in Vivekananda. In 1898 while the construction of Belur Math was going on, on being questioned by a disciple as to whether India would rise again by saying, “Your duty at present is to go from one part of the country to another, from village to village, and make the people understand that mere sitting idly won’t do any more. Make them understand their real condition and say, “ O ye brothers, arise, awake, how much longer would you remain asleep (Selections from the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 427).

In “An Appeal To His Countrymen,” excerpted from Modern India, in lines where he embraces all of Indian culture and India’s humanity, with its multiple contradictions and complexities, Vivekananda urges his countrymen to jump into the salvation of their land. These lines still throb with passion and conviction: Be bold, take courage, be proud that thou art an Indian, and proudly proclaim, “I am an Indian, every Indian is my brother.”. say, “ The ignorant Indian, the poor and destitute Indian, the Brahmin Indian, the Pariah Indian is my brother…Say brother, the soil of India is my Heaven, the good of India is my good.” (Selections from the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 493).

Although no indebtedness to Swamiji’s ideas is ever acknowledged in Rabindranath Tagore, it seems to this writer that many of the ideas and images of the previous speech, seem to surface in the following letter Rabindranath wrote to Hemantabala Devi, in 1931: My God is not in the temple, not in images, not in Baikuntha (italics mine), but in Man, where there is hunger, thirst, hunger unappeased, lack of sleep, the God who is in Heaven, has none of this… (Chithipotro 9, letter 19, 14th June, 1931, 42-43)

In response to the Vaishnava precepts of “Jive daya, Vaishnav Prem, Namsankirtan,” or “Compassion for one’s fellow beings,” “love of fellow Vaishnavas, and Kirtan,” Sri Ramakrishna, in a state of heightened feeling had said, “ke kare doya kore, bolo shivjnane jiva seva,” or “ who dares show compassion to another ?/Instead say, ‘Worship Jiva as Shiva!’” Vivekananda transformed this brilliant formulation by his Master to the well known couplet in Bengali, “bohurupe sammukhhe tomar, chadi kotha khujicho Ishwar, Jive prem kore jei jan, shei jan sheviche Ishwar,” or “where are you looking for God when He is manifests himself in so many forms before you ?/ He who loves his fellow human being, loves God.”

In the opinion of this writer, the capaciousness of spirit that allowed Vivekananda to experience that hunger of the masses of India, from within, is perhaps something the great poet Rabindranath, would find hard to match. Although Rabindranath created Vishwabharati, (1921) and Sriniketan (1922-1923), the former structured on his own principles of ideal education for young people, and the latter putting into force his notions of rural reconstruction, it is doubtful if Rabindranath could have done the kind of relief work for the plague outbreak in Kolkata in 1898 as Vivekananda and his men did. 5Also one wonders if he would have ever gone so far as to want to sell Vishwabharati, for raising money for this work, as Vivekananda had wanted to by selling Belur Math, his decision stalled by Sri Sarada Devi. Some of Vivekananda’s actions remain like Rabindranath’s unforgettable images and melodies.

Finally, both Rabindranath and Vivekananda, shaped and gave distinctive forms of action and thought to the enormous and spectacular burst of energy that made the colossal shift in sensibility possible, in the 19th century, bringing Bengal/India from a pre modern ethos to a modern one. Rabindranath, by taking the Bengali language to unprecedented heights of melody and grace, subtlety and magic, giving birth in short to the modern Bengali cultured sensibility, which would be incompletely formed, without knowledge of his songs. His songs are now also acquiring a pan Indian character, translated as they have been to Hindi, and sung by certain practitioners. At however, a slightly incongruous level of the pan-- Indianism of Rabindrasangeet in recent times, Sunidhi Chauhan and Kavita Krishnamurthy, have also been identified as one of Rabindranth’s “five daughters.” By musical evening organizers. The songs, are an easy access to his philosophy and Art. Vivekananda, on the other hand, has put into action, the feeling of oneness with God as oneness with the human being, by translating his motto of “atmanomokshartam jadaddhitayacha” or “Renunciation and Service” by creating an institutionalized body (the Ramakrishna Mission, formed in 1897), dedicated to the overall service of all human beings, particularly, the poor and the destitute. When Rabindranath speaks about how God resides in the poor and the farmer, it still remains, although deeply infused with feeling, and partial manifestation in actual social upliftment, a theoretical construct, but in Vivekananda it becomes “worship” and action.

Finally however, to close on the “divine Eros” and “melody” of Rabindranath’s puja songs, I will refer to Benoy Sarkar’s thoughts in in Benoy Sarkar’s Baithak ( Part I, p.58. ), referred to in Aditya Mazumdar’s Chintanayak Rabindranath and Vivekananda (125). Sarkar claims that Rabindranath’s God is the Bhagavat Gita of both Muslims and Hindus, into which all streams of Hindu thought have fed and matured. He is more intimately close and personalized than the Brahman of the Upanishads. He is similar to the God of the Vaishnavites because he has identifiable attributes, but he is not that “sarvojanin” (universal) or “sanatan” eternal, as Rabindranath’s is. I would also add that Rabindranath’s Jeevandevata is also more “rasamoy” or “filled with the incredible sweetness of Life itself.” Without question however, the “Divine Eros” and “Melody” of Rabindranath Tagore in his songs, have taught the Bengali mind to think about the largest and most far reaching life issues, through language that takes the sensibility to the furthest points of expression and beauty, and proved how melody is indeed “worship.”

Notes

1. All translations are mine, of songs, sections from Atmaparichay and the summarized section from Jyotirindranath’s Autobiograpy

2. All English dates and Raga details of songs have been obtained from Sudhir Chanda’s Rabindrasangeet Raga Sur Nirdeshika, Papyrus, 2002, 2006.

3. For all songs, the number in the Gitabitan has been indicated since first lines from the Bengali orginal have often been excluded, and this detail will help Bengali readers of this article to locate the song.

4. http://greenmesg.org/mantras_slokas/sri_krishna-madhurashtakam-adharam_madhuram.php :

5. Rajagopal, Chattopadhyaya. Swami Vivekananda in India: A Corrective Biography. Delhi: Motilal Banarasidas Publishers, Private Limited. 1999.

Works Cited

1. Bhattacharya, Shivaprasad. Padavalir Tattwasoundarya O Kavi Rabindranath. Kolkata: Rabindra Bharati Vishwavidyalaya. 1967.

2. Chanda, Sudhir. Rabindrasangeet Raga Sur Nirdeshika. Kolkata: Papyrus. 2002, 2006.

3. Chattopadhyaya, Rajagopal. Swami Vivekananda in India: A Corrective Biography. Delhi: Motilal Banarasidas Publishers, Private Ltd. 1999.

4. Gupta, Mahendra Nath. The Ramakrishna Kathamrita: Kolkata: Udbodhan. 23rd Reprint. February, 2007

5. Mazumdar, Aditya Prasad. Chintanayak Rabindranath O Vivekananda. Sribhumi Publishing Company: Kolkata. 1974.

6. Prajnanananda, Swami. A Historical Study of Indian Music. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Private Ltd. 1980

7. Ray, Pratima. Rabindranather Dharma Darshan. Kolkata: Gopa Prakashani. 1976.

8. Ray, Satyendranath. Rabindranather Vishwaser Jagat. Kolkata: Dey’s Publishing. 2004.

9. Rolland, Romain. The Life of Ramakrishna. Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama. 23rd Reprint. 2012.

10. Sri Sri Chandi. Trans. & ed. by Swami Jagadishwarananda. Kolkata: Udbodhan. 174th Reprint. September, 2004.

11. Tagore, Jyotirindranath. “Jivan Katha” in Jyotirindranath Natak Samagra. Part I. Ed. Debjit Bandopadhyay. Kolkata: Sahitya Samsad. January 2002. 13—16.

12. Tagore, Rabindranath. Trans. The Songs of Kabir. Introduction by Evelyn Underhill. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1915.

13. Jivansmriti. Rabindra Rachanavali. Vol. 17. Kolkata: Vishwabharati Granthan Vivag. 1986. 261-432.

14. Atmaparichay. Rabindra Rachanavali. Vol. 27. Kolkata: Vishwabharati Granthan Vivag. 1986. 187-248.

15. Patraput. Rabindra Rachanavali. Vol. 20, poem 15, Kolkata: Vishwabharati Granthan Vivag. 1986. 42.

16. Religion of Man. New Delhi: Niyogi Books. 2012.

17. Gitabitan. Kolkata: Vishwabharati Granthan Vivag. 1982.

18. Chithipotro. Kolkata: Vishwabharati Granthan Vivag. 1964.

19. Vivekananda, Swami. Selections from the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama. 23rd Impression. January, 2007.

20. http://greenmesg.org/mantras_slokas/sri_krishna-madhurashtakam-adharam_madhuram.php :

Acknowledgements:

I gratefully acknowledge the contribution of the following persons in making the article what it is. First and foremost, Prof. Amiya K Sen, Department of Modern History, Jamia Millia University, for recommending me to Prof. Barik, for providing me with an exhaustive bibliography, and for reading initial stages of the draft and making helpful suggestions. I acknowledge Prof. Sumita Chakraborty, previously of the Department of Bengali, Burdwan University, for her love and her generous gift of time, for reading the final draft and pointing out that Rabindranath and Vivekananda could not be jointly included within the length constraints of this essay. I thank Pandit Phalguni Mitra for giving me the invaluable Jyotirindranath Jivan Katha reference and the Sudhir Chanda book. Finally, I would like to thank Smt. Reena Ghosh of the RMIC, Golpark, Library, for her ready and patient assistance with esoteric material.

Sreemati Mukherjee
Professor,
Department of Performing Arts
Presidency University