Professor Debarati Bandyopadhyay teaches at the Department of English, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan. She was a Post-Doctoral Fellow for two years (2010-11) at Rabindranath Tagore Centre for Human Development Studies, Kolkata. She was an International Visiting Fellow at the University of Essex in 2017, and in 2018, a Visiting Fellow and Scholar at Glasgow and the Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies in Edinburgh, respectively, to conduct research on new nature writing and Eco criticism. Nature and Tagore are the biggest influences in her life.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) is famous in literary and artistic circles as the first and, so far, sole Indian recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, which he received in 1913 for Gitanjali: Song Offerings (1912). He wrote the national anthems of India and Bangladesh, and arguably inspired that of Sri Lanka as well. But we cannot understand the life and work of Tagore by only highlighting these achievements. A section of Indians revere him as the founder of Visva- Bharati in Santiniketan, 'the abode of peace. This institution became a central university, according to an Act of the Indian Parliament in 1951-ten years after its creator had left for his eternal abode of peace. His enormous literary, musical and artistic output is still undergoing the process of evaluation and appreciation in different countries. Tagore scholars continue to unearth new facets of his life and work even in the twenty-first century. Among the traditional fields of Tagore studies, some critics focus on his portrayal of the changing moods of nature, scenes of human vulnerability and fortitude, national and international politics and, through all the suffering, a profound faith reposed in God.
Thousands of pages have been written in both Bengali and English, in appreciation of Rabindranath Tagore's writings on nature. The greater part of this critical work has been devoted to the analyses of the felicity of expression of natural beauty in his writings. Lately though, some works in Bengali and English have concentrated on the presentation of environment in his writings, and the buildings of Santiniketan that he had commissioned. This aspect of his work needs better representation, especially in view of the current global environmental crisis. It is necessary, for our own welfare, to understand Rabindranath's contribution to this field as a writer and activist.
Shehudah 9 August 1894.
In town, human society is to the fore and looms large, it is cruelly callous to the happiness and misery of other creatures as compared with its own... When I am in close touch with Nature in the country, the Indian in me asserts itself and I cannot remain coldly indifferent to the abounding joy of life throbbing within the soft down-covered breast of a single tiny bird.
Patisar 22 March 1894
How artificial is our apprehension of sin! I feel that the highest commandment is that of sympathy for all sentient beings. Love is the foundation of all religion. The other day I read in one of the English papers that 50,000 pounds of animal carcasses had been sent to some army station in Africa, but the meat being found to have gone bad on arrival, the consignment was returned and was eventually auctioned off for a few pounds at Portsmouth. What a shocking waste of life! What callousness to its true worth! How many living creatures are sacrificed only to grace the dishes at a dinner-party, a large proportion of which will leave the table untouched!
Shelidah 8 May 1893
Poetry is a very old love of mine-I must have been engaged to her when I was only Rathi's age. Long ago the recesses under the old banyan tree beside our tank, the inner gardens, the unknown regions on the ground floor of the house, the whole of the outside world, the nursery rhymes and tales told by the maids, created a wonderful fairyland within me... The lover whom she favours may get his fill of bliss, but his heart's blood is wrung out under her relentless embrace... Consciously or unconsciously, I may have done many things that were untrue, but I have never uttered anything false in my poetry-that is the sanctuary where the deepest truths of my life find refuge.
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