"A Wife's Letter" by Rabindranath Tagore

"A Wife's Letter" by Rabindranath Tagore (1922, 5 pages)

Real Wisdom from Asia's First Nobel Laureate

রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর

"My mother was always very troubled by my intelligence; for a woman it’s an affliction. If she whose life is guided by boundaries seeks a life guided by intelligence, she’ll run into so many walls that she’ll shatter her forehead and her future".

Rabindranath Tagore on The Reading Life

Gandi came to Rabindranath Tagore (1861 to 1941-Calcutta) for moral counseling.    Einstein pondered at length his metaphysics.    W. B. Yeats stood in awe of the depth of his wisdom.    He reshaped the Bengali language and revitalized a 1000s of year old literary tradition.   Born into truly kingly wealth he wrote in deep sympathy with the poor and especially the women of India.    He was the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature (1914).   Tagore was, happily for us, a prolific writer of short stories.    "A Wife's Letter" will be the 8th short story by Tagore that I have posted on and I think it is my favorite so far.

"A Wife's Letter" is, not surprisingly, in the form of letter from a wife, in this case a minor second wife, to her husband, addressed  as "To Thine Auspicious Lotus-Feet".
The wife opens the letter by saying in fifteen years of marriage she has never written a letter to her husband even though they have shared many confidences.   The wife is deeply religious.  I was very moved by these lines:

"I am Mejo-Bou, the second bride in your joint family. Today, fifteen years later, standing at the edge of the ocean, I understand that I also have other relationships, with the world and the World-Keeper."

It is almost as if her acceptance of her role as second wife is so deep within her psyche that she almost sees her relationship with the World-Keeper (an expression I like a lot) as a form of infidelity.

Her husband's first wife was considered quite plain, so plain his mother insisted that he redeem the family name by taking a beautiful second wife.      Mejo-Bou is considered incredibly beautiful by all, even the envious other women of the household.  She never has any sense of her own beauty.    These lines are heartbreaking:

"Long ago, in my childhood days--in the days when my preordained marriage to you was known only to the Omniscient One who writes our fates on our foreheads--my brother and I both came down with typhoid fever. My brother died; I survived. All the neighborhood girls said, “Mrinal’s a girl, that’s why she lived. If she’d been a boy, she couldn’t have been saved.” Jom-Raj is wise in his deadly robbery: he only takes things of value."

Even death does not want a young girl.

As she writes the letter she is alone on a religious pilgrimage.    Her husband is so devoted to his work that he cannot leave Calcutta.    She talks about how lonely she was when she first went to the house of her husband.   (She was 12, the first wife was 27 and not really happy about this new arrival!)    For a long time her only friends are three cows.  

The wife has a curse,  she is intelligent:

"That I had beauty, it didn’t take you long to forget. But you were reminded, every step of the way, that I also had intelligence. This intelligence must have lain deep within me, for it lingered in spite of the many years I spent merely keeping house for you. My mother was always very troubled by my intelligence; for a woman it’s an affliction. If she whose life is guided by boundaries seeks a life guided by intelligence, she’ll run into so many walls that she’ll shatter her forehead and her future. But what could I do? The intellect that the other wives in the house lacked, the Lord in a careless moment had bestowed upon me; now whom could I return the excess to? Every day you all rebuked me: precocious, impertinent girl! A bitter remark is the consolation of the inept; I forgive all your remarks."

To quote once more,  there is so much beauty and depth in this story:

"My daughter was born--and died. She called to me, too, to go with her. If she had lived, she would have brought all that was wonderful, all that was large, into my life; from Mejo-Bou I would have become Mother. And a mother, even confined to one narrow world, is of the universe. I had the grief of becoming a mother, but not the freedom."

An interesting and dramatic development is revealed in the letter and I will leave it unspoiled for potential readers.

"A Wife's Letter" was translated from Bengali by Prasenjit in 2009.

You can read it online HERE.

I think this might make a good first Tagore.

To me the short stories of Tagore are a world class treasure.

Please share your experiences with Tagore with us

Mel u

"The Auspicious Vision" by Rabindranath Tagore (1910)

I have been reading the short stories of Rabindranath Tagore (Calcutta, 1861 to 1941, awarded Nobel Prize for Literature, 1913) for a few years now.  (There is back ground information on him in my prior posts.). I hope to be reading them for a long time.  Tagore was a man of profound wisdom, deeply versed in Hindu traditions.  Einstein enjoyed metaphysical conversations with Tagore and W. B. Yeats was enthralled by him.  Ganhdi came to him for moral advice.  

"The Auspicious Vision" begins on the bank of a river.  A wealthy man is on a duck hunting expedition accompanied by servants.  He spots a beautiful young woman, just adolescent on the banks of the river.  She is holding some ducklings in her arm.  He tells her don't worry I won't shot them   (In reading stories such as this, recall marriages were mostly arranged and girls once 13 or so were considered of marriageable age.). The girl runs off without speaking to him.  He tells his men to find what family she is from as he wants to marry her.  He goes to visit her father and the father, happy to have a rich son in law, readily agrees to give his daughter in marriage.  As is the custom, the groom will not see her until what is called in Bengali wedding tradition, "The Auspucious Moment".  At that moment the groom gets a surprise that at first angers him.  The bride is not the girl he saw.  Then he realizes the father in law was never told who the girl was so he simply married him to another daughter.  There is a further surprise to come and I will leave that untold.  I liked this almost fable like story a great deal.

You can easily find this story online.  

Mel u

"The Supreme Night" by Rabindranath Tagore (1918)

Rabindranath Tagore (1861 to 1941, India, Nobel Prize - 1913) was an incredibly influential figure.  Einstein, a good friend, enjoyed metaphysical discussions with him,Gandhi sought out his advice, Yeats greatly admired him and wrote a preface for one of his books.  He wrote the national anthems of India and Pakistan and was the first Asian to win a Nobel Prize.  He is credited with reshaping the Begali literary tradition.      (I have posted on a number of his stories and there is additional background information on him in those posts).

"The Supreme Night" is a decent story about the emotional turmoil of a young man from Calcuta, focusing on his desire for independence from his father and his love for a young woman.  I think this story was translated by someone who learned Englsh in school (no translator credit is given by Gutenburg) as the prose is stillted and arcane at times.  Here is how the story opens

The narrator is eighteen, nearly past the normal age for marriage in his culture.  He decides rather than be placed in an arranged marriage, he will leave home for the big city of Calcutta to seek his fortune.  The plot, this is not a best of Tagore story but it is very much worth reading, is kind of cliche romantic drama.  He hears Surabala has married someone else and his heart almost breaks.   I don't want to tell the close of the story as it is an interesting if a stock idea from romantic fiction of the era.  

Please share your favorite Tagore stories with us.

 

"Cabuliwallah" by Rabindranath Tagore (1938)

Tagore (1861 to 1941) was born in Calcutta,  Indian into a family whose wealth and life style can now only be seen in movies.    His father owned an estate so huge that at one point in his life Tagore traveled through it on a luxurious barge and was met on the river bank by tenants paying token rents to him.   Tagore was raised mostly by servants as his mother died young and his father was very busy administrating the vast estates he owned.   Tagore was educated in classical Indian literature and at age eight began to write poetry and ended up reshaping the Bengali Language.   Later in his life he founded a school and devoted himself entirely to his writing and teachings.   His moral authority became so great that he was able to write the national anthems of both India and Bangladesh, give Gandhi the title of Mahatma (teacher),  and  had a status as a moral leader on a par with  Gandi.   He traveled to the west and met William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound and other notable literary figures.   This was in a period when western writers were fascinated by Indian thinkers. Yeats wrote the preface for one of his first translated into English books. He wrote largely in Bengali.   His body of work is a great literary treasure.   He was a Hindu Bengali.   He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, the first Asian winner and the only winner Indian author to win one to date. 

I have previously posted on ten of his delightful short stories.  In addition to being a deeply wise man, Einstein enjoyed discussing metaphysics with him and Gandhi came to him for moral advise, he was a great story teller.  Yesterday I decided it was a good day to read another one of his stories.

"Cubiliwallah" is narrated in the first person by a man writing a novel.   In his description of the novel in progress Tagore seems to be having some gentle fun at his own expense when he describes a ready for Bollywood epic of ancient heroes.   His work is interrupted often by his five year old daughter who loves talking.   A Cubiliwallah goes door to door selling fruits and vegetables.   They have among reputation as kidnappers of children so at first the family is alarmed when the daughter, Mimi, and the Cubiliwallah become good friends.   They always chat a long time whenever he stops to sell his goods. 

One day the Cubiliwallah got into a terrible fight with a customer who refused to pay him.  He ends up going to jail for eight years as the other man was severely injured.  I hate to spoil the very moving ending of this story so I won't.  

Mel u

"The Postmaster" by Rabindranath Tagore

"The Post Master" by Rabindranath Tagore  (1914, 12 pages)

Irish Short Story Week

March 11 to July 1

Nobel Prize Winners Only 

April 6 to April 13

Posts by Participants

Resources and Ideas for Irish Short Story Week

My Prior Posts for ISSW Year Two

Please consider joining us for Irish Short Story Week which now includes Latin American works by authors of Irish descent, there will be an Irish-Argentine day, and Kiwi Irish.  I will be adding a recurring feature on Flash Fiction, perhaps tied in with my series on Emerging Irish Women Writers.   To join in (I will do a post spotlighting all the blogs and web pages of those who have joined us in early July and I now include a link to all participant posts on each of my posts.)  To join in in you need just do a post on one or more Irish short stories or a work of related non-fiction and let me know about it.  Guests posts are very welcome (there have been three great ones so far and more are in the works).  If you are interested in this please contact me.   If you have any suggestions, questions or even complaints please leave a comment.

Each of the five Nobel Prize winning authors I have posted on this week has an a lot on influence beyond just the literary world.    George Bernard Shaw and Kenzaburo Oe have worked for social justice.  Samuel Becket and William Butler Yeats have opened up the minds of millions who have never read them through their influence on the culture of the world.  However, none of them even have come close to the real influence on the whole world of Rabindranath Tagore (1861 to 1941-Indian-was the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize when he received the award in 1913).  I have posted on a good number of the short stories of Tagore (I am proud to be the source of the most English languages posts of the stories of Tagore that you will find anywhere on the Internet

Tagore has a very strong connection with Irish literary culture which I will talk about in a bit.

 Tagore (1861 to 1941) was born in Calcutta, Indian into a family whose wealth and life style can now only be seen in movies.    His father owned an estate so huge that at one point in his life Tagore traveled through it on a luxurious barge and was met on the river bank by tenants paying token rents to him.   Tagore was raised mostly by servants as his mother died young and his father was very busy administrating the vast estates he owned.   Tagore was educated in classical Indian literature and at age eight began to write poetry and ended up reshaping the Bengali Language.   Later in his life he founded a school and devoted himself entirely to his writing and teachings.   His moral authority became so great that he was able to write the national anthems of both India and Bangladesh, give Gandhi the title of Mahatma (teacher),  and in fact in his life had a status as a moral leader on a par with  Gandi.   He traveled to England and met William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound and other notable literary figures.   This was in a period when western writers were fascinated by Indian thinkers and Yeats wrote the preface for one of his first translations in English.   He is considered prior to WWII and perhaps even now the most widely read Indian author both in the west and in India.     Einstein said he profited greatly from his conversation on metaphysics with Tagore, Gandhi came  to him for moral counseling.   In 1915 he was knighted by George the V but he repudiated his knighthood following the 1919 Jallianwata Massacare.  He was a strong advocate of the end of British rule in India.  


William Butler Yeats and his wife attended a series of lecturers Tagore gave in London.  Yeats was fascinated by Tagore.  Georgie Yeats was touched on such a deep level by Tagore that he appeared as a kind of spokesman in her automatic writing and this helped shaped the mature poetic vision of Yeats.   Hopefully before ISSW2 events I will post more on Georgie Yeats and her automatic writing.  

There is no literary tradition older than that of India.   There are speculative reasons to think there was an oral literary culture in Ireland 5000 years ago (about the same time that Indian literary culture arose).  The difference is that in India there is an unbroken chain from the works of Salmon Rushdie back 5000 years but in Ireland the chain is broken and we have no sources.   I also think, getting off topic a bit, that the roots of magic realism go back to very old Indian literature.

"The Postmaster" is about a man sent by the government postal service to be the postmaster in the village of Ulapur, a far cry from his home town of Calcutta.  (I will post a link where you can download this and other stories at the end of this post.)   "Our postmaster belonged to Calcutta.  He felt like a fish out of water in this remote village".   He is an educated man and can find no friends among the men there, most of whom work at an indigo factory.   He is very lonely.  His only real human contact is a young woman who is his servant.  She slowly falls in love with the man, but he never sees it.  He is blinded by the caste differences and sees any idea of a relationship with the woman as absurd.   He becomes more and more homesick.   He requests to be reassigned to Calcutta and when he is turned down he resigns.   There is really moving scene that embodies tremendous emotional intelligence at the end of the story which I will leave untold.

There is a curious chain between Yeats, Tagore and Oe.  Tagore influences Yeats who in turn influences Oe, from Japan. 

You can download this and other stories by Tagore here.

"The Postmaster" is a beautiful very wise and moving story, as has been all of the works by Tagore I have read.    It was translated from Bengali but there is no translator credit in the work I read.

Mel u

"The Judge" by Rabindranath Tagore

"The Judge" by  Rabindranath Tagore (1895, 12 pages)

My Prior Posts on Tagore

Until next year, I will be posting just on some selected short stories.

1861 to 1941

"The Judge" is the ninth story by Rabindranath Tagore which I have now read and posted on.    Sometimes I just feel like I need to read a story by someone whose wisdom and kindness of heart I know I can trust.   When that happens, Tagore is a very good author to turn to.   He is highly regarded for the way women are treated in his works.


Tagore (1861 to 1941) was born in Kolkata, Indian into a family whose wealth and life style can now only be seen in movies.    His father owned an estate so huge that at one point in his life Tagore travelled through it on a luxurious barge and was met on the river bank by tenants paying token rents to him.   Tagore was raised mostly by servants as his mother died young and his father was very busy administrating the vast estates he owned.   Tagore was educated in classical Indian literature and at age eight began to write poetry and ended up reshaping the Bengali Language.   Later in his life he founded a school and devoted himself entirely to his writing and teachings.   His moral authority became so great that he was able to write the national anthems of both India and Bangladesh, give Gandhi the title of Mahatma (teacher),  and  had a status as a moral leader on a par with  Gandhi.   He travelled to the west and met William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound and other notable literary figures.   This was in a period when western writers were fascinated by Indian thinkers and Yeats wrote the preface for one of his first translations in English.   He wrote largely in Bengali.   His body of work is a great literary treasure.   He was the first Asian writer to win the Nobel Prize (1914).

Women in India in 1895 were supposed to enter into arranged marriages in their early teens and stay in them for the rest of their lives, no matter what.   Sati, the burning of widows, was still practiced at this time.   Not every woman is able or willing to fit into this pattern of arranged marriages.   In reading older works of literature, you have to decide how you will react to the very young age at which women marry or can be seen as proper targets for sexual conquest.   "The Judge" is the story of an attractive 38  year old unmarried woman with a child.  (I assuming this is seen as old.)   Tagore has a beautiful set piece on how one can sort of detect if your mind has matured out of youth.

I will leave the plot unspoiled (there will be a link at the end of the post that will allow you to read the story).   Here is the beautiful thoughts of Tagore.

"In that dusk of youth, in the peace of that stage of life, he who has to start again in the false hope of new gains, new acquaintances and new relationships – for whose rest the bed has yet to be spread – for whom no light has been lit to welcome him home at day end – cursed indeed is he.

At the brink of her youth, one morning, when Khiroda woke up to find that her fiancé had run off the last night with all her ornaments and money, to leave her with not enough even to pay the rent or to get some milk to feed her three-year old child – she reminisced that in her life of thirty-eight years she could not lay claim over a single man, she had not acquired the right to live or die in the corner of any room. She realised she would again have to wipe off tears to deck up her eyes with black kajol and put on red make-up on her lips and cheeks in a curious attempt to cover up the worn-out youth and devise new schemes cheerfully and with infinite patience to capture new hearts".

Kirhoda decides it is better just to kill herself and her daughter.   She jumps with the three year old girl into a well.   The daughter drowns but Kirhoda is rescued.   She is arrested and is brought before a judge who feels women must be dealt with in the harshest fashion when they violate law and custom else they will all "go wild".   He sentences the mother to be hung.   

The judge has not always been the purest of men.   I believe it was  almost expected for men to have sexual experiences before marriage and this leads to many young men having predatory attitudes toward women while expecting only the greatest purity from their sisters, daughters, mothers, etc.   

There is a very moving a bit ambiguous ending to the story.   Maybe the judge learns something, maybe not.   Maybe there is a 24 year old connection of the judge to the 13 year old at the time Kirthoda, maybe not.   The ending will make you think, in fact the whole story will.

The story is a new translation from Bengali by  Saurav Bhattacharya.

You can read it here.      Tagore will for sure be back on The Reading Life in 2012.   

Please share with us your experience and feelings about Tagore.  

Mel u

A Ghost Story by Rabindranath Tagore-Asia's First Nobel Prize Winner

"Living or Dead?"  by Rabindranath Tagore (1916, 6 pages)

An Exquisite Ghost Story

Tagore on The Reading Life

"Men and ghosts fear each other, for their tribes inhabit different sides of the river of death"-

I am having a lot of fun reading and posting on ghost and paranormal stories for Carl V's really fun R I P reading event  devoted to horror, Gothic, and paranormal literature.    The rules for the event are on his blog and Carl has made it easy and a lot of fun to join in.
    

This will be the tenth story by Rabindranath Tagore (1861 to 1941-India) on which I have posted.   I really hope I can encourage others to read his stories as I think there is great wisdom in them  (Albert Einstein discussed metaphysics with him, W. B. Yeats wrote a preface to one of his books, and Gandhi came to him for moral consultations).  Here, taken from my post on a very famous ghost story of his, "Hungry Stones",  is some background information on him.

 Tagore  was born in Kolkata, Indian into a family whose wealth and life style can now only be seen in movies.    His father owned an estate so huge that at one point in his life Tagore traveled through it on a luxurious barge and was met on the river bank by tenants paying token rents to him.   Tagore was raised mostly by servants as his mother died young and his father was very busy administrating the vast estates he owned.   Tagore was educated in classical Indian literature and at age eight began to write poetry and ended up reshaping the Bengali Language.   Later in his life he founded a school and devoted himself entirely to his writing and teachings.   His moral authority became so great that he was able to write the national anthems of both India and Bangladesh, give Gandhi the title of Mahatma (teacher),  and in fact in his life had a status as a moral leader on a par with  Gandi.   He traveled to the west and met William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound and other notable literary figures.    He is considered prior to WWII and perhaps even now the most widely read Indian author both in the west and in India.   


"Living or Dead?"  (it is translated from Bengali-not a real good translation I think and in my reading source there is no translator credit given) begins in the home of a childless widow with no relatives of her own.   She has adopted a foster child who when the story opens is on her deathbed.   The child's age is not real clear but it seems to be middle or early teens based on the fact that she is considered beautiful and is still unmarried.    The widow has been left financially comfortable   Tragically  the foster daughter Kadambini dies.    As required by custom, immediate arrangements are made to burn the body.   Four funeral porters are called to take her to the place where her body will be burned.   When the porters get her body to the spot, they see the wood that was supposed to be there is not.   Two of the porters take off to get wood.    Two hours go by and the other two porters get bored and go in search of their coworkers.   When the come back the body is gone.   At first they think maybe a jackal carried her away but there are no signs of that.   They run in terror concluding she is now a ghost.    


It appears that Kadambini was not really dead at all but went into and has now come out of a coma.   She thinks she is dead.   She begins to hide in the shadows, caking herself in filth.   When people who knew her when she was thought to be living,  see her, they run from her and treat her as if she were a ghost.    She begins to fear herself.   At first she lived in the ruins of an old temple living from the offerings of temple goers but longed for a home.   She went to the house of an old friend who is shocked by her appearance but with the approval of her husband, takes her in.   (Tagore is  deservedly famous for his sympathetic  treatment of women and his portrayal of marriages and there are some great scenes   in this story showing the relationship of the friend and her husband.)    Slowly they come to see something is very wrong with Kadambini when they find out from others that she was said to be dead.   

She ends up back in her old house.  No one notices her as she enters the house.   She sees that she is being nursed.   Suddenly she awakes.  It seems this whole experience may have been a long nightmare brought on by high fever.   She begins to walk around the house but still no one can see her.  (Spoiler alert).   She runs in terror from the house and in an effort to prove herself alive, she jumps into a well and dies.

Like a lot of good ghost stories, you are left a bit in doubt as to what happened in "Living or Dead?".   There is a good bit to be learned about life in India in 1916 from this story also.   


You can read it online Here (along with a number of his other works).


"The Living and The Dead" is a first rate well told story that most people will like.    I think a better translation would do wonders for this story.


Mel u

"The In-Between-Woman" by Rabindranath Tagore রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর

"The In-Between-Woman"  by Rabindranath Tagore (1923, 6 pages)

Marriage as Child Raising?

रबिन्द्रनाथ ठाकुर

Tagore at 17

My Posts on Rabindraanath Tagore

Indian Literature on The Reading Life

Rabindranath Tagore (1861 to 1941-India) was the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (1911).    Gandhi came to him for moral advise, Einstein was intrigued by his metaphysics and W. B. Yeats was amazed by his sheer depth.   He reshaped the Bengali language.    I am so glad that a few months ago by sheer luck I read one of his short stories, of which I am pleased to say there are many.    I see him as a great world wide cultural treasure and a source of  real wisdom.   

A number of Tagore's short stories deal directly with the lives of South Asian women, often with those from the poorer segments of society.    He writes with complete empathy and realism without a hint of condescension.   Before I post on the story I just want to bring up one question.

There is something that is must bother a lot of people as they read for the first time South Asian short stories about marriage.  The women in the stories are from eight to twelve when they marry, often as second or more wives to a man much older than they are.    Custom seems to dictate that the marriages  are not be consummated until the girl had her first period.     This is not treated as an evil thing but as just normal.   Do we adopt an attitude of ethical relativism and say well it was OK in their culture or do we reject it as intrinsically repugnant?     I think this is one of the questions brought up in "The In-Between Woman".    We also have to think how does a woman who was married at 12 feel at age 32 when she is asked to help in the raising of a 12 year old junior wife.

The wife in this story was married at 8, she is 35 now and had never had a child.   She loves her husband very much but she knows he wants a child.   She tells him it is time for him to find a second wife.    He loves her also and at first he is very against the idea.    In time, knowing he is really expected by all to produce an heir he agrees to take another wife.    In a very moving and sad moment he tells his wife he does not have time with his work to "raise" a new wife from childhood to an adult.   He tells the wife she must do it and she agrees out of love for her husband.

"One day, he introduced the subject himself and said, “If I marry a girl child at my age, I won’t be able to bring her up.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Harasundari replied. “The responsibility of raising her properly rests with me.” As she announced this, the outline of a young, gentle, bashful, newly wedded bride, lately separated from her mother’s bosom, formed in the mind of this childless woman and her heart melted"

  In time she begins to feel love for the new wife, who is really a  child.   When the child bride displaces her in the husbands bed she feels a profound sadness but she accepts it.  We sense the child bride knows she has more sexual power over the husband than the older wife.    In time the new wife develops into the most horrible of spoiled brats.   Tagore makes us feel how the man and older wife feel.   I will say it feels terrible for the wife and really not much better for the man.    I will leave the rest of this story untold.   It is perfectly done and plotted I think anyone who reads it will be moved and made to think.   It would probably make a good class room story as it should generate a lot of discussion.

You can read it on line HERE.   It is newly translated (2011) by Nivedita Sen

I will be reading and posting on Tagore on a regular basis.  

Let us know of your experience with Tagore

Mel u

"New Doll" by Rabindranath Tagore- A Link to a Great Source of South Asian Short Stories

"New Doll"  by Rabindranath Tagore (1922, 5 pages, translated by Bhaswath Ghosh)

A New Translation of a Tagore Story Plus a

Link to an Excellent Source of Bengali Short Stories

There are a number of very good online literary magazines that publish quality South Asian Short Stories.     One I like a lot is Parabash, which focuses on Bengali literature and culture.    Some of the stories are in Bengali and some of them are translations of short stories that you cannot find anywhere else, including 19th century short stories that represent the very start of the short story in India.   The background of each author is explained in detail.    Geographically the authors are from India and Bangladesh.      Prior to the Partition of India, there was simply Bengali literature.     The towering giant of Bengali literature is Rabindranath Tagore (1861 to 1941-there is background information on Tagore in my prior posts for interested readers) who was the first Asian Nobel Prize winner and whose songs are the national anthems of both India and Bangladesh.   

Tagore shorter fiction are often on the border between the parable and the short story.    A few days ago I was happy to get a notice from Parabash that they had just posted a special edition devoted to Tagore which included a brand new translation of one of his stories, "The New Doll".    

As "The New Doll" opens we meet an eighty year old man who makes dolls for royal princesses.    We are at the annual doll festival held in the royal court yard where all of the doll makers of the region always defer to the eighty year old man.   This year a new craftsmen has entered the event.   To the older man he seems to lack discipline.   

"However, new times meant new demands. Today’s princesses say, “We want these dolls.”

The followers of old times said, “Arre! What bad taste!”
This only increased the obstinacy of the younger lot.

Crowds didn’t flock the old man’s stall this year. His dolls sat inside the basket and kept gazing wistfully like people waiting for a boat to reach the other shore.
A year passed by, then two; everyone forgot the old man’s name. Kishanlal became the master craftsman at the royal doll fair."

The old man can no longer make a living from his dolls so his daughter and son-in-law invite him to live with them where he will keeps wandering cows out of their garden.    He has a sixteen year old granddaughter he loves with all his heart.   One day the girl asks him to make her a doll.   He reluctantly agrees to make her one after he tells her he is no longer considered the master doll maker.   He begins to get into making dolls again when his daughter, whom he is very much afraid off, tells him he is neglecting his duties in the garden at that his granddaughter at 16 is too old for dolls (girls were entered into arranged marriages at less than 16).

The granddaughter shocks her mother by selling the doll for a gold rupee.   Now the daughter has a bit of respect for the doll maker.   She tells her daughter if she can sell 16 dolls it will be enough to buy her daughter a gold necklace to wear at her wedding.   To the old man she is just a little child and he cannot conceive her getting married.   One by one the granddaughter is able to sell the dolls.   She presents her shocked mother with 16 rupees to buy her a wedding necklace.   The mother tells her all that is missing now is the groom.    The granddaughter says she has the groom.   It seems when she went to the doll fair for the first time she was told the doll would not sell because it was too old fashioned.    She was leaving the festival in tears when the man who had replaced her grandfather as master doll maker to the royal family saw her and told her he would fix her dolls up in the modern style so they could be sold.   The girl and the man fell in love and now he is being presented to the old doll maker.

"The old man asked, “Where is he?”
“There, under the Piyal tree,” replied the granddaughter.
The groom-to-be entered the room; the old man said, “Arre! This is Kishanlal!”
Kishanlal touched the old man’s feet and said, “Yes, I am Kishanlal.”
The old man embraced him tight and said, “My dear, one day you had snatched my hand's doll, now you are taking away the doll of my life.
The granddaughter put her arms around the old man’s neck and whispered to him, “Dada, with you in tow.”

"The New Doll' is a simple touching story about the love of an old man and his granddaughter.


Mel u

Rebindranath Tagore-Three Stories -First Asian Nobel Prize Winner

"The Parrot's Tale" (1918, 4 pages)
"My Lord Baby" (1917, 5 pages)
"The Babus of Nayanjore" (1915, 5 pages)

Three Wonderful Works by 

Rabindranath Tagore

On an impulse in July of last year I pulled up a list of all the Nobel Prize winners for literature.   The prize was first awarded to a person from Asian when, in 1913, Rabindranath Tagore ( Kolkata-fka Calcutta-India 1861 to 1941) received the award.    Tagore was a prolific writer of short stories.   I read and posted on one of his better known stories "Hungry Stones"  (There is some background information on  Tagore in that post.)   Since then I have posted on two more of his short stories.  

Tagore was a man of great learning and wisdom.        The short story is a relatively new literary form but the stories of  Tagore have their roots in a tradition that goes back to the ancient religious texts of South Asia.    Some of his shorter works may fit more into the category of parable than short story.   If you think about it, a parable is a reservoir of wisdom and the production of an original one strikes me as a greater accomplishment than most short stories.   I think a part of the source of the real greatness of the South Asian Short Story lies in the precedents set by Tagore.    Most of the authors I have read in this period are deeply into the reading life, both in Euro-centered texts as well as South Asian.   Of course up until the last few decades, only those born into wealth had a real opportunity to produce literary works.   Today I will just post briefly in three more of his shorter works.   (I read them all online and will provide links at the end of the post.   They are all translated from Bengali.)

"The Parrot's Tale" is closer to a parable than a short story.    By parable I mean a simple story told to illustrate a moral purpose, though the parables of Tagore I have read, including "The Parrot's Tale" contain strong elements of social criticsm also.
Here is how the story opens:

"Once there was a bird. It was an utterly foolish bird. It sang songs, but did not read the scriptures. It flew, it jumped, but did not have the faintest sense of etiquette.
The King said, ``Such birds! They are of no use at all. They only eat the fruits in the orchards and the royal fruit-market runs a deficit.''
He called the minister, and commanded, ``Educate it.''


The project of education the bird is turned over to one of the nephews of the king.   He assembles a blue ribbon committee of highly thought of personages and after some time they conclude that as a very first step the bird needs a bigger cage as his current cage is just so small the bird will not be able to focus on his education.   A goldsmith is brought in and he makes a very beautiful cage for the bird.   He leaves with a large bag of coins.    Then  it is decided the bird needs books to read.    Scribes are hired to produce for the bird all of the great texts of the land.   The scribes are so well paid that there families are enriched for future generations.   A large staff was hired to maintain and clean the gold bird cage.   Soon nay sayers arise and tell the king that the bird is not being educated, he is just an excuse for others to get rich.    The king forms another committee to study the issue, all of whose members are very well paid.  The king goes to visit the bird himself.   At first the king is distracted by the huge reception he receives (at great public expense) and almost forgets to even see the bird.   Then he goes to the cage.   There is no food, no water in  cage but there are many shreds of books.   The method of education is to tear off a piece of a book and force it down the mouth of the bird.   The king is advised this is a brilliant method and he gives everyone extra gold.  It is noticed the bird does not seem interested in his lessons and even wants to leave his cage.   The goldsmith fashions a chain for the bird and a surgeon clips his wings.   The ending of  the story is very brilliant and I will tell no more.   I think we can say Tagore was not very impressed with the educational system in the India of the British Raj as administered by its Indian employees.  


"The Babus of Nayanjore" (the title refers to a family) is a very well done social satire.    I see it as clearly a short story by modern definitions.   It centers on an older man from a once wealthy family living now reduced to close economic terms but still trying to seem wealthy.    His friends and neighbors know he is no longer rich but they act toward him as if he is still wealthy.    The fun of the stories begin when a brash young man decided to make fun of the man.    He learns a valuable lesson and his life ends up being changed forever.   I liked this story very much.


"My Lord Baby" is my favorite Tagore story so far.   Like many South Asian stories it deals with the rich and their servants.     I really think anyone who reads it will want to read more Tagore.   I know I do.    As the story opens we meet a man whose job is to take care of the baby son of a wealthy family.     The man totally loves the boy, he calls him "My Lord Baby" .   Even though he has a wife (who has never had a child) his life is totally wrapped up in the boy.   As the boy grows so grows the man's love for him.    Then something terrible happens.   I will leave the rest of the plot untold.    The story perfectly fits the form of a short story as set out in Frank O'Connor's The Lonely Voice-A Study of the Short Story.   It begins with a very clear exposition of the circumstances of the people in the story,   there is a powerful development in the story which produces great drama.   "My Lord Baby" is  about a man from  a submerged population group (servants of children-we have them here in the Philippines-the Yaya) and  deals directly with the causes and consequences of  loneliness.    I found this story deeply moving.  

"My Lord Baby" and "The Babus of Nayanjore" can be read HERE (along with a number of other works by Tagore.)


All of these stories are translated from Bengali.

The stories of Tagore are a great world  class cultural treasure.  They should be considered part of the canon.


Mel u  

Rabindranath Tagore-In Observation of his 150th Birthday-His Last Short Story

"The Story of a Muslim Woman" by Rabindrath Tagore (1941, 3 pages)

On The Occasion of the 150th 

Birthday of Rabindranath Tagore

May 7, 1861

Tagore (1861 to 1941) was born in Kolkata, Indian into a family whose wealth and life style can now only be seen in movies.    His father owned an estate so huge that at one point in his life Tagore traveled through it on a luxurious barge and was met on the river bank by tenants paying token rents to him.   Tagore was raised mostly by servants as his mother died young and his father was very busy administrating the vast estates he owned.   Tagore was educated in classical Indian literature and at age eight began to write poetry and ended up reshaping the Bengali Language.   Later in his life he founded a school and devoted himself entirely to his writing and teachings.   His moral authority became so great that he was able to write the national anthems of both India and Bangladesh, give Gandhi the title of Mahatma (teacher),  and  had a status as a moral leader on a par with  Gandi.   He traveled to the west and met William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound and other notable literary figures.   This was in a period when western writers were fascinated by Indian thinkers and Yeats wrote the preface for one of his first translations in English.   He wrote largely in Bengali.   His body of work is a great literary treasure.   He was a Hindu Bengali.   He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, the first Asian winner and the only winner 
from Indian to date.


 (I have already posted on two of his prior stories, "Hungry Stones" and "Subha".) 


"The Story of a Muslim Woman" is the very last short story that Tagore completed.   It was completed in 1941 but not published until 1955.   I do not know why it took so long to be published but it seems almost like a total prophecy of the events horrors caused by the 1947 partition of India and even the Bangladesh War for Independence in 1971.


The story opens in the home of an affluent of family.   The niece of the husband is in the care of their family because her parents are dead.   The wife hates her and wants her put out of the house, whatever it takes.   She feels a beautiful young girl will attract rapists and thugs to their household.   Daily life in the region had gone 
to conditions of near anarchy and their was no real leadership anywhere.


These words say much about the history and lot of women in India:


" Kamala was very beautiful, though her parents were dead. The family would have welcomed her death too; but that did not happen. Her uncle Banshi brought her up with great affection and extreme caution till now.
      However, her aunt would often complain to her female neighbours, "Look, her parents left her to add to my burden. Nobody knows what can happen to her any moment. I've children of my own, and among them she's like a burning torch of destruction. She can't escape the evil gaze of wicked fellows. She alone will sink my boat. For this reason I can’t sleep at night”


Her aunt wants her dead but she does at last receive an offer to become the second wife of a wealthy man of the same caste as her family.   The offer is at once accepted even though women want to be first wives, not second, third or fourth.   Her aunt is just so happy to be rid of her.  


In order to get to the house of her soon to be husband she has to pass through lawless countryside.     Her caravan is attacked and she is kidnapped by bandits.   As she is quite beautiful she is taken as bounty to the home of the bandit leader.    The bandit, a Muslim, allays her fears and tells her she will be allowed to live in peace in his house.   She and everyone knows she can no longer marry a Hindu and will be considered a disgrace to her family and caste.   In the culture of the time, if a  woman was raped it was considered her fault, she was damaged property and would often end up thrown out of her own house and family.   Her family would never believe that a Muslim leader would protect her and keep her totally safe in  better fashion than her birth family ever would.


The house of  the Muslim chief has apartments for eight wives.   He allows the woman to live in peace totally unmolested.   There is even a temple dedicated to Shiva which allows the woman to practice her religion.   He never attempts to force himself on her and does not allow her to be disrespected in any fashion.   In time she falls in love with a man from the leaders family.   She repudiates her old faith and her caste saying she has found her destiny in her new home.  She is proud to become a Muslim woman and falls in love with a man of her own choosing.   (spoiler alert)-


As the story closes, years have gone by, the woman is along on a raid on a caravan.  She discovers that in the caravan is her cousin, the daughter of the aunt who hated her and wished her dead.   As a gesture of the sincerity of her face, she allows the young woman to proceed on her way to her arranged marriage to a man she has never met.


I can see this story as perhaps at one time offending the core audience of Tagore.   That he would write such a story in 1941 shows deep wisdom and an incredible insight into the future of South India.   

I am currently reading what maybe the book most worth reading on the short story, The Lonely Voice:   A Study of the Short Story (1963) by Frank Connors.   I was very taken and I admit a bit shocked when O'Connor said the Indian Short Story was starting to surpass the current productions in Ireland.   

Mel u

"Subha" by Rabindranth Tagore-

"Subha" by Rabindranth Tagore (13 pages, 1918)

In July of last year I read and posted on Rabindranth Tagore's short story, "Hungry Stones".   This morning I read another wonderful and very moving story of total isolation and loneliness by Tagore, "Subha".

Tagore (1861 to 1941) was born in Kolkata, Indian into a family whose wealth and life style can now only be seen in movies.    His father owned an estate so huge that at one point in his life Tagore traveled through it on a luxurious barge and was met on the river bank by tenants paying token rents to him.   Tagore was raised mostly by servants as his mother died young and his father was very busy administrating the vast estates he owned.   Tagore was educated in classical Indian literature and at age eight began to write poetry and ended up reshaping the Bengali Language.   Later in his life he founded a school and devoted himself entirely to his writing and teachings.   His moral authority became so great that he was able to write the national anthems of both India and Bangladesh, give Gandhi the title of Mahatma (teacher),  and  had a status as a moral leader on a par with  Gandi.   He traveled to the west and met William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound and other notable literary figures.   This was in a period when western writers were fascinated by Indian thinkers and Yeats wrote the preface for one of his first translations in English.   He wrote largely in Bengali.   His body of work is a great literary treasure.

"Subha" is near heartbreaking tale of the isolation of a deaf and mute girl.   Subha is born into a financially comfortable family.   She is the youngest of three daughters.    Her mother feels a sense of shame she never overcomes when the family realizes that Subha will never be able to speak or hear.   In the culture of the time congenital impairments of children were seen as sign of a moral defect or depravity in the mother.    Her mother tries to love her but she can barely force the emotion.   Her father loves and accepts her.   In due time her older two sisters are married to proper men and given a proper dowry.   Fiinding a husband for Subha is not so simple.   Future mother in laws fear she will give birth to children with the same impairments she has.   Subha has learned to cope as best she can within the context of her family by communicating with gestures understood only within the family.   Her only friends are the two family cows.

One day Subha meets a fisherman. It happens that the man is somehow viewed as simple.   His only interest in life is casting his fishing net.   His family has long ago accepted that he will never amount to anything.  The man appreciates her silence as talking might frighten the fish.    She comes to enjoy seeing him cast his net.   She begins to feel romantic about him.   I will quote a bit from the story to convey  a feel for the prose.

 With her large eyes wide open, she scanned their faces as though she wished to learn something. But. One afternoon in the midst of all this, as Pratap was fishing, he laughed: 'So then, Su, they have caught your bridegroom, and you are going to be married! Mind you don't forget me altogether!' Then he turned his mind again to his fishing. As a stricken doe looks in the hunter's face, asking in silent agony: 'What have ned I done to harm you?' so Subha looked at Pratap. That day she sat no longer beneath her tree. Banikantha, having finished his nap, was smoking in his bedroom when Subha dropped at his feet and burst out weeping as she gazed towards him. Banikantha tried to comfort her and his own cheek grew wet with tears.

It was settled that on the morrow they should go to Calcutta. Subha went to the cowshed to bid farewell to the comrades of her childhood. She fed them from her hand; she clasped their necks; she looked into their faces, and tears fell fast from the eyes which spoke for her. That night was the tenth of the new moon. Subha left her room, and flung herself down on her grassy couch beside the river she loved so much. It was as if she threw her arms about the Earth, her strong, silent mother, and tried to say: 'Do not let me leave you, mother. Put your arms about me, as I have put mine about you, and hold me fast.'

I found the scene in which she parts with her only friends, the two cows, very moving and very sad.   Something terrible will soon happen to Subha but I do not wish to spoil the ending.   There is a lot to be learned in this story about Indian culture and family life in the 1910s.   I recommend this story without reservation.

"Shubha" can be read Here

If you have a favorite Tagore short story please leave  comment.

I am also seeking suggestions for other short stories by Indian authors from the pre-WWII era (that can be read online)-

Rabindranath Tagore "Hungry Stones"-First Asian Nobel Prize Winner for Literature

"The Hungary Stones" by Rabindranath Tagore (1916, 8 pages, trans. from Bengali-trans. unknown)

Yesterday I was looking at the list of Nobel Prize Winners in Literature.    The first Asian Nobel Laurette was Rabindranath Tagore who won in 1913 for his vast output  of poetry and short stories.   I confess I had never heard of him and turned to  Wikipedia for help.   Tagore (1861 to 1941) was born in Kolkata, Indian into a family whose wealth and life style can now only be seen in movies.    His father owned an estate so huge that at one point in his life Tagore traveled through it on a luxurious barge and was met on the river bank by tenants paying token rents to him.   Tagore was raised mostly by servants as his mother died young and his father was very busy administrating the vast estates he owned.   Tagore was educated in classical Indian literature and at age eight began to write poetry and ended up reshaping the Bengali Language.   Later in his life he founded a school and devoted himself entirely to his writing and teachings.   His moral authority became so great that he was able to write the national anthems of both India and Bangladesh, give Gandhi the title of Mahatma (teacher),  and in fact in his life had a status as a moral leader on a par with  Gandi.   He traveled to the west and met William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound and other notable literary figures.   This was in a period when western writers were fascinated by Indian thinkers and Yeats wrote the preface for one of his first translations in English.   He is considered prior to WWII and perhaps even now the most widely read Indian author both in the west and in India.   

His most famous short story seems to be "Hungry Stones" published in 1916 in Hungry Stones and Other Stories.       "Hungry Stones" begins on a train.   The story is told by a man just out of college on his way to his first job.    He and his companions meet a  odd man who possesses  deep practical and spiritual knowledge.    As I read this passage I could not help but feel sad upon seeing the great respect in which this stranger was held versus how he would be received in much of the world today:

Be the topic ever so trivial, he would quote science, or comment on the Vedas, or repeat quatrains from some Persian poet; and as we had no pretence to a knowledge of science or the Vedas or Persian, our admiration for him went on increasing, and my kinsman, a theosophist, was firmly convinced that our fellow-passenger must have been supernaturally inspired by some strange "magnetism" or "occult power," by an "astral body" or something of that kind. He listened to the tritest saying that fell from the lips of our extraordinary companion with devotional rapture, and secretly took down notes of his conversation. I fancy that the extraordinary man saw this, and was a little pleased with it.

Our lead character and narrator is on his way to a new job, as collector of duties on cotton.   The area where he will pursue his occupation (the day to day operations of his job are not set out and perhaps Tagore assumed his readers would know such things) used to be the site of the palace of a great Rajah.   Now all of the palace is gone but for the stones.   He decides to live in a modest cottage there even though he is advised it is an area beset by the spirits of the dead of the palace from long ago.

The fountains play no longer; the songs have ceased; no longer do snow-white feet step gracefully on the snowy marble. It is but the vast and solitary quarters of cess-collectors like us, men oppressed with solitude and deprived of the society of women. Now, Karim Khan, the old clerk of my office, warned me repeatedly not to take up my abode there. "Pass the day there, if you like," said he, "but never stay the night." I passed it off with a light laugh. The servants said that they would work till dark, and go away at night. I gave my ready assent. The house had such a bad name that even thieves would not venture near it after dark.

At first the narrator works himself to exhaustion every night.   Then slowly the history of the location begins to work on him and he imagines (or is it real) that the occupants of the palace, especially the harem and dancing girls come to him in his dreams.   The boundary between the dream and the so called real world becomes blurred.   Soon he thinks back to the strange man on the train who spoke of the illusions behind so called reality.    He is experiencing a rebirth of the ancient beliefs of his ancestors or so he thinks at times.  At other times he thinks he has been living too long by himself in this hut and needs the company of a woman.   His faith in his own sanity is being undermined and in a deeper way he begins to see through to the concepts beneath these western impositions on  India.

  Einstein held Tagore in great regard for  his conceptualization of a non- Newtonian universe.

The world of  the stories of Tagore is remote to us but one in which we can still find great spiritual nourishment, an entry into another world and some good entertainment as well.    We really cannot say much on the literary quality of the work as it is in translation but Tagore is considered the greatest stylist of all time in the Bengali language.

Here is a link to this story and more of Tagore's work.

Mel u 
Mel u