Twelve Novels by Rabindranath Tagore
translated from Bengali by [What did the most popular and critically acclaimed contemporary Bengali novelist think of Tagore's novels, written about a hundred years ago? Find out from this essay by Sunil Gangopadhyay, written in his inimitable style on Tagore's 50th death anniversary. This essay first appeared in the Bengali periodical Desh in 1991.] I’m
reading Chokher Bali (1901; translated as 'The Eyesore', 'Binodini', 'A Grain of Sand') again after a long time! Must
be at least thirty years. This is the third time I’m reading it. I started
reading Tagore’s novels at a very inappropriate age. I was in middle school at
that time. During one summer vacation at my maternal uncle’s place, I found
some torn pieces of Tagore’s books in a closet. In those days I had a
termite-like appetite for books. I voraciously read—ate them with my eyes—whatever
I could lay my hands on. In those days, children’s books in
Bengali were few and far between. Reading those books hardly took any time at
all. But laying hands on the books for the adults was a strict no-no. Our
elders were not as lenient as they are now. One often heard the rebukes that
reading such ‘novels and plays’ was sure to corrupt our young minds. Of course,
I had no desire to protect myself from ‘corruption’. In truth, growing up to be
something other than a ‘good boy’ seemed quite attractive to me. I clearly
remember my very first novel by Tagore. It was Shesher Kobita (1929; lit.
The last poem, translated as 'The Last Poem', ‘Farewell, My Friend’). For a thirteen-year old boy, it
was not a digestible story by any means. But I read on from the very first
page, enrapt in some wondrous desperation. I don’t know how much of it I
understood at that time, but those words overwhelmed and intoxicated me. That
was when the magic of good writing touched me for the first time. Reading every
line seemed like a great new discovery. Even without understanding anything
about the majesty of love, I fell in love with Labanya. She was my first lover.
The end of Shesher Kobita was the beginning of my adulthood. I used to
be quite proud that I had read all the novels by Tagore. In college I would
taunt anyone expressing ignorance about Gora (1909; ‘Gora’) or Ghare-baire
(1916; ‘The Home and the World’). But I realized later that reading them at
a very young age was not good enough and I needed to read them again as an
adult. That was when I started reading them again from the beginning. This time as an adult, I was not just an
enchanted reader anymore but also a discerning critic. Still, I finished my
second reading with genuine admiration. I am a fond reader of Tagore. I bow to
his greatness and glory, but in public, I have often sounded contemptuous about his writing. It was
not being two-faced, or hypocritic. Till the sixty’s decade, there was an
exaggerated adoration of Tagore amongst his followers, a tendency to make him
into a God-like figure, that was quite intolerable to the young writers like
me. The great writers of that time—from Suniti Kumar Chattopadhyaya to Syed
Mujtaba Ali—used to say that there was nothing worthwhile reading after
Rabindranath Tagore, and nothing would ever be equal to his greatness. Tagore’s
was the last word. To fight this pervasive attitude, we would pooh-pooh his writings
in public. Yet, we were all privately entranced
by his poems, we all enjoyed his writings, but we would never place his books
on our writing tables. Anytime we picked up our pens, we dismissed him from our
minds. ‘Three
pairs of kicks scatter Tagore’s Complete
Works on the doormat.’ I had to suffer plenty of verbal ‘kicks’ after
writing the above line in one of my poems. Yet, around the same time, when a
contemporary prose writer was repeatedly bragging in one of our chat groups
about not having read a word of Tagore or that there was no need of reading
Tagore to write good prose, I was incensed enough to slap him. I am anxious
about reading Tagore’s writings after such a long time. Would I be able to read
through them? I had promised myself that I would read on only if I was attracted to it. There was no use
reading just for the sake of completion. I do not have that kind of patience
anymore. I am not reading them casually. There is a responsibility this time.
For Tagore’s 50th death anniversary, the Editor of Desh
magazine has ordered me to write an essay about the acceptability and
significance of Tagore’s writings in the current era. Tagore himself had
imagined how his poems would be accepted by a future reader after one hundred
years. That century too is about to be completed. Tagore’s wish did not remain
unfulfilled. We know many readers still read his poems. Tagore had often wished
that even if nothing else remained, his songs at least would stand the test of
time. His songs have indeed endured. Even today, his songs continue to thrill
the Bengalis (and some non-Bengalis too) all across the globe. But Tagore did
not say anything about the longevity of his novels. I have at
home the seventh volume of Rabindra
Rachanaboli (Complete Works of Tagore in Bengali), published by the West
Bengal government. It contains six novels, in actuality, five novels, as Projapotir
Nirbondho was the same as Chira Kumar Sabha (The Batchelors’ Club,
1926). Even though the government edition counted it as a novel, the
Vishwa Bharati edition does not agree with it. Vishwa Bharati has published a
complete compilation of all the novels by Tagore. There are 12 of them. Projapotir
Nirbondho is not included amongst them. I started from the very first novel. Bou-Thakuranir
Haat (1883; The Young Queen’s Market) was written when Tagore was only
twenty-two! For a twenty-two-year-old youth, to write such a novel was
definitely extraordinary. And the novel too could be labelled as such but it is
not worthwhile reading now. It is natural for a writer to have strong feelings
about his very first novel, Tagore had
it too. But the characters never grew out of their ‘doll playing’ stage. At
eighty, Tagore too had commented that ‘One could take another look at this
story’. In spite of starting with all good intentions, I could not progress
far. Udayaditya and Basanta Ray later reappear in Tagore’s play Muktadhara (1922; The
Waterfall), but in this novel they are
very weak. Even the language has none of Tagore’s usual magic. One of
the basic rule of prose is that the two consecutive sentences must not end with the same verb. In his first novel Tagore
did not seem to be aware of it. After finishing one sentence with ‘chhutite
lagilo’ (kept running), he ended the next sentence with ‘san san korite lagilo’
(kept running fast). After reading half the book with great difficulty I felt
this was more for the researchers, it had no use for me. At age
twenty-six, Tagore wrote his second novel Rajarshi (1887; The Royal Sage). I still
remember the bewilderment I felt after reading it the first time. Even after
reading and seeing the play Bisarjan (1923; Sacrifice, stage adaptation
of Rajarshi) many times, I still remember the sweet relationship of King
Gobinda Manikya and the two beautiful children Hasi and Tata in the beginning
of Rajarshi. Hasi’s question, ‘Why so much
blood?’ still hits in my heart. The novel Rajarshi definitely carries
the signature of a great writer. While describing the monk Bilwan nursing the
suffering Pathans, Tagore wrote, ‘I am a monk. I have no caste. I am only a
human. Who cares about castes when people are dying? When God’s creation man is
asking another for love, how does the caste matter?’ It is amazing that Tagore
wrote this in 1887, when our society was riddled with casteism and other
superstitions. In later years Swami Vivekanada too had echoed the same
sentiment. Tagore
started writing novels to satisfy the demands of the editors of the monthly
magazines. Just like nowadays, when the writers rush their stories before Durga
Puja publications, a few mistakes are
often overlooked, serialized novels often had to be stretched to fill the
spaces. Tagore too had to suffer through similar indignities. In Chokher
Bali, there are mistakes due to inattention—confusion with casual and
formal ‘you’s. Rajarshi has unnecessary repetitions. Tagore himself
admitted that he had to stretch the story to meet the demand of the magazine. According
to him, the story could have ended in the fifteenth chapter but he had to
prolong it to thirty-fourth! In past, only the first seven sections of the
classic Kumarsambhabam was written by Kalidasa. The rest were added on
by other poets. Nowadays writers—even Tagore himself—add on to their own
stories without depending on others. In fact,
after Jaisingha’s death in Rajarshi, the plot merely limps along. The
descriptions of the Mogul soldiers and the fugitive Shah Suja do not match with
the main plotline. Tagore never could bring out the majesty and the details of the
historic eras. Bankim Chandra was much more successful in that regard. Tagore washed his hands off by briefly mentioning
‘here Shah Suja’, or ‘there Aurangzeb’ in different paragraphs. In the last two
paragraphs of the novel, he abandoned even his own style and simply quoted from
another book. Unthinkable way to end a novel! From
these two novels of his early adulthood Tagore perhaps realized that historical
plots were not his cup of tea. Thus, none of his later novels dealt with
historic periods. Yet, with
or without remote histories, all literature has to deal with the contemporary
history. Later on, these descriptions provide the sources of historic studies. In none of his novels Tagore paid
much attention to these background details. When exactly did the events take
place, how did the characters relate to
the events in the society or the country, such questions never bothered him. One cannot even claim that Tagore
deliberately kept his plot untouched by such background details as he wanted
his story to be for all times and all ages. In Tagore’s own language one could
say, ‘Even to reach eternity, one must sail in a contemporary raft.’ Otherwise
the journey becomes aimless and blurred. Except for the mentions of the white
soldiers in one or two places in Chokher Bali, the reader has no clue
who the rulers of the country were at that time, whether
the society was prosperous or corrupt or what was the status of law and order
in the society. Except for the love crisis, the reader gets no clue about any
other crises occurring at that time. The
writer who is most forgetful in his personal life, who never keeps track of
what is going on in his own family, who is most indifferent even if a brick falls off his roof, that
writer, when he creates a family or a
group or even a single person in his stories, has to be fully aware of the
social and economic realities of his characters. If the schoolmaster in his
story has three daughters, he must be indebted about their marriages. If he has
three sons, he must be worried about their education. The writer must inform
the readers about the earnings of the schoolmaster or whether he got mired in
bank loans or in the pawn shops. All this must be determined by the literary
creator of the characters. God may be indifferent to some of His children but
the writers have no such excuse for the characters they create. Even slight
inconsistencies in the ages, livelihoods or relationships of the characters
would cause disharmony. Good literature does not tolerate it. Poets can be like
Gods but the novelists must be more worldly. Of course, some novelists like
Kafka and Camus have brought a different style of writing but that came much
later. Tagore, however, had maintained his poet-like nonchalance in his novels
too. In the
novel Chokher Bali, we first come across two friends, Mahendra and
Bihari and a mysterious lady, Binodini.
The stories of two friends recur in many of Tagore’s writings. Even though they are friends, one of them
usually has a strong personality and the other is more of a follower or
disciple of the first. One lives with his parents, whereas the other lives
alone and has no parent. This Mahendra-Bihari pair with slight transformation
appears as Yogendra-Ramesh in Noukadubi (The Wreck), Gora-Binoy in Gora,
Nikhilesh-Sandip in Ghare Baire (The Home and the World) or Shachish-Shreebilas
in Chaturanga (1916; Quartet). All are of similar type. In Chokher
Bali, Tagore does not mention about any jobs or earnings of these two
friends, both appear well to do, they rent houses wherever they please, go out
on vacations whenever they want, they always seem to have enough servants, cooks and housekeepers
around them. They are generous in spending money but we get no clue where that
money comes from. The characters too show no such concerns. Earlier, we learn
that they are students of medicine, Bihari seems to be a student of engineering
too. Yet their conversations show no hint of their trainings, nor do they show
any eagerness to apply their knowledges, let alone earning a living in their
professions. Such realities are totally absent from their conversations. Critics
often say that Chokher Bali is the very first psychological novel in
Bengali literature. This is not an original statement, Tagore himself had
hinted about it. He claimed that the writing style of Chokher Bali is
new and unique, here the internal conflict of the characters was more important
than the descriptions of the background events. This was a new literature
style. Are we readers obligated to accept whatever the writer claims about his
creation? According to Tagore’s own admission, (as
given in the preface of the first edition of his collected works) he started
writing Chokher Bali after much deliberation, keeping Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay in
mind. Tagore’s friend Shreeshachandra published it in Bangadarshan
magazine’s new division, adding Tagore’s name to it. He was just forty years
old. Bankim was writing one novel after another in the main edition of Bangadarshan.
The editor of the new division also had to do a similar act. Of course, there
was a tacit challenge in it. When Tagore started his serialized Chokher Bali,
his wish was to surpass Bankim’s Bishabrikkha (Poison Tree). Bankim’s
writing was full of external events. Tagore did not try that. He focused on the
internal conflicts of the three love-smitten characters. At forty years of age, Tagore was quite
mature as a novelist. He had already written many short stories and gained
experience. He was aware of the modern writing styles in the world literature. Chokher
Bali was his ambitious creation. While reading this third novel of Tagore, I
had to go to Delhi for some reason. From there while roaming in Rajasthan by
train or staying in guesthouses, whenever I found some time, I immersed myself
in Tagore’s writings. Friends and acquaintances stared at me in surprise. Many
asked me what I was up to. I just smiled without answering. And went back to Chokher
Bali as soon as the guests left. Occasionally I asked myself if I really
needed to read the entire novel, if I was really enjoying it, whether the book
really drew me in. Faint answers, no, I wasn’t enjoying it, perhaps I didn’t
need to read the whole book. I was turning the pages to see how many were left.
At the end of every chapter I hoped this was the end before finding another
unnecessary chapter beginning. Did Tagore extend it just to fill the space as a
serialized novel for a monthly magazine? It would have been better as a smaller
sized publication like those in the Puja special editions. Chokher Bali’s main success is the character Binodini.
The other two male characters could be made responsible for many of its
failures. A blend of greed and purity, grace and cruelty, Binodini is
definitely a unique character in Bengali literature. Young, beautiful and
literate, this widowed woman openly showed the keen hunger of her mind as well
as in her body. She felt cheated by life and
sometimes she flared up in revenge but her innate purity always stopped
her from mindless destruction. Compared to her, the two male admirers appeared useless.
They ran around aimlessly without reaching anywhere. Binodini played them like
puppets on a string. The two men had no original thought or action, not even
raising their hands to touch their noses! In short, even reading till the end, the book
was not satisfactory. Tagore stuck his two puppets to their respective places
on the wall and exiled the ash-covered fiery Binodini to Kashi. At the end when
Mahendra suddenly stoops to touch Binodini’s feet, it only tastes sour to the
reader. This does not feel like a ‘new style of literature’ at all. Within the next two years Tagore finished his
next novel Noukadubi (1906; 'The Wreck'). This novel is not as reputed.
Many critics think that after Chokher Bali, Tagore fell back a few steps
to write this simple story. Even though I had read it before, I remembered very
little of it. If I remembered Rajarshi and Chokher Bali yet could
not recall Noukadubi, perhaps it was not worthwhile remembering. But
once I started, I did enjoy the story.
The hero Ramesh soon appeared familiar. He was good looking, well educated,
well to do, lived in a rented house in Calcutta. Just like Bihari of Chokher
Bali or Binoy in Gora. Tagore never liked to mention the parents of
his main characters. Either he killed them quickly or kept them ill throughout
of some mysterious malady that was never explained. Here too, he briefly
introduced Ramesh’s father and made him disappear. Unencumbered, Ramesh jumped
in the romantic entanglements with his two ladies. Ramesh’s neighbor and
classmate Jogendra was a Brahmo boy with a smart and pretty sister Hemnalini.
Eighty or ninety years ago, pre-marital love affairs could only occur with
Brahmo girls as they were the only ones who could openly meet with men. Thus,
it was useful to have a Brahmo family in the story. When Ramesh and Hemnalini
had almost fallen in love with each other, Ramesh’s father appeared and almost dragged
his son by the ear to marry him off to a little girl from the village. The
sinking of the boats happened right after this.
Of course, there is some inconsistency here. Ramesh did not have
a mother; the bride did not have a father. In those days, it would have been unthinkable for the bride’s
mother to leave right away with the new couple for their in-laws’ place. But,
for the sake of the story, the writer invoked a storm and obliterated Ramesh’s
father, mother-in-law and all other relatives and friends by sinking all the
boats. Only the hero and his new bride survived clinging to a sand bar. After a
hasty wedding, the bride and groom hardly knew each other. Three months after
returning to Calcutta, Ramesh discovered
that the young bride was not his but somebody else’s wife! The girl herself
was not aware of it either. She considered Ramesh as her husband and already
devoted her heart to him. Ramesh could not keep her, nor abandon her. At last,
he decided to put her in a boarding school and went back to having tea at
Hemnalini’s place. This novel describes at least twenty-five various tea-settings
and tea-drinking. Must be a record in world literature! The love affair of
Ramesh and Hemnalini reached the stage of marriage proposal. On the other hand,
the young bride Kamala was not going to
stay in school for ever. She was coming home for the summer vacation.
So far
there is a nice tension in the story. We all know that Tagore’s heroes are
never cheaters or swindlers. Ramesh would never lie to Hemnalini to marry her
but what would he do with the helpless Kamala? Even though polygamy was common
in those days, Tagore never described it in any of his novels. Hemnalini’s
father Annada-babu was a pure Brahmo and
a straightforward man. He liked and trusted Ramesh very much. Thus, when the
story was becoming quite interesting, Ramesh and Kamala left Calcutta for
Gazipur. Kamala had just become a woman but Ramesh never shared a bed with her.
On the other end, a minor villain named Akshay started causing trouble at
Hemnalini’s house. When the story was really getting interesting, a doctor
named Nalinaksha appeared. Needless to say, he too is well qualified and knowledgeable
in medicine as well as Sanskrit and literature. He is so devoted to his Hindu mother
that he did not even take tea in a Brahmo house. Yet, he had no problem being
attracted to Brahmo Hemnalini. At this point, as soon as we come to know that
this Nalinaksha is Kamala’s husband, lost in the same storm from another boat,
we lose all interest in this overly dramatic story. We know at the end that Ramesh and Hemnalini and Nalinaksha and
Kamala will get together, but only after a lot of unbelievable events and hide-and-seek
between the four players taking up many pages in between. And it was only a game, nothing more than that. That is why
this story makes no impression in one’s mind. Tagore did not have any ambition regarding Noukadubi.
He wrote later that the parts of the stories with ‘poetic expressions in the
descriptions and sufferings’ would easily identify him as the writer. It is
true. He is indeed a superb craftsman of words, but a weak one as a story
teller. I finished Noukadubi in Jaisalmir, at
the other end of Rajasthan. On the return train, I was hesitating whether to
start the next novel Gora (1909; lit. fair skinned; ‘Gora’).
My last experience of reading Gora was not pleasant. I stumbled over
those long speeches. There were no lighter moments, no fun or jokes in such a
large novel. As a rule, reading in train ought to be lightweight. Should I skip
Gora and take up a lighter novel? But I decided to stick to Gora.
I was reading the novels chronologically, and that would also help me understand the evolution
of Tagore’s style of writing. I had to wait in Delhi station for three
hours before catching the train to Calcutta. In the waiting room I started on Gora.
And this time I kept on reading without stumbling anywhere. Those long speeches
created no hurdles. Did I change so much? Is that what happens with aging? I do
read essays but essay-type novels had never attracted me before. Ramananda Chattopadhyay had sent three
hundred rupees to Tagore and requested him to write a story in Prabasi.
Tagore did not write any story but spent long two and half years in writing Gora
and sending monthly installments as a serialized novel. Many think that only
modern writers have to write to earn a living, Tagore too wrote many times to
earn money and meet the editors’ demands. To one editor—probably Manilal
Gangopadhyay—he once wrote to increase his payment from eighty to one hundred
rupees for a short story. I would be curious to know if he got only three
hundred rupees or more for Gora. Perhaps Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyay’s
able successor Prasanta Kumar Pal may
throw some light on this subject. As if following Noukadubi, we see
Binoy (a character similar to Ramesh) in Gora. He was educated, well to
do and lived alone in a rental house in Calcutta. He had no parents alive. Some
uncle was mentioned once or twice but was never seen. A Brahmo family lived
near his house. Paresh-babu is quite similar to Noukadubi’s Annada-babu.
Although Annada-babu was a rough sketch, Paresh-babu was painted in full color. He had a formidable wife and
four daughters. Out of these four, Lalita and Sucharita were elevated in the
roles of the heroines, the other two
were left neglected. Labanya was older than Lalita but the poor girl was not
even mentioned during all the conflicts regarding Lalita’s wedding. Tagore
could never manage too many characters. Even in a large novel like Gora,
there were very few significant characters. Much of the story dealt with Hindu
vs. Brahmo philosophical arguments but Panu-babu, who represented the Brahmos,
was not portrayed strongly. As an opponent of the staunch Hindu Gora, he too
should have had strong personality and idealism. Although Paresh-babu, in his
open mindedness, did try to unite the Brahmos and the Hindus. The character of Gora is quite novel and
unprecedented, so is his mother Anandamoyi. Right in the beginning of the novel,
we come to know that Gora was not Anandamoyi’s biological son. He was a white,
European boy adopted by this Brahmin Hindu family. Anandamoyi was more than a
mother to him. Gora did not know his past history. He was born at the time of
Sepoy Mutiny, so we can date this story to the last quarter of the Nineteenth
century. At that time only those born as Hindus were accepted as Hindus. So, we
see that all Gora’s bragging about Hinduism were empty. All his long speeches
were useless arguments. At some time his true history would be exposed. Tagore
maintained that dramatic tension for a long time. I enjoyed reading Gora because all
those thoughts and debates about religions are still very contemporary and
pertinent. Gora strongly supported the greatness of Hinduism, even with its
castes and superstitions. Tagore presented his arguments so logically that when
Gora does realize his self at the end, the readers too wake up to the truth. Gora
is Tagore’s most significant writing because its perspectives are not limited
but encompass the entire nation. The patriotism here is not just a loud demand.
It is a restatement of the self-respect
of every Indian. Before Gora, Bengali literature had no such portrayal
of a national perspective. Even more surprising than Gora is his mother
Anandamoyi. She is not quite a real woman but one drawn in bright and strong
color of idealism. Flooding such a large novel with long speeches, Tagore shows
excellent self-control in the last chapter where Gora learns of his past in a
quietly emotional way and Anandamoyi’s briefest response moves us to tears.
After reading the last page I had to sit still for some time, then wipe my tears and go for a walk outside. Gora
and Ghare Baire are the best-known novels by Tagore. In between, he also
wrote Chaturanga. But I never liked Chaturanga. I felt it was
haphazard and inattentive. Initially, the character of the elder uncle is quite
startling. This is the first time Tagore introduced an atheist whose religion
is humanism, above all other religions. That is why he does not show repugnance
to a prostitute and can nurse an untouchable tanner. He even tried to marry his
nephew to the prostitute. But Tagore could not go far even with all these
revolutionary ideas. He made the prostitute commit suicide and even killed off
the atheist uncle summarily. The rest of the story is insignificant, mere copy
or repetition of Chokher Bali. Again we see two friends Shachin and Shreebilas,
one with strong personality and other quiet and insipid. Between them is a
widowed but spirited woman Damini who also resemble Binodini. There is another
irrelevant character Lilananda Swami who adds nothing original or important. Ghare Baire
is my favorite novel. I had read it before going to see it being staged by
Shambhu Mitra. I read it again before seeing the movie directed by Satyajit
Ray. That is why I remember this novel clearly. I cannot support the political
views in the book but one has to be enchanted with the beauty of the writing.
But even amidst that enchantment a few questions occur. Like in other novels,
here too we see two male friends, Nikhilesh and Sandip, but why is the writer
so partial to Nikhilesh? Why does he have to make the revolutionary Sandip also
rapacious and selfish? If the
revolutionary lover Sandip was made to be a pure idealist, how would he have fared
against Nikhilesh? Would Bimala still
suffer so easily from self-reproach or would she face a more complicated love
triangle? Of course, Tagore did not paint his villain as coarsely as they do in
the movies and theaters. His Sandip did have some scruples. He was not a mere
pleasure-seeker. He had built up a strong philosophy of destruction. Bimala too
is a bright gem in Tagore’s literature. She makes this novel so readable. After Ghare Baire, Tagore did not
write any novel for a long period of twelve years. The seventh volume of Tagore’s collection
ends with Gora. By then I had gotten hooked to Tagore’s novels. I wanted
to read them all, but where to find them? After coming back from Delhi, I visited Tripura for a few days. This was
the land of the novel Rajarshi. I had already read Rajarshi. In
Tripura I finished Gora. After returning to Calcutta, I couldn’t
concentrate on anything. Within a few days I left for Shantiniketan. There I
came to know that Vishwa Bharati had published the entire collection of
Tagore’s novels. I was not aware of it. I bought one copy containing all the
novels, for Rs. 140, from the bookstore in Shantiniketan. But why did Tagore stay away from writing
novels for twelve years? I would very much like to know. Did he become too busy
with his new global fame after receiving the Nobel prize? Perhaps he had to
travel a lot and didn’t get a chance to write something large? Or the editors
could not badger him like before? I really wanted to know. But there was no
biography of Tagore in my possession. I could have searched in the library but
I wasn’t into research, just into enjoying the novels. Research will not be
done by me in this lifetime. It would have to wait for more qualified scholars. I knew there were many criticisms after
publication of Ghare Baire. Was Tagore in a huff because of that? In
answering to one magazine’s criticism, he wrote, ‘Many do not like my writing.
They usually try to tell me in a language which I do not understand.’ After twelve years, he wrote the next novel Jogajog
(1929; lit. Liaisons, translated as 'Liasions', The Relationships', 'Nexus'). The novel was initially titled Tin
Purush (Three Generations). I was amused to learn the story behind this
name-changing. The editor of Bichitra magazine had made Tagore promise
him a novel. But Tagore had not even started to write. The worried editor
requested just the title of the novel for his advertisement; the actual writing
could come later. In a hurry, Tagore named it Tin Purush and got rid of
the messenger. Writing a title even before starting the novel? This sort of
thing happened only to us small-time writers. Even Tagore had to do it? After committing to a title, Tagore got
himself in some problem. After writing two installments, he changed the title
to Jogajog. To keep the original title, he would have had to write a much
longer saga and he was not ready for that. This was, of course, a loss for
Bengali literature. In my opinion, the title Tin Purush is quite
pertinent to the story of Jogajog too. While reading the last page I had
to exclaim, “What? No more?” How could the novel end here? A dramatic conflict
was just reaching its peak and suddenly the book ended! Tagore really cheated
us here. Jogajog
starts like this, ‘Today is 7th Asharh. Abinash Ghoshal’s birthday.
Today he turns thirty-two. From early morning, bouquets of flowers and
congratulatory telegrams are arriving.’ This is how the story starts. I have
asked people who had read the book two or three times, ‘Can you tell me who is
this Abinash Ghoshal?’ Nobody could answer. I asked again, ‘This is the person
who starts the novel. What is his role in the story of Jogajog? How is
he connected?’ They all scratched their heads, truly, nobody even noticed. How
could they? There is no mention of Abinash Ghoshal in the entire novel. The
person who starts the story is absent in the rest. Abinash Ghoshal is indeed Tagore’s
unwritten third generation. However, whatever else Tagore wrote in Jogajog
is formidable indeed. It was very different from all others. The topic was not
religion, nor patriotism. This time the story had a more modern theme—economic
conflict. It was about the fall of the old-rich generation of landowners and
rise of the new-rich businessmen. This time there were no two friends, but two
competitors, rivals Bipradas and Madhusudan. Of course, the boastful,
avaricious, arrogant Madhusudan would be the winner. Time was on his side. Yet,
Tagore’s sympathy was towards Bipradas. He was not only the declining
generation but also the last representative of the vanishing aristocracy. In
him, we get a glimpse of Nikhilesh from Ghare Baire. The landowner could
have been exploiter, tyrannical and lecherous but as an aristocrat he belonged
to a higher class and status. He was refined, generous and a connoisseur of
arts and other finer things in life. Defeat of such a qualified man is imbued
with a tragic majesty. Bengalis publicly mourn them. At one time, Tagore’s
grandfather Dwarakanath Tagore was the second richest businessman in India.
Within a couple of generations the Tagore family managed to do away with the
business and focused on religion, arts and culture. The way Tagore portrayed
Madhusudan, the readers come away believing that all successful businessmen are
cruel, harsh, heartless and totally devoid of any artistic or cultural sense.
Additionally Tagore even hinted at Madhusudan’s genetic inferiority. This was
not fair. No writer should blame genetic or familial problems of any character.
Here perhaps we glimpse Tagore’s own landowner biases. In spite of all this,
Madhusudan does come up as a strong character, made with real flesh and blood.
Between Bipradas and Madhusudan stands Kumu. An ageless, luminous beauty. Even
Madhusudan felt weak, again and again, in front of her. Her unwelcome pregnancy
delivers a gut punch to the readers’ sensibilities, although it was an
undeniable reality. As the novel suddenly ends here, a strong sense of
dissatisfaction lingers in our minds. Already at the time of writing Jogajog,
the post-Tagore era had started in Bengali literature. Young writers were
noisily claiming to begin new rules and styles in poetry and prose. Tagore
wanted to have some fun with them, and masquerading as an anti-Tagore modern
writer, he wrote down Shesher Kobita (The last poem). With this book he
proved how ‘modern’, how youthful his pen could still be. Shesher Kobita
is still fresh and enjoyable today. One could almost read it up in one sitting.
Only the poems here have not become modern. After Ghare Baire—not counting the
incomplete Jogajog—Tagore did not write any other full-size novel. What
he wrote could be called in modern parlance ‘novel-like long stories’. He
started Dui Bon (Two sisters) with a theory that women are of two types.
One type is predominantly mother and another is lover. As a theory, it is
nothing new. A man needs both the types in his life. The story in Dui Bon
basically tries to prove this theory. This story is not at all satisfying. At
the end Sharmila miraculously gets cured
by taking some roots and herbs from a hermit returning from the Himalayas, and the two sisters
separate. This clearly shows, that for the sake of maintaining the societal
norms, Tagore did not dare take the story any further. Tagore himself realized
this and started writing another novel Malancha (1934; 'The Garden') in
the same theme. Instead of regarding it as a separate book, one could consider Malancha
as an improved edition of Dui Bon (1933; 'Two Sisters'). Here
Neeraja is chronically ill from the beginning. She will never recover. Sarala
has come indispensably in the life of Aditya, Neeraja’s husband. She wants to
occupy the entire garden. Here Tagore did not evade the harsh truth. His
description of the dangerous envy of a dying wife resonates loudly in one’s
mind. Arts here cannot ignore the forceful reality, Neeraja’s ‘chemise-clad,
pale, gaunt image’ becomes immortal in literature. Char Adhyay
(1934; 'Four Chapters') has been my favorite from my teen age years. Once I had
even memorized it by
pages after page. This time I tried to test myself if I still
remembered those passages. Yes, I do recall some of it, ‘Your voice startled my
whole being, that note struck my heart like a sudden flash of light; as if a
glorious bird swooped from the sky and snatched away my forever.’ ‘You have the
infallible power to make me forget, otherwise I would be embarrassed for
forgetting. I will admit a thousand times that you can make me forget. If I did
not forget, I would doubt my manhood.’ ‘I have adorned your slim frame with my
words, you are my spreading, twining vine, you are the limits of my joy and
sorrow. There is an invisible shroud around me, shroud of words, they come down
from the literary heaven and keep away the crowd.’ The novel Char Adhyay too created much
commotion. Tagore could never completely support the armed resistance movement;
here he repudiated those actions. In spite of their mistakes and ignorance, I
cannot accept this trivialization of the sacrifice of so many fiery youths. I
do not think Tagore even had a clear understanding of their activities, because
the descriptions of the tea shop or the secret hidden corner are rather
amateurish. The edition I read as a teen
ager had a preface describing the defeat of Brahmabandhab Upadhay, a staunch
supporter of the armed resistance. Even at that age, I did not like it. Later many
critics questioned its historic veracity and the preface was dropped from the
later editions. Anyway, Tagore said again and again that Char
Adhyay should be considered only as Ela and Antu’s love story and not pay
too much attention to the background. This time I did just that. I have not
read such intense dialog of love anywhere in Bengali literature. No modern
writer has yet surpassed such language. After finishing Char Adhayay I felt ‘This
is it? No more?’. Reading twelve novels continuously had kept me in a trance. I
kept wondering why Tagore did not write any more novels after Char Adhyay. In the first two novels, Tagore’s language
had not yet matured in the typical style of his later years. In the third novel, Chokher Bali, the
language was too ordinary, as if Tagore deliberately kept it plain in contrast
to Bankim’s serious-sounding, overly ornamented writing style. The ordinariness
occasionally did shine in clear light but in other places became plainly
descriptive. He kept the formal Bengali style omitting the Sanskrit words. But
the formal style was maintained in the verbs in dialogs too. ‘I bow at your
feet, tear up those letters’, sentence sounds close to colloquial, but the verb
‘tear up’ is still ‘chhniriya’, not yet ‘chhnire’. After Noukadubi, in Gora
the dialogs became fully colloquial. But surprisingly, later, in Chaturanga,
Tagore again went back to the formal style. There is no explanation of such
linguistic retreat. After this, under Pramatha Chowdhury’s influence, Tagore
completely gave up formal Bengali. Ghare Baire was first published in
totally colloquial Bengali, in Sabuj Patra magazine. All of Tagore’s
novels are heavy in dialogs. And these used to be long in the earlier novels.
Towards the end, in Char Adhyay and Shesher Kobita, the dialogs
are short throughout and much less descriptive. In his long life, Tagore wrote only twelve
novels. It was not as if he wrote each with great care or much thought or each with a new topic. He copied himself
again and again, brought back the same characters with minor changes. Tagore is
incomparable in his short stories, but not so in his novels. He was a poet. He
did not have the patience of writing pages after long pages of prose. Many of
his novels are rushed at the end. In Rajarshi, he did not even write the
end but finished the job by quoting from another source. In Chokher Bali,
after the long back and forth conflict, Binodini’s future was decided very
summarily at the end. Gora’s ending too was short but adequate. In Chaturanga,
Tagore killed off many characters in the end, like Hamlet, but why did he suddenly
get busy to kill Damini too? Damini was quite hale and hearty, but suddenly we
were told that she had some heart condition and in next ten lines, Tagore
killed her off and ended the novel. Even the ending of Ghare Baire, in
my opinion, is rather like getting rid of a burden. Nikhilesh was injured. And
Amulya? There is not even a complete sentence about his condition. ‘He was shot
in the chest, he was done.’ Is this the last line of such a philosophy-heavy
novel? Was Tagore relieved by writing ‘He was done.’ and thought ‘Thank
goodness, the novel is over.’? As far as Jogajog, many critics believe
it to be incomplete, Char Adhyay too demands a few more pages in the
end. Besides, why do all the novels have
to end with someone’s death? Another funny thing, yes, it is rather funny,
is that most couples in Tagore’s novels are childless. Asha-Mahendra in Chokher
Bali are childless, Gora’s Anandamoyi was childless, even though
there was a son from her husband’s previous marriage. In Ghare-Baire,
Nikhilesh-Bimala are childless, as are the couples in Dui Bon and Malancha.
In Chaturanga, Shreebilas weds Damini, spends two springs, but had no
child or conjugal love. Tagore himself belonged to a large family in Jorasanko,
why was he so keen on childlessness? One wonders. Previously, I had read the novels just for
reading pleasure, this time I added the perspective of a critic. But basically
I am not a critic, I am a lover of words. Now I remain busy with many
obligations. I never thought I would be able to read all twelve novels in one
go. But I carried the books everywhere, Calcutta, Delhi, Rajasthan,
Shantiniketan. In some places there were no newspapers. I read the books before
falling asleep at night and continued reading them upon waking up in the
morning. In some places I got up and walked away from a meeting, just to be
able to read a few more pages of an unfinished novel. I knew all the stories,
still I never skipped a single page. I read them for my own personal pleasure,
being genuinely attracted to the stories. While reading in Shantiniketan, I would
stare outside sometimes and wonder if Tagore walked along this street or sat in
that corner writing down the chapters. His
liberal humanism shines strongly from each page. Reading all together, I
feel that he was primarily a romantic, and an artist of love. Both the pain and
pleasure of love are widely evident in his writing. But he also had a universal
perspective. He wanted a secular India with dignity and self-respect for every
person. He had written about the Muslims in many of his novels. In Gora,
Ghare Baire and Chaturanga he tried to unite the humanity in a bond
of easy friendship. We are his countrymen. But we, the latest generation, have not
followed his wishes, did not accept his philosophy. Thus the casteism, communal
violence and all kinds of meanness and envy have still remained in our society.
Still, reading his novels provides a few moments of self-realization. One does
not feel like reading anything else for
some time.
Published in Parabaas May 7, 2020. Translated by Chhanda Chattopadhyay Bewtra. Illustrated by Hridi Kundu.
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