|
Rabindranath
Tagore
by
: Mehru Jaffer
As he touched upon
Jakarta's Tanjung Priok harbour in August 1927, Rabindranath Tagore,
India's poet philosopher burst into verse in memory of the,
"golden threads of kinship that existed between Indonesia and
India".
"That ancient
token, grown pale, Has not slipped off they right arm, And our
wayfaring path of old, Remnants of my speech. They help me to retrace
my way to the inner chamber of thy life, Where still the light is
burning that we kindled together, On the forgotten evening of our
union. Remember me, even as I remember thy face, And recognise me as
your own, That old that has been lost, To be regained and made
new," he wrote.
On the same trip
Tagore was the guest of the ruler of Gianjar in Bali and after a dance
performance of two little girls, "beautifully decorated with
flowers in their tiaras swinging to the music of the gamelan.
Elsewhere one sees the dancer moving the body, but to see these girls
it seems that the body itself was a spontaneous fountain of
dance..." Tagore's visit to Java and Bali were part of a series
of lecture tours he organised for himself to share with the rest of
Asia his romantic and idealised concept of a single eastern
civilisation. Most of Asia at that time was a slave of colonial
masters and Tagore felt that Asia must find her voice if humanity is
to be saved. The greed of western countries caused him great concern.
And wherever the
Calcutta born Tagore went he attracted large crowds for he was already
famous after WB Yeats had read his poems in the Hampstead Heath home
of British painter William Rothenstein in 1912 to an audience that
included the likes of Ezra Pound and May Sinclair. Yeats wrote
the introduction for the English translation of Gitanjali (Song of
Offerings), Rothenstein illustrated the cover and which won for Tagore
the Nobel Prize in 1913. Over the years however, the Indian poet's
initial concept of a spiritual east standing aloof from a
materialistic west flowered into a world ideal that he hoped would one
day unify all mankind.
His religion, he
explained to Albert Einstein during their 1930 conversation at
Einstein's home near Berlin, is in the reconciliation of the super
personal man, the universal human spirit in his own individual being.
Tagore urged for a world wide commerce of heart and mind so that the
individual's sense of purpose in life is enhanced. He took the
initiative to contact leading thinkers in other parts of Asia,
including China and Japan to join forces with them in revitalising all
that is the best in the culture of their ancestors. In Java one of his
closest allies was Ki Hajar Dewantoro, founder of the Taman Siswa
schools, and the country's first minister of education. Dewantoro was
inspired by Tagore's talk of nationalism without closing the door to
modernism.
A literal translation
of kindergarten or the garden of children, the Taman Siswa schools
remain the oldest national education institutions here started in
1932. Dewantoro was impressed with Tagore's school at Santiniketan and
Viswa Bharati, the world university founded by Tagore in 1918 with all
the money he received as Nobel Laureate. Dewantoro, painter Affandi
and Dr.Ida Bagus Mantra of Bali visited the university of universal
learning which Tagore saw as a centre of Indian culture and also the
thread linking India to the world. The idea was to revive the
traditional Indian way of teaching, in the open, under a tree, in
close contact with nature. Both Tagore and Dewantoro believed that all
the elements in one's own culture have to be strengthened not to
resist western culture but to accept and assimilate it, to get mastery
over it and not to live at its outskirts.
"When we turn
towards the west our gaze shall no longer be timid and dazed, our head
shall remain erect, safe from insult. For then we shall be able to
take our own view of truth from the standpoint of our own
vantage...," believed Tagore. Tagore died in 1941 but his ideas
continue to live through the works of all those who look upon all
civilisation in different continents as being complimentary to each
other. It is in the same spirit that Abhyudaya, an Indonesia-India
cultural assembly came into being half a decade ago. Since then every
May is dedicated to the memory of Tagore whose birth anniversary falls
this month.
Chitrangada, an
episode about a warrior princess from the Mahabharata which Tagore
wrote as a dance drama has already been performed in the past by
Indian dancer Nilanjana Ghosh along with Balinese dancers and Tridhara,
yet another offering of Indian dance, music and song to Indonesian
audiences. On May 19 the Little Theatre at Jakarta's International
School will resonate with the sound of music as ode is once again paid
to the legendary Tagore, not just poet but also social reformer,
educationist, composer, painter and humanist.
"As we live,
work and bring up children in foreign countries it becomes our
personal responsibility to keep them connected with our culture and
values," says Aparesh Mukerjee, production manager and one of the
founders of Abhyudaya. The highlight of the evening is an excerpt from
a film on Tagore made by Satyajit Ray, perhaps the greatest film maker
of India and an alumni of Santiniketan.
Tell
us what you think of this article
|
