"Authorship" Rabindranath Tagore

2) Rabindranath Tagore "Authorship"

  Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was the youngest son of Debendranath Tagore, a leader of the Brahmo Samaj, which was a new religious sect in nineteenth-century Bengal and which attempted a revival of the ultimate monistic basis of Hinduism as laid down in the Upanishads. He was educated at home; and although at seventeen he was sent to England for formal schooling, he did not finish his studies there. In his mature years, in addition to his many-sided literary activities, he managed the family estates, a project which brought him into close touch with common humanity and increased his interest in social reforms. He also started an experimental school at Shantiniketan where he tried his Upanishadic ideals of education. From time to time he participated in the Indian nationalist movement, though in his own non-sentimental and visionary way; and Gandhi, the political father of modern India, was his devoted friend. Tagore was knighted by the ruling British Government in 1915, but within a few years he resigned the honour as a protest against British policies in India.

Tagore had early success as a writer in his native Bengal. With his translations of some of his poems he became rapidly known in the West. In fact his fame attained a luminous height, taking him across continents on lecture tours and tours of friendship. For the world he became the voice of India's spiritual heritage; and for India, especially for Bengal, he became a great living institution.

Although Tagore wrote successfully in all literary genres, he was first of all a poet. Among his fifty and odd volumes of poetry are Manasi (1890) [The Ideal One], Sonar Tari (1894) [The Golden Boat], Gitanjali (1910) [Song Offerings], Gitimalya (1914) [Wreath of Songs], and Balaka (1916) [The Flight of Cranes]. The English renderings of his poetry, which include The Gardener (1913), Fruit-Gathering (1916), and The Fugitive (1921), do not generally correspond to particular volumes in the original Bengali; and in spite of its title, Gitanjali: Song Offerings (1912), the most acclaimed of them, contains poems from other works besides its namesake. Tagore's major plays are Raja (1910) [The King of the Dark Chamber], Dakghar (1912) [The Post Office], Achalayatan (1912) [The Immovable], Muktadhara (1922) [The Waterfall], and Raktakaravi (1926) [Red Oleanders]. He is the author of several volumes of short stories and a number of novels, among them Gora (1910), Ghare-Baire (1916) [The Home and the World], and Yogayog (1929) [Crosscurrents]. Besides these, he wrote musical dramas, dance dramas, essays of all types, travel diaries, and two autobiographies, one in his middle years and the other shortly before his death in 1941. Tagore also left numerous drawings and paintings, and songs for which he wrote the music himself.

Rabindranath Tagore conferred The Nobel Laureate in 1913 for his anthology Gitanjali  

Rabindranath Tagore died on August 7, 1941.

Summary:-

The narrator’s mother said that father is a true author because he writes a lot of books, but what he writes the narrator does not understand. Father was reading to his mother all the evening, but she could not really make out what father meant. He enquired from his mother about the beautiful children’s books from nice stores and to tell him the reason as to why can't father write like that, he wondered. Did father never hear from his own mother stories of giants and fairies and princesses? Has he forgotten them all? Often when father gets late for his bath mother has to and call him a hundred times. His mother has to wait and keep his father’s dishes warm for him, but he goes on writing and forgets. Father always plays at making books. If he ever goes to play in father's room, his mother would come and call him saying what a naughty child is he.

If he ever makes the slightest noise mother would say, "Don't you see that father's at his work?" He wondered with what's with all the fun of always writing and writing? When he takes up his father's pen or pencil and write upon his book just as he does,-a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,-why does his mother get cross with him then? She never says a word when father writes. When his father wastes such heaps of paper, his mother, does not seem to mind at all. But if he takes only one sheet to take a boat with, his mother would say, "Child, how troublesome you are!" He still wonders as to what his mother thinks of his father's spoiling sheets and sheets of paper with black marks all over both sides?

Critical appreciation of the poem:

Rabindranath Tagore has written this poem to understand the psychology of child. Curiosity is the inherent quality of child. Child learns through the imitation, therefore this poem reflects the psychological temperament of child. Child is always in search to learn something new, his/her area of understanding is wider. Child is always curious almost all these things learn through the observation, in this poem child is observing his father and attempting to imitate all those things which done by his father. Through this poem poet tries to focus on the psychology condition of the child, it is essential to know the psychology of child to enhancement of education.