short stories of tagore

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Sahitya kademi

Short Stories of TagoreAuthor(s): Somnath MaitraSource: Indian Literature, Vol. 1, No. 1 (October 1957), pp. 15-26Published by: Sahitya AkademiStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23328606.

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Short Stories of TagoreSomnath MaitraThis article was specially written as Introduction to the Sahitya Akademi'sedition of 21 Select Short Stories of Rabindranath Tagore which arebeing translated in all the major Indian languages. A special edition ofthe original Bengali text in devanagari script with a glossary is also inpress.Ed.Rabindranath's short stories place him among the greatestmasters of the art in the world, and it would be interestingto examine some of their distinctive aspects. But before doingso it is necessary to remind ourselves that the writing of shortstories was not the main business of his life, and that they represent only one of the channels through which his myriadfeatured genius sought expression. For a proper appreciationof the stories it may be helpful, therefore, to try to format the outset a rough idea of the personality of their author,and the nature and range of his achievements.

Rabindranath Tagore was one of the greatest literary figuresthe world has seen. It is well known that as a lyric poet he standsunsurpassed in any age or land, but it must not be forgotten thathe achieved excellence in most other literary forms as well.Barring the epic, there is not a single mode of literary expressionwhich he has not used with conspicuous success. Supreme asa poet, he is hardly less so in his novels, short stories, plays socialand allegorical in prose and verse, in his essays on social,political, philosophical and religious subjects, in his numerousexquisite letters,in his illuminating literary criticism, ii> his delightful books for children, in his autobiographical memoirs, etc.So strong and insistent was the creative urge within him that itrefused to be exhausted in more than sixty years of ceaselessliterary activity. The quantity and variety of his output areamazing; but what is still more remarkable is that much of thisquantity is of very high quality. The constant practice of hisart throughout a long life, instead of making it thin and jejune,resulted, on the contrary, in new creations of rare beauty.Rabindranath's range and depth as a writer are but onemanifestation of his rich and lofty personality, and it is perfectly

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16 INDIAN LITERATURE : OCT. 1957true to say of him that, like the Emperor Shahjahan of his celebrated poem, he is greater even than his own creations. It isnot possible to realize the full measure of his greatness and hissignificance for our times and for the future, unless we relate hismultifarious activities to one another and regard his life as oneluminous, rounded whole. There was a time in his younger dayswhen in the course of managing the family estates, he had withdrawn from the eyes of men to lead a sequestered life in the charming setting of a Bengal village on the bank of the Padma, incomplete accord with the nature around him, observing witlitender sympathy the quiet flow of life in the homes where poormen live, and filling his days to the brim with every form of literarycreation and, in particular, poems and short stories. But for himthat phase could not last, for there was that within him whichwas continually goading him on to ever-new activity, allowing (him hardly any time to linger on the way. That is why we findhim ever moving forward, and never resting satisfied with anywork done or any success achieved. In one of the letters that hewrote at the time, we find him saying that he was taking up workof many kinds, for he felt that only in work of real magnitudecould a man fulfil himself. In his longing to identify himselfwith the larger world of men and their manifold activities, heturned his back on the sheltered peace and comfort of his lifebeside the Padma, and entered the world of toil and conflict.This is only one instance of how, when life was running smoothlyalong a particular track, he would begin to feel cramped andwould turn aside to take a new path that led to a larger sphereof creative endeavour. This happened again and again in hislife, and he never hesitated to close one chapter and to begin another that would give him freer scope for the unfolding of someaspect of his personality unrevealed till then.It is an error to think of any one manifestation of Rabindranath's creativeness as isolated. Through all that he didhis writings; his song-compositions; his work for Visva-Bharatiand the rural reconstruction centre at Sriniketan; his fightagainstinjustice and oppression in any shape or form; his part in thenational struggle for freedom; his many travels in the East and the



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SHORT STORIES OF TAGORE 17West carrying the message of India to the peoples of the world;his close association, necessitated by his world-position, withmen of the highest stature in every land; and countless otheractivitiesrang an unmistakable note of unity and harmony.Where that central and fundamental note came from we shallsee presently. It is a rare phenomenon for a single person tobe endowed with such manifold gifts, and rarer still the blendedharmony of powers that one saw in him. The different parts ofhis being seemed fused and integrated to produce a roundedperfection of personality. The tasks that he undertook and accomplished were, as we have been trying to emphasize, numerous,diverse and not seldom of impressive magnitude. But v/hatever hedid was done with so little fuss, and with such grace and masterlyease, that any one observing him was deceived into regarding themas perfectly simple, unaware that a lifetime of preparation oftenlay behind them. It is astonishing to think of the atmosphereof serenity and leisure that seemed to surround this great man evenin the midst of incessant work. He dwelt, in spirit, not withinthe narrow bounds of his personal life, but always in the universeof man, and reacted with extraordinary sensitivity to each significant movement in human thought and affairs. But his poiseand composure remained unruffled.In a magnificent passage of his Atmaparichaya he has letus into the secret of the faith and ideal which sustained and guidedhim in life, and lent such a unity to his varied activities. I givea translation of it here: I have loved this earth, I have bowedin reverence to greatness, I have desired liberationthe liberationthat comes from the dedication of self to the Supreme Being.I have believed in the truth of man embodied in Him who everresides in the hearts of men. I have gone beyond the sphere ofmy literary labours which I had pursued with intense devotionsince my boyhood days, and have gathered together, as I bestcould, all my work and sacrifice as an offering to the Supreme.If I have met with opposition from outside, I have been rewardedby a deep inner satisfaction. I have come to this sacred placeof pilgrimage, this earth; here, at the centre of man's historyin every age and land stands his God. It is at the foot of His



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18 INDIAN LITERATURE : OCT. 1957altar that I have sat in silence, engaged, to this day, in the difficultattempt to wash myself clean of egoistic pride and the spirit ofseparatism.Such was the ideal inspiring Rabindranath Tagore in allthat he wrote and in all else that he did. To the people of hiscountry he has left the best that he had to give in the pricelesslegacy of his writings, and in the example of a life of singularbeauty and nobility. His mind was open to the whole worlda mind where the Universe could come together as in a singlenest. By the greatness of his achievements and the majesty ofhis personality he dominated his age, and influenced the peopleof his race in every sphere of their lives. He strove to rescuethem from sloth and self-complacence, and showed them the pathto happiness and fulfilment through work, self-reliance and thefearless pursuit of truth. But his heart was given not only to hiscountrymen but to all humanity. He was a wanderer on life's waysdiscovering and singing of beauty in the midst of sorrow andugliness, and preaching the Religion of Man to a world in dangerof growing inhuman. All this must have been in the mind ofthe eminent German philosopher, Count Hermann Keyserling,when, in 1931, he paid his noble tribute to Tagore in the GoldenBook of Tagore. I quote a few of its memorable words:There has been no one like him on our globe for many and manycenturies He is the creator of a nation... .1 admire my greatfriend Rabindranath Tagore as I admire no other living man,because he is the most universal, the most encompassing, themost complete human being I have known.

It is time now to turn to a consideration of Rabindranath'sshort stories. It would be labour wasted to tryto discover literarysources and influences in their case, for in his short stories Rabindranath is like no one else. He had no forbears in the art inBengal, and he owes no debt to any foreign writer. In his storieshe is absolutely and superbly himself. They yield only to hispoetry in exhibiting the characteristic qualities of his geniushis vivid imagination coupled with a penetrating insight intoreality, his capacity to seize on essentials, his abomination of



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SHORT STORIES OF TAGORE 19exaggeration and sentimentalism, his wide humanity, his intolerance of wrong and injustice, his matchless constructive ability.They are of interest, moreover, as reflecting his surroundings,the ideas and feelings that were dominant and the problemsthat exercised his mind, at different periods of his life.

The three volumes of Galpaguccha in which all but three orfour of his stories are collected (I leave out of account the matterof Se and Galpasalpa as too airy, sketchy and inconsequential tocome under the category of short stories proper) contain eightyfour of them. Over half this number were written between1891 and 1895 during his first great creative period, usuallyreferred to as the Sadhana period, after the monthly magazineof that name of which Rabindranath was the editor. The restwere written at intervals, sometimes of several years.

The biggest later groupof seven in 1914 followed by threein 1917belong to what is generally considered his supreme creative period, the Sabuj Paira period, when he was contributingmost of its matter every month to the magazine of that nameedited by the late Pramatha Chaudhuri. The first eleven storiesin the present collection belong to the earlier and largest group,the next six were published at intervals between 1898 and 1911,and the remaining four belong to the Sabuj Patra period, the last,Patra O Patri being published in 1917.I have referred to that springtide of his life when he wasmanaging the family estates and living mostly in the villagesShileida, Patisar, Shajadpur and othersof which he gives us suchdelightful glimpses in his Chhinna Patra (Torn Letters). It wasagainst the background of this rural Bengal that his earlier storieswere written,and we can trace the beginnings ofmany of them inthese wonderful letters. Of all his stories Rabindranath likedthese earlier ones best. They have, he often asserted, a freshness of feeling and a directness of observation which their settingand the writer's youth gave them, and which, he regretted, gradually disappeared as he grew older and became burdened withthe cares and problems that ever-increasing responsibilities brought with them. He felt, as he read these stories in later life, thatthere had passed away a glory from this earth. In a letter on



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20 INDIAN LITERATURB : OCT. 1957the subject written in 1932 he says: When I came face toface with nature in the villages of Bengal my days overflowedwith happiness. That joy runs through these simple, unadornedstories 1 have now come far away from that loving hospitalityof rural Bengal, with the result that my motor-car-riding pen willnever again walk along those cool and shady sylvan paths ofliterature.

The nature of these earlier stories can be best realized fromRabindranath's own account of their origin. In a letter fromShajadpur, dated 25th June, 1B95, he writes, As I sit writing bitby bit a story for Sadhana, the lights and shadows and colours ofmy surroundings mingle with my words. The scenes and charactersand events that I am now imagining have this sun and rain andriver and the reeds on the river-bank, this monsoon sky, this shadyvillage, these rain-nourished happy corn-fields to serve as theirbackground and to give them life and reality If I could bringbefore my readers in the pages of my story the sunlit water of thissmall stream in front of me on this cloudless day in the rainyseason, if could convey to them in their entirety this river-bankand the shade of these trees and the peace of this village scene,they would fully grasp in a moment the truth of my story.The characters are mostly such as he had come across inthe course of his sojourn in the villagesifien and women,boys and girls and children, of a lowly station in lifeand theevents are such as are normally to be found in the simple annalsof the poor. He had watched the drama of these humble liveswith infinite sympathy and understanding, and without departingone whit from reality he has succeeded in investing them withthe power to move us to pity or anger, to laughter or tears. Takefor instance, Ratan in The Postmaster. This orphan villagegirl of twelve or thirteen, with no one to care for her or to callher own, did odd jobs for the postmaster. The town-bredpostmaster, posted in the remote hamlet of Ulapur, found somerelief in her company from the tedium of his life of exile. Thenhe fell ill, and to the little unlettered girl, Ratan, fell the task ofnursing him back to health. She developed into a womanalmost overnight, and tended him as a mother does her child, till



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SHORT STORIES OF TAGORE 21he was able to leave his sick bed. But he had had enough ofrustic life, and decided to go away for good. He was by no meanshard-hearted; in fact he was quite kind to Ratan in his own way,and even felt a fleeting pang of remorse at having left herbehind. But how great was the contrast between his kindlyindifference and RatanV deep attachment and unquestioningdependence ? The pathos of her dumb sufferingwhen he finallyresigned his post and left for his home in Calcutta, lightly dismissing as absurd her timid request to take her with him, tugs atour hearts and gives this homeless waif a secure place amongRabindranath's characters. The Postmaster is a capital instanceof how much can be done by a real artist with a bare minimumof materials. There are only two characters neither of whom,in actual life, would be considered worth much attention. Thesetting is a remote malaria-infested corner of rural Bengal.Very little happens in the course of the story, nothing surelythat could be called a 'moving accident.' Yet it grips us, and thepicture of Ratan's hopeless grief becomes imprinted on ourminds.

These stories compel our admiration for another importantreason. Up to their time, the ordinary man and woman and,more especially, the poor and the lowly, had not secured admission into our literature. It was in Rabindranath's stories thatthey were given their rightful place, for the first time; and it isnoteworthy that nowhere in our literature, not only before butalso since his day, have they been depicted with greater sympathyor more accurate knowledge. Nothing more than a perusalof these stories is needed to rebut the imbecile charge sometimesbrought against Rabindranath that his writings betray his concern only for the classes and not for the masses. We find ostlingtogether in his pages such diverse characters as the princess ofthe proud house of Badraon and the Bengali village girls, Giribalaand Mrinmayee, scions of the aristocratic families of Nayanjoreand Shahniari and members of the low-caste Rui family, theKabuliwallah from Afghanistan peddling grapes and dried fruitsin the streets of Calcutta and the cotton-toll collector at Barich,and scores of others in every rank and class of society. The truth



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22 INDIAN LITERATURE : OCT. 1957is that he was interested in every kind of person, fornothing humanwas alien to him. But never, we repeat, have humble undistinguished folk been made more welcome in the domain of ourliterature than in these stories.

Kabuliwallah is undoubtedly the most popular of all hisstories; it is also one of his best. This is somewhat unusual,for popularity is seldom a guarantee of quality. The five-yearold Bengali girl Mini had accepted with charming naturalnessthis great hulk of a man from far Kabul as her friend. Shewould call to him as he leisurely passed by her house selling hiswares in the street, and he would come in and sit by her as shebegan to chatter away. They had their own special jokes whichdid not seem to lose any of their point or grow stale with dailyuse. And then, one day, the Kabuliwallah stabbed a man whohad tried to cheat him and was sent to jailthe 'father-in-law'shouse' of their okes over which Mini and he had so often laughedtogether. When he came out after several years and went to see'the little one', as he imagined Mini to be still, it is her weddingday, and her father refuses at first to let her come out to meethim. And then comes that wonderful description of the twomenMini's father and the Kabuliwallahso contrasted in race,language, culture and social position, being drawn to each otherby the bond of a common emotionfor each was a father with adaughter whom he dearly loved. The Kabuliwallah too hada daughter like Mini in his own home, and year after year as hewalked the streets of Calcutta, and through the long years in prison, he carried with him on a small and dirty piece of paper theimpression of a little soot-smeared handthe touch of his ownlittle daughter. As he heard this and saw the paper, Mini'sfather realised that, in spite of every obvious difference, the unlettered Kabuli and the cultured Bengali were one in fundamentals.It is not by any means a tragic story. But Rabindranath'smarvellous identification in sympathy with the creatures of hisimaginationthe charming little Mini, representative of thedarling of every home the world over, with her unceasing babbleof talk, her irrepressible curiosity, her natural gift of friendshipwith all and sundry; the big, rugged pedlar from the hills of



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SHORT STORIES OF TAGORE 23

Afghanistan with the one soft spot in his nature, his love for hisown daughter which underlies his affection for Mini; and Mini'sfather, watching with loving care his beloved child growingup till she is of age to be married, his heart heavy at the thoughtof the impending parting with herand the sheer beauty of hisdelineation of them, make the story a masterpiece which it is difficult to read without being deeply moved.Each of the stories in the present collection deserves detailednotice, but considerations of space forbid more than a passingmention of just a few of them.

Megh O Raudra, though not a very well-knit whole, haspassages of great poetic beauty and incidents of a dramaticcharacter. It is noteworthy also as exhibiting Rabindranath'sattitude towards racial arrogance and the insolence of power.Never was there a more vigilant sentinel of the rights of man.At any violation of justice and humanity anywhere, Rabindranath's voice rang out to expose and denounce it to the world.The incidents connected with the three Englishmen of the storywere typical of the woeful state of things in India at the time(1894) and for many subsequent decades.In Samapti Mrinmayee's change from the wild tomboythat she had been to a tender, loving woman is shown with penetrating psychological insight and delightful humour.Dristidan gives a moving and realistic picture of a blindwife's love for her husband with its tenderness and utter dependence on the one hand, and its jealousy and uncanny sensing offalsehood and unfaithfulness on the other. In the hands of alesser writer the story would almost surely have sunk into themire of sentimentalism, with the wife dying in the process of atheatrical self-abnegation. Rabindranath's unerring sense ofproportion has preserved it from such a maudlin finale.

Tarapada in Atithi is one of Rabindranath's unforgettablecreations. With every accomplishment that a boy of hisyears could possibly possess, and good looks into thebargain, Tarapada charmed all who came to know him; but hecould never be drawn into permanent relations with any ofthem. Nature had made him a wayfarer in life, a 'guest'



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24 INDIAN LITERATURE : OCT. 1957tarrying for a while at any place to which he took a passing fancy,but never destined to settle down for good anywhere. He wastruly a child of nature for he had all her generosity,impartiality and indifference; no power on earth could attachhim permanently to a place or person. And so he quietlydisappeared one day no one knew where, before loveand affect ion and friendship could conspire to hem him incompletely.There are three stories in the present collection which havea touch of the supernatural: Kshudita Pashan, Nishithe andMaster Mashai. The first s admittedly the finest. It is a remarkable construction of the imagination. It conjures up, inpassages of acutely visualized description and great poetic beauty,a vanished age with its limitless luxuries, its loves and crueltiesand unsated passions. The scene of the story is an immenseruined palace of the Mughal days, whose very ^stones seemhungry for living flesh. It is a region of half-lights where the pastholds commerce with the presenta colourful, glamorous pastwith the drab and matter-of-fact present.

Of the stories of what may be called Rabindranath's middleperiod, the two greatest are Nashtanir and Rashmanir Chhele,the former being written in 1901 and the latter in 1911. Nashtaniris a powerful study of the birth and growth of a married woman'slove for a cousin of her husband's, till it becomes a consumingpassion, unbearable in its intensity. The love was unconsciously fostered by the unthinking neglect of the unworldlyhusbanda thoroughly estimable person though somewhatobtuse. The story shocked the squeamish, but the treatment of'forbidden' love in it is so restrained, so delicate, and so freefrom the faintest suggestion of impurity, that it was hailed as amasterpiece by the discerning, and has now come to be regardedas a classic. IRashmanir Chhele, remarkable for the vigour of its style,portrays the pathetic struggle of an impoverished branch of anaristocratic family to make both ends meet, and the poignanttragedy of the death of its only hopethe frail, sensitive yet



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26 INDIAN LITERATURE : OCT. 1957human nature is much the same everywhere, readers in thedifferent parts of India will see in these characters sons anddaughers of Bengal's soil the familiar lineaments of theirown kinsfolk.

IN PRESS

EKOTTARSATIOne hundred and one poems ofRabindranath Tagore, with transliteration of the original indevanagari and Notes in Hindi.Prepared under the auspices ofthe Sahitya Akademi by RampujanTiwari, Hindi Bhawan, Shantiniketan and published by Sahitya

Akademi.

short stories of tagore

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