Wanderings through Tagore territory

Jibon Jemon Dekhechhen
Mujtaba Ahmed Murshed
Murdhonno

Till now, five of a series of 151 books on Rabindranath Tagore, published on the occasion of his 150th birth anniversary, have reached me. In addition to that I have skipped as well as scanned a few more pages of some books of this series while searching for some books on Rabindranath at a book shop with a view to penning a research article. But I must confess the last one I got, namely Jibonke Jemon Dekhechhen (Tagore: A View of Life) by Mujtaba Ahmed Murshed is exclusive. In a word, Mujtaba Murshed has applied different kinds of perspectves to view Tagore from various angles. His volume is exceptional and he has used his numerous strengths to explore Tagore's realization about life.
Having been come across a few volumes in the series, I feel a major problem in those pieces is that most of the authors of this series have attempted compiling Tagore's excerpts from his vast literary works to finish their assigned projects. I don't know whether the members of the advisory board of the series suggested that the selected authors cite Tagore's own words as much as possible to give readers his different visions. Whatever the case may be, Mujtaba Murshed has done a praiseworthy job by adding a good deal of comments alongside Tagore's citations. Consequently, it has become easier for readers to figure out how Tagore viewed life. And it has also become conspicuous how the poet in Murshed views Tagore as a life-discoverer.
Only within the frame of eighty two pages, Mujtaba Ahmed Murshed, a poet, short-story writer and political analyst, has excavated a number of facts: how we are indebted to Tagore in running our everyday life, how he prevails in the middle-class sense, realization and feelings, how his multi-dimensional thoughts and deep realization of life always give birth to a tendency in people to become greater and bountiful, etc. As a matter of fact, an aspiration was deeply rooted in Tagore's tendency of viewing life. And this aspiration helped him engage himself in forming a real identity of the Bangalee people. Murshed as a political analyst has attempted to unveil why Tagore only considered Hindus as Bangalees. Why did the Muslims of this region fail to consider themselves as Bangalees? The author clearly has a response: the forefathers of the Muslims in these parts failed to consider themselves as Bangalees because at that time they were not ready to come out from the cocoon of fundamentalism. Needless to say, the Muslims of East Bengal were responsible for their own faults. Furthermore, Bangalee Muslims failed to embrace our age-old culture, philosophy, literature and art. In reality, during the language movement of 1952 we, the Muslims of this region, for the first time began thinking of ourselves as Bangalees. However, Mujtaba Murshed opines that if Tagore had a chance to see our heroism in 1952 as well as 1971, he would never indicate only the Hindu people as Bangalees; rather he would consider Hindu-Muslim, Buddhist-Christian, in a word, all people regardless of cast and creed as Bangalees.
Readers of this work will find how Mujtaba Murshed has wandered through Tagore's realm of thoughts. He brilliantly unfolds Tagore's never-ending capability of understanding people's needs. Tagore took up his pen for people across the spectrum, those do love to think deeply and also those who do not have a philosophical bent of mind. Tagore never even forgot to write for children who, he strongly believed, would be the real makers of future one day. This book also focuses on the vastness of Tagore's reflections on life. Even his keen realization of the roots of human beings has been expressed here. Murshed has journeyed through Tagore's mystique of life. He encapsulates what Tagore felt --- that one may inhabit the world but it may not be possible for him to realize this mystical power or the Infinite fully. Thereupon, from the viewpoint of Murshed, a little dissatisfaction can sometimes be seen in some of Tagore's expressions.
In the middle of the book Murshed has divided Tagore's view of life into a number of phases to make a complete sense nade of it. The phases are following:
"Rabindranath as a man / Rabindranath as a member of our infinite nature/
Rabindranath as a creative man / Rabindranath as a companion of human beings/ Rabindranath as a member of our society / Tagore as a world citizen/ Tagore as a perishable being"
A plethora of questions come to the fore through Murshed's analysis of the above mentioned aspects. The author has provided us with a quintessential aspect of Tagore's being a poet. He argues that if Tagore had not gone to England, it would have been a grave problem for him to discover the vacuum in Bangalee life. Having been gone there, he realized what the Bangalees have and what they do not have; and this discovery was essential for the upliftment of our culture, literature and, above all, our nation. Mujtaba Murshed quotes from Tagore's essay Literature to stress the necessity of the freedom of the soul, a vital ingredient to develop the sense of beauty in us. And a deep sense of beauty, in the many phases of life, creates aestheticism in us.
Mujtaba Ahmed Murshed as a keen analyst assumes that Tagore's process of viewing life include his inevitable desire to change our society both outwardly and inwardly, his deep sense of necessitating education for all, his non-communal thoughts in every branch of life and so on. However, one approach Rabindranath took as a root solution to all problems is for us to know our souls and broaden our hearts. Otherwise our anticipated freedom will remain unattained. Needless to say, Tagore's sense of viewing life was impossibly powerful as well as intense.
Rabindranath Tagore worked in different mediums to create different notions, views or realization of life suitable to us so that we become capable of discovering the true being in ourselves.

Tusar Talukder, a free-lance writer and translator, teaches English Literature at World University of Bangladesh. E-mail: [email protected]