(Rabindranath’s 146th birth anniversary falls on 09-05-07)



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It is evident that Tagore is steadily slipping from the headlines as years pass, and is shrinking to some annual ritual. Or else, he has been made either too ‘narrow’ by the common man or too ‘exclusive’ by the alienated intellectuals. All these are unrealistic assessments of Tagore; he is larger, and surely deserves more and is still capable of giving much more.

I implored the media to impress upon their vast readership and viewership, a rejuvenated and wider image of Tagore, on his recent birthday, through their respective channels, for our mass benefit. THE REQUEST WAS BLATANTLY POOH-POOHED and even on Tagore’s birthday, the elite newspapers found it fashionable to neglect and avoid true coverage of Tagore, and TV channels restricted themselves within telecast of live dance and songs only. An exception was the documentary on Tagore by Satyajit Ray which was telecast at 8-30 PM on Tagore birthday- creating a dilemma for Tagore fans- whether to watch this or the local celebrations? That too had happened not because of anybody's reverence to Rabindranath, but just taking advantage of the already ongoing month-long screening of the Ray ceations.for the sake of truth it must be said that the Hindi dailies of Ranchi, maybe because they do not claim to be intellectuals- carried Tagore with much more importance.

I again lament and decry the media’s decision to underplay Tagore.

As a small effort from my side, here is a small article on Rabindranath’s birthday.
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TAGORE HEALS

Yes, Tagore heals.

Even amidst the days ruled by Harry and ruined by hurry, we wish to confirm that Tagore is our soul balm.

We are lucky that we cling to him and his creations. He fulfils us in return; any day, every day.

We value Tagore not only as a dreamy poet but a great sentinel of peace; an active and incessant reformer who was alert on every front of our personal, national and global interest. During the end of his long, creative, sensitive and responsible life, he watched the turbulent times in anguish and remained rather deeply worried about the fate of our so-called modern civilization. Disturbed as he was, his faith in man was unweavering. Rabindranath repeatedly emphasized the need of cultivating finer senses as true attributes of man; and all his life he practiced this. Greatest minds of the world acknowledged this vision and his approach to it. To fill life with all that is good, in order to naturally expel all that is bad, was Tagore’s belief; it had elevated our national life for quite a while. Rabindranath was a true world citizen in both material and spiritual senses, and the foremost practitioner of the true art of living where aesthetics pervade our entire existence to enrich it at every step.

But today Tagore is quite out of focus. We have reduced this global giant to a paltry Bengalee poet .The great expanse of his piercing talent has been squeezed by us into the narrow brand of poetry and songs, which we find easy to handle, and to our convenience, discard the fact that Tagore was also very much an unrelenting crusader for justice, an avid entrepreneur, a true pioneer, and a pathfinding spirit in many diverse spheres much ahead of his times, including education, environment, modern art and rural banking. One great misfortune of our country is that the state machinery never does its full bit to showcase its invaluable treasures in its powerful mass media. Instead it has allowed a predominance of cheap, shallow and passing series of entertainment to reign. There are TV channels to show everything including live bloodshed, dead discussions, naked bodies and covered truths, and each of them must earn profit, but there is no channel to strongly and sufficiently cater to our core need- the aspiration for aesthetics. Thus our young generation just never could know, how modern, how interesting, how attractive and how correct Tagore really was. Even today, if we could give sufficient exposure of the full gamut of Tagore’s talent to our youth, most of them, to their benefit, would become his fans and followers. We are sure that if intellectual stalwarts like Rabindranath are effectively brought back to mass focus, highlighting their multifaceted dynamism and invaluable contribution, they will still bounce back as very modern idea leaders of the nation and only hasten the pace of desired ‘progress’. We still hope that someday there would be television channels dedicated to showing works, views and philosophies of such great people, targetting to involve young people who is our future. We believe it is just possible and viable. We trust that the current trend among some so-called intellectuals to dilute the stature of Tagore in the name of ‘candid criticism’ is actually a self-defeating tendency to decry excellence. We shall also go on believing that if blood and gore is ‘reality’ as claimed by some modern ‘realists’, then aspiration for beauty and peace, as professed by Tagore, is surely a far bigger and stronger reality, and mankind shall redeem it one day.