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The song of life Tagore came to sing

Nawaid Anjum

Music informed much of what the Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore wrote. A new biography of Gurudev, Rabindranath Tagore: The Singer And His Song by Reba Som, published by Penguin Books, has music as its leitmotif. Music, held Tagore, fills infinite between two souls. His songs mirrored what he went through personally — his disenchantment with the freedom movement, his grief when the young members of his family died and the sense of devastation he felt after the suicide of the woman he loved.

The book is accompanied by an audio CD of Tagore’s songs that is sure to delight the lovers of Rabindra Sangeet. It also contains the lyrics of Tagore’s songs and their translation.

"Music is the running thread of all of his literary works. It’s the musicality and a sense of harmony that informs much of Tagore’s works," says Reba.

In all the biographies that are there in English, says Reba, music doesn’t receive the due focus. "I felt it was important to send the message across that it was music that informed the man," says the author who is a trained singer of Rabindra Sangeet.

Reba says Tagore lived lived at a time when there was "an encounter of colonial and traditional cultures". He introspected and internalised a lot of these influences. His music also bears the influence of western music including pop, holds Reba.

What is important, however, is that Tagore didn’t adhere to any particular tradition or form, but internalised everything and brought out his own.

"He wrote in a language you could relate to. There are little nuggets of wisdom that you come across when you read his books. For many people, he has become a religion. Many think of Tagore in moments of joy and sadness," says Reba, a Ph.D in history from Calcutta university and the director of the Rabindranath Tagore centre.

Tagore, says Reba, came from an incredibly rich cultural family. He didn’t receive any formal education and it was the cultural ambience he immersed that informed his sensibility.

His sister-in-law Kadambari Devi was a huge influence on him. And when she committed suicide when he was 25, he realised that "life and death are the two sides of the same coin."

Says Reba: "He was not depressed or shattered which many people could have been. Such tragedies charged him greatly."

Reba says that if she hadn’t been a singer and not so immersed in Tagore’s music, she wouldn’t have written the book. The author of Differences within Consensus and Gandhi, Bose, Nehru and the Making of the Modern Indian Mind says she wanted to write a book which would be readable by all. "The storyline of Tagore’s life is fascinating," she says.

A landmark moment for Tagore, says Reba, was the publication of Gitanjali in English as it was this that fetched him the Nobel Prize.