Monday was Rabindranath Tagore’s 157th birth anniversary. The entire nation and the world celebrated it by paying tribute to his immense creativity, which created a very different image of India for the rest of the world.
Have you ever noticed that his style of storytelling is so true to the core of the human soul? The amazing thing about his writing is how much scope there is for the reader’s interpretation. He makes you think of your own ending without giving any kind of hint about further development of the events, ending the tale abruptly.
The one character who is very close to my heart is Binodini from his novel “Chokher Bali”. Her character has been marvellously portrayed in the novel. She is a girl who gets married to a person she doesn’t know, instead of the person she was supposed to marry (whose photograph had been presented to her). She is widowed within a few days of her marriage, leaving her helpless and without any support.
Unfortunately, she goes to live in the same very house where she had been rejected. Her desire for sexual satisfaction and emotional support leads her to tread on unexpected paths. She returns to search for the person she thought would definitely protect her and accept her in whatever condition she was. She was so sure. But she doesn’t find him at his home, as he has already left for Kolkata.
She searches for him relentlessly. When she finally gets his address, she isn’t able to find him.
Many years later, she meets him by sheer chance at a small railway station. When she meets him, he has already moved on with his life. She thought her quest for him had finally ended but alas! She goes away, leaving a note for him, saying that in her next life, she wants him only to be hers.
Such a marvellous plot. This same story was portrayed by the very famous director Anurag Basu in a TV series called “Stories by Rabindranath Tagore”.
His short stories are precious gems too and filled with memorable characters, such as Ratna from “The Post Master” and Phatik from “The Homecoming”.
The character of Gora in his novel by the same name despises the British and advocates an orthodox version of Hinduism. But he is left in pieces when he comes to know that he himself is the child of a British couple who died during an attack. That’s why he is the fairest among his relatives.
Words cannot define Rabindranath Tagore, no one even comes close to his literary genius.