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Three stories illuminate the three aspects of Tagore

posted on Monday, August 25, 2008 08:15 PM

Author: Sanjay Kumar, Brighton

The first story concerns a letter which Tagore received in August 1920, in London.

Dear Sir Rabindranath
I have been trying to find courage to write to you ever since I heard that you were in London – the desire to tell you something is finding its way into this letter today. This letter may never reach you, for I do not know how to address it, tho’ I feel sure your name upon the envelope will be sufficient. It is nearly two years ago, that my dearest eldest son went out to the War for the last time and the day he said Goodbye to me – we were looking together across the sun-glorified sea – looking towards France with breaking hearts – when he, my beloved poet son, said those wonderful words of yours – beginning at ‘When I go from hence, let this be my parting word’ – and when his pocket book came back to me – I found these words written in his dear writing – and your name beneath. Would it be asking too much of you, to tell me what book I should find the whole poem in?

The writer of the letter was Susan Owen, mother of Wilfred Owen, the celebrated English war poet. The verse was from the literary masterpiece Gitanjali (Song Offerings).

The second story was told in 1961, the centenary of Tagore’s birth, by the German playwright Carl Zuckmayer, who, like Owen, fought in the First World War. An Indian soldier of the Ghurkha regiment of the Indian-British army had been taken prisoner-of-war and was wounded in both legs. Only amputation could save his life and the chief surgeon wanted the Ghurkhas consent to operate or at least some sign of trust. The problem was that neither the Indian nor the Germans could speak English; and the young Ghurkha knew no German. The more they tried to talk to him the more frightened he became – he had heard the stories of the enemy treatment of prisoners. In desperation the German surgeon bent down to the sweating, pain-racked solider and whispered the only Indian words he knew: Rabindranath Tagore! Rabindranath Tagore! Rabindranath Tagore! After he said it three times the solider appeared to understand. His face relaxed, a shy smile came to his eyes, then he closed them, his fears gone, and he nodded weakly his consent and confidence to the enemy doctor who held his life in his hand.

The third story dates from the Second World War. It took place in the Warsaw Ghetto, in an orphanage run by the writer, humanist, dramatist and educator Janusz Korczak. Despite offers from friends and followers, Korczak refused to leave his children. On 15th July 1942 he produced his last play with them, ignoring SS Gestapo orders forbidding Jews to perform works by Aryan authors. It was The Post Office, arguably Tagore’s most famous play, which Radio France had broadcast in June 1940, the evening before Paris finally fell to the Nazis. The central character is a dying boy, bedridden on doctors orders, who is made to believe that a king will visit him and grant his dearest wish. When after the performance Korczak was asked why he chose this play, he answered that ‘eventually one has to accept serenely the divine angel of death’. Korczak and all his children were taken to Treblinka and gassed together. History records that they all died in the cold, concrete chamber ; each child holding the hand of another child all following the example of their teacher who had begun to recite the ancient words of the Upanishads even then, nearly 2,000 years old - ‘O’ Shanti! O’ Shanti O’ Shanti’ (Peace, Peace, Peace): today their grave is marked by a rock – the only rock among all the rock-graves of Treblinka to bear a human name.

The Wilfred Owen story is said to show the power of Tagore in person; the Zuckmayer story the power of his name; the Korczak story the power of his writing and illumination. Anything said, done or written about Tagore must take into account all three aspects of his reputation and their ramifications.

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