PEACE FOR INDIA

Taranaki Daily News, 5 July 1930, Page 17 (Supplement)

PEACE FOR INDIA

THE POET TAGORE'S WORK

(By

“Scriblerus.”)

“The daylight sank deeper and deeper into the darkness, and the widowed laud, whose harvest had been reaped, lay silent. .Suddenly a boy’s shrill voice rose into the sky. He traversed the dark unseen, leaving the track of his gong across the hush of the evening. His village home lay there at the er.d of the waste land, beyond the sugar cane field, hidden among the shadows of the banana and the slender areea palm, the coconut and the dark green jack-fruit trees.” This scene, translated from glowing stanzas of Bengali by Sir Rabindranath Tagore, the poet of the Indian renaissance, is very different from that which we conjure up of Mahatma. Ghandi and his 82 disciples marching out of Ahmedabad on their turbulent campaign of’civil disobedience in the dim moruin<v light of April G. Again it is very different from the wild days on the mountain frontier when the hillmcn show a battlefront. And yet somehow the prevailing idea of India seems always to be that of a seething hotbed of'discontent. Ghandi’s vulture ' head looks wisely and ominously out <of India at the ‘Western world. ' There is discord. It is useless to try to hide it, but there is also another side, which for some reason has been relegated to China. The exotic beauty of the Eastern philosophy has not vanished from India. Tagore, clad in his rough brown robe, with the large sleeves and the heavy sandals, meditating amon<* liis pupils at his house in Bolpur, is typical of the placid East that is so comforting to picture. And yst not quite, for he has brought something new out of the Occident to temper the wisdom of his drifting Indian civilisation. The issue of a regal line, Rabindranath Tagore was born at Calcutta on May 6, 1861. His long, white beard and hair arc a testimony to the many years that have passed, but the. broad, smooth brow belongs to a man young in mind and free from the crushing worries of this world. After being privately edin cated in India he was sent to England, when he was Sixteen, but he returned soon and commenced writing for Bengal periodicals. The works of lus earlier years are imbued with a great love or natural objects.' Sorrow came when Rabindranath was 25, and stayed with him for ten years, during which time he poured out his soul .tn the . most beautiful love, jwMryyJn Bengali. It has boon the inspiration to the writers of the now movement in India. Like W. B. Yeates in Ireland, Tagore revived old dreams and clothed them in a gaib of modern mysticism.

Shortly before 1900, hiis outlook changed and he turned to things of deeper sirrnificance. A desire for fieedom fiom restraint and a love of natural things still predominated. He founded the famous Santiiiiketah School, a refuge from the . prison of classroom walls, where students of all denominations and races develop and absorb knowledge through natural influences. In one of his poems, “Defamation,” the longing for freedom in education is very apparent.

“For every little trifle they blame you, rnv child. They are ready to find fault for nothing You tore your clothes while playing—is that why they call you untidy? .... O, fie! What would they call an autumn morning that smiles through its ragged clouds?” The classes at this strange “university” are held in. small groups where the pupils studv.in the cool shade of the trees. The' afternoons are practically free. A traveller once described a visit: “Wandering through the glades,” he said, young girLs attired in graceful sarees. Sploshes of vivid colour were formed by the pacing group—a ■yellow-clad Buddhist, ami a gill in a blue and scarlet robe made an exquisite scene, repeated in many tones and co - ours among the green-purpled shadows of the trees. Bovs in white, and girls, were taking full advantage of the time in playincr games, Japanese drill and sword‘play being favourite pastimes with both sexes.” ' A short period of med.ta.ion when the evenin'* falls rounds off the day. The life ot ? these students is idealistic, but it is very real in its, results. A broad-minded-tolerance w tae outcome. The Santiniketan School is a pmee, as Tagore says, “Where the mind is without fear ‘and th-?, head is he.d high; where, knowledge is free; wnere the world has not been broken up into f ia ff' ments by narrow domestic the words come out from the depth, of truth; where tireless striving stretemm iti? arms towards perfection. The classes of art and music under Rabrindrauath Tagore and JHnendrapatli Ta<*o’e respectively are almost unique. Fine examples of the work ?f school are contained in bir Babmdiamath’3 little volume, •1 he Ciesc.nt Moon.” A pale yellow wash seems to be the basis and the pictures are surface sketches with scarcely a trace ot shadin'*. In Western eyes they may seem crude. They have not a dmien6ion of massiveness or depth so essential to European art. Tagore is a poet and a musician wit simplicity as the keynote of his ait. One of the dominant sides of hia naa ’l. is his love of children, of whom he seems to have a great anderstanding. This is an attitude very similar tc. tha which He possessed Who said: Snffci the little children to come unto Me. Rabindranath sings. “On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. Tempest roams in the pathless sky, ships are wrecked in the trackless water death i fl abroad and children play. On the seashore of endless worlds is the great meetim* of children.” The love .of mother to child is another aspect of Tagores teaching. He finds exquisite beauty in 'the sleep that flits on baby’s eyes and the smile on the baby lips. Whence comes it? “There is a rumour, he replies. “that a young pale beam ot a crescent moon touched the edge or vanishing autumn cloud, and there the smile was first born hi the dream of. a do w- washed m omi ng.’’