INDIA'S MYSTIC

Waipa Post, Volume 42, Issue 3263, 21 February 1931, Page 3

INDIA'S MYSTIC

AMERICAN VIEW OF TAGORE.

; Sir Radindranath, Tagore, the Indiai poet and mystic, who arrived in New York recently to tell the Americans -what a holy man he is and to denounce British rule in India, received a shock. His reception has beeh\cqol and hostile, v"This*:is due partly to the shortage xtf dollars, but largely also to Ameri-can-sympathy with Britain's efforts to with the troubles of India. Mr Randolph Hearst's New York --American, a newspaper Which has not been accused of pro-British leanings, comments in a leading article on.the report of the dinner at New York in Tagore's honour, " attended, by 350 supposedly sane Americans, who paid £5 a piece to look at and listen to him."

"On behalf of the rest of the comf; munity it seems time that somebody called the bluff," the article continues. ** Tagore, for example; has the colossal nerve to tell us what a terrible thing western civilisation is for the oppressed races of the east.

" His own India is kept from going to complete smash only by the power and the justice of Britain, as he well knows. His own people i are fed in times of famine by the hated British. His entire land is preserved from tyranny or anarchy only because Britain has the strength of character and the strength of empire to preserve it. "Then he comes here and wrings his hands—about oppression." A visit to Tagore in the Algonquin Hotel is almost like being presented to royalty. From an outer room the visitors , first get a glimpse of the great man. He is sitting in a chair, wearing a black robe and meditating. He meditates all the time. " Sir Radindranath's silvery beard was carefully brushed," says a writer i in the New York Worker. "His hands were clasped, and there appeared to be a twinkle in his eye. His room contained two Indian secretaries, a Mrs Waiser, his publicity adviser, and a plate with an orange and an opp';e on it. . "In India Tagore v spends much of his time in a house built in a tree. It looks something like a pagoda, and is quite different from 1172, Park Avenue. Tagore goes up into the tree and meditates, often at night. He always takes a cat with him. He pulls the ladder up after him, so that he gets complete privacy."