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The Home and the World
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Set on a Bengali noble's estate in 1908, this is both a love story and a novel of political awakening. The central character, Bimala, is torn between the duties owed to her husband, Nikhil, and the demands made on her by the radical leader, Sandip. Her attempts to resolve the irreconciliable pressures of the home and world reflect the conflict in India itself, and the tragic outcome foreshadows the unrest that accompanied Partition in 1947. This edition includes an introduction by Anita Desai.
213 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1916
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About the author
Rabindranath Tagore
2,686 books4,139 followersAwarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 "because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West."
Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced), and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's Jana Gana Mana and Bangladesh's Amar Shonar Bangla.
The complete works of Rabindranath Tagore (রবীন্দ্র রচনাবলী) in the original Bengali are now available at these third-party websites:
http://www.tagoreweb.in/
http://www.rabindra-rachanabali.nltr....
Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced), and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's Jana Gana Mana and Bangladesh's Amar Shonar Bangla.
The complete works of Rabindranath Tagore (রবীন্দ্র রচনাবলী) in the original Bengali are now available at these third-party websites:
http://www.tagoreweb.in/
http://www.rabindra-rachanabali.nltr....
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October 26, 2021
ঘরে বাইরে = Ghôre Baire or Ghare Baire = The Home and the World, Rabindranath Tagore
The Home and the World is a 1916 novel by Rabindranath Tagore. The book illustrates the battle Tagore had with himself, between the ideas of Western culture and revolution against the Western culture.
These two ideas are portrayed in two of the main characters, Nikhil, who is rational and opposes violence, and Sandip, who will let nothing stand in his way from reaching his goals. These two opposing ideals are very important in understanding the history of the Bengal region, and its contemporary problems.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: یازدهم ماه نوامبر سال1989میلادی
عنوان: خانه و جهان؛ نویسنده: رابیندرانات تاگور؛ مترجم: زهری خانلری (کیا)؛ تهران، توسن، سال1367، در226ص؛ چاپ دوم، سال1386، شابک9643153150؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان هند (هندوستان) - سده 20م
داستان نخستین بار در سال1915میلادی منتشر شد، که در سرزمین «بنگاله» رخ میدهد؛ داستان از زبان سه راوی بازگو میشود، که در برابر يكديگر قرار میگیرند، و باهم بگومگو میکنند؛ «ساتیا جیت رای» کارگردان مشهور «هندی»، فیلمی از این داستان ساخته است، با سالشمار زندگی و آثار «رابیندرانات تاگور - شاعر و نویسنده هندی»؛ آغاز، و در دوازده فصل، که همه حالت گزارش نویسی دارند، ادامه مییابد
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 01/09/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 03/08/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
The Home and the World is a 1916 novel by Rabindranath Tagore. The book illustrates the battle Tagore had with himself, between the ideas of Western culture and revolution against the Western culture.
These two ideas are portrayed in two of the main characters, Nikhil, who is rational and opposes violence, and Sandip, who will let nothing stand in his way from reaching his goals. These two opposing ideals are very important in understanding the history of the Bengal region, and its contemporary problems.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: یازدهم ماه نوامبر سال1989میلادی
عنوان: خانه و جهان؛ نویسنده: رابیندرانات تاگور؛ مترجم: زهری خانلری (کیا)؛ تهران، توسن، سال1367، در226ص؛ چاپ دوم، سال1386، شابک9643153150؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان هند (هندوستان) - سده 20م
داستان نخستین بار در سال1915میلادی منتشر شد، که در سرزمین «بنگاله» رخ میدهد؛ داستان از زبان سه راوی بازگو میشود، که در برابر يكديگر قرار میگیرند، و باهم بگومگو میکنند؛ «ساتیا جیت رای» کارگردان مشهور «هندی»، فیلمی از این داستان ساخته است، با سالشمار زندگی و آثار «رابیندرانات تاگور - شاعر و نویسنده هندی»؛ آغاز، و در دوازده فصل، که همه حالت گزارش نویسی دارند، ادامه مییابد
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 01/09/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 03/08/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
February 3, 2018
A 1916 novel by Rabindranath Tagore, the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Written in Bengali and translated into English in 1919 by the author’s nephew. I think of poetry as almost impossible to translate well, but the beauty of his language does come across. I'm glad that read Tagore.
On one level, the story is a love triangle. It’s a shame that Bimala didn’t have a friend to talk her out of having anything to do with Sandip. She had that guy sized up before she ever met him.
But no, her only confidant was her husband. And, well… There she is stealing from her loving husband because her boyfriend asked her to do so. It’s like a knife in her guilty heart when loyal household members bring their small treasures to protect from the thief. “I got these at your wedding,” said the milk-woman, while handing her a box with a Benares sari and some other valued things.
On another level, this is a morality play about the Swadeshi movement for Indian independence. Husband, Nikhil is an educated, aristocratic landlord. He is nonviolent and politically moderate. He is too practical for revolutionaries to burn foreign products He is willing to import Indian made yarn to sell in his market, but to practical to boycott foreign imports. He is also, aware that independence should not mean isolation. Boyfriend, Sandip is a charismatic pro-independence professional revolution. He lobbies for the boycott of British goods and burning of western products. His instigations generate an awfully lot of violence for a non-violent movement. And, I couldn’t help but notice that he skivvied off when things went horribly wrong. Bimala is the colonized home country that they compete for.
With that as a reference, Sandip thinks of Bimala as fruit to be taken.
While devoted and caring husband, Nikhil encourages her to learn and to experience the world within the protection of their marriage. Bimala chooses the corrupting thief. She repents her choice and crime, but retribution falls. I can see why he won a prize from colonial Europe.
There may be other levels, but those are the most obvious. There's a lot here for a slim little volume. I thought Kavita Daswani was exaggerating in For Matrimonial Purposes, but here it is again. Everyone considers Bimala ugly solely because she’s dark skinned.
On one level, the story is a love triangle. It’s a shame that Bimala didn’t have a friend to talk her out of having anything to do with Sandip. She had that guy sized up before she ever met him.
I had seen Sandip Badu’s photograph before. There was something in his features which I did not quite like. Not that he was bad-looking—far from it” he had a splendidly handsome face. Yet, I know not why, it seemed to me, in spite of all its brilliance, that too much of base alloy had gone into its making. The light in his eyes somehow did not shine true. That was why I did not like it when my husband unquestioningly gave in to all his demands. I could bear the waste of money; but it vexed me to think that he was imposing on my husband, taking advantage of friendship. His bearing was not that of an ascetic, nor even of a person of moderate means but foppish all over. Love of comfort seemed to…any number of such reflections come back to me today, but let them be.
But no, her only confidant was her husband. And, well… There she is stealing from her loving husband because her boyfriend asked her to do so. It’s like a knife in her guilty heart when loyal household members bring their small treasures to protect from the thief. “I got these at your wedding,” said the milk-woman, while handing her a box with a Benares sari and some other valued things.
On another level, this is a morality play about the Swadeshi movement for Indian independence. Husband, Nikhil is an educated, aristocratic landlord. He is nonviolent and politically moderate. He is too practical for revolutionaries to burn foreign products He is willing to import Indian made yarn to sell in his market, but to practical to boycott foreign imports. He is also, aware that independence should not mean isolation. Boyfriend, Sandip is a charismatic pro-independence professional revolution. He lobbies for the boycott of British goods and burning of western products. His instigations generate an awfully lot of violence for a non-violent movement. And, I couldn’t help but notice that he skivvied off when things went horribly wrong. Bimala is the colonized home country that they compete for.
With that as a reference, Sandip thinks of Bimala as fruit to be taken.
It is only too clear how she wants me, and so I look on her as quite legitimately mine. The fruit hangs on the branch by the stem, but that is no reason why the claim of the stem should be eternal. Ripe fruit cannot for ever swear by its slackening stem-hold. All its sweetness has been accumulated for me; to surrender itself to my hand is the reason of its existence, its very nature, its true morality. So I must pluck it, for it becomes me to make it futile.
While devoted and caring husband, Nikhil encourages her to learn and to experience the world within the protection of their marriage. Bimala chooses the corrupting thief. She repents her choice and crime, but retribution falls. I can see why he won a prize from colonial Europe.
There may be other levels, but those are the most obvious. There's a lot here for a slim little volume. I thought Kavita Daswani was exaggerating in For Matrimonial Purposes, but here it is again. Everyone considers Bimala ugly solely because she’s dark skinned.
March 18, 2025
It is a simple story in appearance that could cause many comments and digressions. Three main characters confront each other:
1. a Maharaja imbued with traditional wisdom but open to the world,
2. a woman whom he loves and to whom he offers freedom so that she can learn to know herself and discover the world,
3. and a political leader, embodying the rise, cynicism, and extremism of the present times.
The woman, rich in the freedom offered by one, will fall in love with the other. In her eyes, the woman embodies power and will, as opposed to her husband, who seems far too timid.
"The house and the world " perhaps represents an opposition between depth and cover, intimacy and public life, philosophy, and action. Along with confrontation with the world, it was living as a test revealing the "deep nature."
1. a Maharaja imbued with traditional wisdom but open to the world,
2. a woman whom he loves and to whom he offers freedom so that she can learn to know herself and discover the world,
3. and a political leader, embodying the rise, cynicism, and extremism of the present times.
The woman, rich in the freedom offered by one, will fall in love with the other. In her eyes, the woman embodies power and will, as opposed to her husband, who seems far too timid.
"The house and the world " perhaps represents an opposition between depth and cover, intimacy and public life, philosophy, and action. Along with confrontation with the world, it was living as a test revealing the "deep nature."
December 5, 2017
"I am willing to serve my country, but my worship I reserve for Right which is far greater than my country. To worship my country as a god is to bring a curse upon it.”
"To tyrannize for the country is to tyrannize over the country”
How much can present day ultra-nationalists learn from him!
The infatuation of a married woman for her husband's friend aside, this book tries to bring out the pros and cons of then prevailing tools used by freedom fighters. Were those tools, emotionally attractive as they were, really effective? Who really bore the price for those satyagrahas? And most importantly, can a moment that includes mostly young volunteers be long expected to stay non-violent? Aren't some of them motivated by personal greed and need for glory? Tagore was the one who gave the title of Mahatma to Gandhi (the later returned the favour by calling him 'Gurudev') but it seems he was critical of later opinions. While Gandhi's ideal was localisation of government to village level. Tagore believed that even nationalism wasn't the end but only a step towards to something bigger. In this book too, the victory belonged to one who acted rationally rather than blindly pursuing ideal of nationalism.
And such beautiful prose that you know it is a poet writing it:
“that which is eternal within the moment only becomes shallow if spread out in time.”
“But when physical appearance evades the scrutiny of our senses and enters the sanctuary of our hearts, then it can forget itself. I know, from my childhood's experience, how devotion is beauty itself, in its inner aspect.”
“Purity, they imagined, was only becoming in those on whom fortune had not smiled. It is the moon which has room or stains, not the stars."
July 21, 2011
Sir Rabindranath Tagore won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. He was the first non-European and so far, theonly Indian to be awarded this most prestigious award any literary artist can dream of.
Bimala (meanswithout mal or blemish in Hindu) is married toNikhil orNikhilesh (Lord of the Universe). Theirs is an arranged marriage that was planned even when Bimala was still a little girl. Bimala is neither good-looking, i.e., she comes from lower status and darker complexion, nor rich. Nikhil on the other hand, comes from a rich family, peace-loving and passive. Nikhil has a handsome, aggressive and charismatic friend,Sandip who is the leader of theSwadeshi movement. This movement was part of the many others, e.g., the non-violence movement of Mahatma Gandhi being the most famous, that comprised the India Independence Movement that strived to end the British rule in India in the early part of the 19th century. Bimala falls in love with Sandip for his zeal, ambition and sex appeal. Nikhil releases her but then she finds out Sandip’s true color.
The book is composed of several chapters, each of them is narrated by either one of the three major characters that reminded me of William Faulkner’sThe Sound and the Fury (1929) minus Benjy, its retardate character. Rather, the 3 narrators perfectly give their views on what’s going on around them, from what goes on inside their homes, within community and even in the nation as a whole. Like Salman Rushdie’s masterpieceMidnight’s Children (1981) this book,The Home and the World shows a detailed presentation of India during its fight for independence from British colonizers. However, if Rushdie was able to present the macro as well as the micro views of this fight for independence through the events that lead to a nation in turmoil and how his characters react to them , Tagore chose to focus on his characters’ own turmoil in relation to the changing environment and the opposing forces present in it: the new and old, realism and idealism, the means and the end, good and evil within India and Southern Asia. The narration is lyrical and personal. The plot is thin and simple yet plausible and full of meaning. You will have to stop once in a while to savor his thought-provoking phrases.
My favorite aspect of the novel is the remarkable transformation of Bimala from a traditional woman to an awakened citizen who contributes to the movement. To give you examples of Tagore’s prose and to illustrate Bimala’s transformation, here are her descriptions of herself at the various points in the story:
BEGINNING: (as a dutiful traditional wife)“I would cautiously and silently get up and take the dust of my husband’s feet without waking him, how at such moments I could feel the vermilion mark upon my forehead shining out like the morning star”.
MIDDLE: (as a person supporting the movement)” I was no longer the lady of the Rajah’s house, but the sole representative of Bengal’s womanhood .”
END: (after being fooled by her lover)"I could not think of my house as separate from my country: I had robbed my house, I had robbed my country. For this sin my house had ceased to be mine, my country also was estranged from me"
A couple of years ago, a smart GR friend commented that he hadn’t read an Indian novel, either set in India, written by Indian or Indian-American novelist, that did not have anything to do with poverty. Arundathi Roy’sThe God of Small Things, Rohinton Mistry’sA Fine Balance or evenSlumdog Millionaire by Vikas Swarup. They all revolve around the fact that there are problems because the protagonist(s) is poor.The Home and the World orGHARE BAIRE (when its movie adaptation was shown in Cannes 1988) centers on the ideological personal beliefs of the characters and poverty is not really the main or even the secondary issue.
I am glad that I have read a Tagore. It changed my perspective on Indian novels and showed me a firmer grasp on what it took for the Indian people to gain their independence.
Bimala (meanswithout mal or blemish in Hindu) is married toNikhil orNikhilesh (Lord of the Universe). Theirs is an arranged marriage that was planned even when Bimala was still a little girl. Bimala is neither good-looking, i.e., she comes from lower status and darker complexion, nor rich. Nikhil on the other hand, comes from a rich family, peace-loving and passive. Nikhil has a handsome, aggressive and charismatic friend,Sandip who is the leader of theSwadeshi movement. This movement was part of the many others, e.g., the non-violence movement of Mahatma Gandhi being the most famous, that comprised the India Independence Movement that strived to end the British rule in India in the early part of the 19th century. Bimala falls in love with Sandip for his zeal, ambition and sex appeal. Nikhil releases her but then she finds out Sandip’s true color.
The book is composed of several chapters, each of them is narrated by either one of the three major characters that reminded me of William Faulkner’sThe Sound and the Fury (1929) minus Benjy, its retardate character. Rather, the 3 narrators perfectly give their views on what’s going on around them, from what goes on inside their homes, within community and even in the nation as a whole. Like Salman Rushdie’s masterpieceMidnight’s Children (1981) this book,The Home and the World shows a detailed presentation of India during its fight for independence from British colonizers. However, if Rushdie was able to present the macro as well as the micro views of this fight for independence through the events that lead to a nation in turmoil and how his characters react to them , Tagore chose to focus on his characters’ own turmoil in relation to the changing environment and the opposing forces present in it: the new and old, realism and idealism, the means and the end, good and evil within India and Southern Asia. The narration is lyrical and personal. The plot is thin and simple yet plausible and full of meaning. You will have to stop once in a while to savor his thought-provoking phrases.
My favorite aspect of the novel is the remarkable transformation of Bimala from a traditional woman to an awakened citizen who contributes to the movement. To give you examples of Tagore’s prose and to illustrate Bimala’s transformation, here are her descriptions of herself at the various points in the story:
BEGINNING: (as a dutiful traditional wife)“I would cautiously and silently get up and take the dust of my husband’s feet without waking him, how at such moments I could feel the vermilion mark upon my forehead shining out like the morning star”.
MIDDLE: (as a person supporting the movement)” I was no longer the lady of the Rajah’s house, but the sole representative of Bengal’s womanhood .”
END: (after being fooled by her lover)"I could not think of my house as separate from my country: I had robbed my house, I had robbed my country. For this sin my house had ceased to be mine, my country also was estranged from me"
A couple of years ago, a smart GR friend commented that he hadn’t read an Indian novel, either set in India, written by Indian or Indian-American novelist, that did not have anything to do with poverty. Arundathi Roy’sThe God of Small Things, Rohinton Mistry’sA Fine Balance or evenSlumdog Millionaire by Vikas Swarup. They all revolve around the fact that there are problems because the protagonist(s) is poor.The Home and the World orGHARE BAIRE (when its movie adaptation was shown in Cannes 1988) centers on the ideological personal beliefs of the characters and poverty is not really the main or even the secondary issue.
I am glad that I have read a Tagore. It changed my perspective on Indian novels and showed me a firmer grasp on what it took for the Indian people to gain their independence.
January 1, 2018
عندما قرأت العمل هذا كنت أرجّح شاعرية طاغور أكثر على روائيته والسبب لكثرة ماعرفته من نتاج شخصي له وماعرف كشاعر لكن هذا العمل يبرهن على حتى نجاحه الروائي وككاتب مسرحي كذلك. الرواية ليست بالمعجزة ولا العظيمة فهي تقليديتها. لكنها مشبعة بالحكمة والفلسفة كمعظم رويات الهند والصين هذا فوق فلسفة طاغور الساحرة وهو يصور المجتمع الهندي برؤية شاعرية حتى من خلال الحوار لسرده عن العادات والتقاليد في المجتمع الهندي. وتماسكها رهيب من قبل طاغور الشاعر. كان طاغور يصب كل نتاجه عن الإنسان والوطن والمثاليات والمبادئ والحرب والسلم في هذه الرواية وكأنه لن يكتب نثرًا بعد هذا العمل.
النص من خلال شخصيات ثلاث تقوم أحداث الرواية التي أبدع طاغور في تسجيل صراعات هذه الشخصيات الإنسانية. (نيكهيل، وسنديب، و بيمالا) ويكون المونولوج الداخل�� ركيزة جميلة في الرواية يلعب عليها طاغور لتصوير شخصياته، ونقد مجتمع الهند.
النص من خلال شخصيات ثلاث تقوم أحداث الرواية التي أبدع طاغور في تسجيل صراعات هذه الشخصيات الإنسانية. (نيكهيل، وسنديب، و بيمالا) ويكون المونولوج الداخل�� ركيزة جميلة في الرواية يلعب عليها طاغور لتصوير شخصياته، ونقد مجتمع الهند.
August 3, 2018
Exceptionally remarkable! .brilliant, complex novel where the three characters take turns telling the story from their own point of view, beautiful political and moral parallel to the struggles and conflicts India underwent in the days of upheaval against the British Empire. Tagore is magnificent.
March 29, 2025
Set in the early 20th century, The Home and the World delves into the lives of Nikhilesh, his wife Bimala, and Sandip, amidst the political upheaval of colonial India.
Having been caught in the crosscurrents of the political turmoil prevailing at that time in India, amidst the vociferous vows of nationalism, their lives get caught due to the difference in their opinion. They ('Sandip and Nikhil' and 'Nikhil and Bimala') are in constant clashes with each other, thechasm of thoughts being driven by their contrasting views on:
a). Tradition vs modernism
b). love vs union
c). religion vs nationalism
d). the role of women in the Indian Independence Movement, and largely in the Indian society.
It is worth noticing that this book fundamentally reflects Tagore's internal struggle between embracing Western culture and opposing it — a conflict embodied in the characters of Nikhilesh and Sandip.
The very fact that the book was written by Tagore speaks volumes about its quality. However, to further justify my reading, I must say I was deeply impressed by the depth of thought and the effectiveness with which they are conveyed. Considering this is a translation, I can only imagine how enriching the original must have been!
4/5!
Having been caught in the crosscurrents of the political turmoil prevailing at that time in India, amidst the vociferous vows of nationalism, their lives get caught due to the difference in their opinion. They ('Sandip and Nikhil' and 'Nikhil and Bimala') are in constant clashes with each other, thechasm of thoughts being driven by their contrasting views on:
a). Tradition vs modernism
b). love vs union
c). religion vs nationalism
d). the role of women in the Indian Independence Movement, and largely in the Indian society.
It is worth noticing that this book fundamentally reflects Tagore's internal struggle between embracing Western culture and opposing it — a conflict embodied in the characters of Nikhilesh and Sandip.
The very fact that the book was written by Tagore speaks volumes about its quality. However, to further justify my reading, I must say I was deeply impressed by the depth of thought and the effectiveness with which they are conveyed. Considering this is a translation, I can only imagine how enriching the original must have been!
4/5!
May 6, 2016
Reading Tagore's work as a Westerner, I am always reminded of the importance of caution. That is, I must be careful to not be too attached to the certainties I usually attach to my criteria for evaluation. When the author invites me to paint a picture, under his guidance, out of the materials of my mind, and I feel a certain resistance to even get started before recoiling, judging such a picture to be quite categorically in “bad form,” I must be cautious, and willing to question myself. Caution invites self-criticism, as well as the openness to seeing one's standpoint with reserve, as if temporarily suspended from it. I feel the whole issue about Tagore's approach to characterization here is one such issue that has more to do with paradigm difference than with an intrinsic lack of genius. After all, our aesthetic orientation is born of our ontology, with its corollary phenomenology (or culturally standard mode of interpreting and giving shape to experience).
Allegory has been out of fashion here in the West for some time. Modern aesthetic dogma deems allegory “unnatural” - though we forget that standard pictures of nature do very much differ with culture and with the array of possible philosophical orientations each cultural system of representation allows. When pictures of nature change, so does the aesthetic sense of “naturalness.” The problem, as usual, is that we tend to turn our pictures of nature into dogmas, mistaking them for the only valid orientation vis-a-vis nature (hence why self-proclaimed naturalists and realists often seem more dogmatic than most intellectuals: nature must at all costs be trimmed to fit their picture of it). We forget that our naturalism isn't the only naturalism. I'd wager that, for Tagore, allegory may well seem a more wholesomely “natural” way of depicting character than that of the standard Western "naturalist" canon.
To begin to try to reconstruct in imagination and affect alike, as a Westerner, how this is possible would perhaps require an effort to remember – that is, to recall that the West, too, once portrayed individuals in relation to allegorical types. So what kind of view of nature does allegory reveal? IMO, you don't even need special insight into the particularity of Bengali culture to answer THAT basic question, which opens the door to Tagore's worldview, and hence, to his sensibility. Allegory, in its basic logic, connects the individual to a universal pattern, and sees the individual in terms of that universal: as an instatiation thereof. Allegory as an aesthetic device implies an ontology in which the essence of the individual IS its location in the ontic Logos (in Charles Taylor's words, or, to put it in more humanly understandable terms, in a meaningful cosmic order).
The key to understanding this approach to characterization is the realization that every one of Tagore's characters is both individual and archetype, and, he seems to insist, is an individual all the more so BECAUSE s/he is an archetype. So Nikhil is the voice of universalism, reason, and humanism (but also something much more fundamental than humanism, which relates the individual not merely to the human race, but also to the universe, as he describes in Sadhana). Sandip is the intransingent revolutionary principle of creation-by-destruction; he exists to give voice and embodiment to a materialism so voided out of all value, meaning and feeling as to slide into the demonic. And Bimala is the radically Other – Other even from herself (though I don't think Tagore's compassion for her extended so far as to realize her as such). She is Mother Nature, but a Nature without form; she is putty and canvas for the ideas of the two Subjects: Sandip and Nikhil. Her own feeling of herself is an echo of, and sometimes a comment on, their feeling of her. Each character is an individual BECAUSE they give voice to their correlative principle, which defines a way of being human in relation to the world (except for Bimala, who never entirely rises to full subjectivity).
Just as each individual is an archetype, so is the political moment depicted in archetypal terms. Thus, the book is more than a comment on the unique historical moment represented by the Swadeshi movement. BECAUSE Tagore is adopting the allegorical mode, he is using insight into his particular time in order to transcend to an insight into the invarying structure of the human condition itself: the particular becomes an instantiation of a universal principle. Thus, the conflict between Nikhil and Sandip over Bimala can never become "irrelevant," as much as we should wish to ward it off and shove it into a neat little box of untransportable historical curiosities. The fact that the inflamed, righteous Sandip - with his peerless knack for turning egotistical impulse into universal ethical principle - always wins in politics, but with devastating consequences, is a fact about human nature that is not likely to change wherever you go, and whatever "progress" occurs in our structuring of institutions.
Tagore's modernity, rationalism, universalism, and humanism make contemporary politics (and I am speaking about here in the West – I can't really speak for the rest of the world as global politics isn't my forte) seem medieval in comparison. “I am willing to serve my country, but my worship I reserve for Right which is far greater than my country. To worship my country as a god is to bring a curse upon it.” This statement speaks for itself as to why.
I would also suggest that perhaps we have something to learn from Tagore's more timeless, archetypally grounded picture of nature and character, which he was, for all his modern innovation, bravely keeping alive in spite of the obviously changing tide of the times. Consider the view such a passage reveals:
“If one had to fill in, little by little, the gap between day and night, it would take an eternity to do it. But the sun rises and the darkness is dispelled- a moment is sufficient to overcome an infinite distance.”
To see the moment as a confluence of eternities... My mind being grafted on the Western tradition, this passage made me think of Whitehead's thought:
“The foundation of reverence is this perception, that the present holds within itself the complete sum of existence, backwards and forwards, that whole amplitude of time, which is eternity.”
But this insight, too, is all in Tagore's Sadhana, which I think anybody should read before reading his fiction, as you can use the ideational scaffolding as a support when you wade into the sea of phenomena as he shows them to you in his fiction. It is this insight, this mode of description here, that to me, best exemplifies the uniqueness of Tagore's way of seeing, his worldview – or at least, the worldview as it gained expression in his unique genius.
My advice is to use the philosophy to guide you in the art, and to try to be more curious and a bit more willing to see yourself as a reader from the outside-in, as much as you can. Otherwise, Tagore's world will remain for you a garden seen through a foggy window.
Allegory has been out of fashion here in the West for some time. Modern aesthetic dogma deems allegory “unnatural” - though we forget that standard pictures of nature do very much differ with culture and with the array of possible philosophical orientations each cultural system of representation allows. When pictures of nature change, so does the aesthetic sense of “naturalness.” The problem, as usual, is that we tend to turn our pictures of nature into dogmas, mistaking them for the only valid orientation vis-a-vis nature (hence why self-proclaimed naturalists and realists often seem more dogmatic than most intellectuals: nature must at all costs be trimmed to fit their picture of it). We forget that our naturalism isn't the only naturalism. I'd wager that, for Tagore, allegory may well seem a more wholesomely “natural” way of depicting character than that of the standard Western "naturalist" canon.
To begin to try to reconstruct in imagination and affect alike, as a Westerner, how this is possible would perhaps require an effort to remember – that is, to recall that the West, too, once portrayed individuals in relation to allegorical types. So what kind of view of nature does allegory reveal? IMO, you don't even need special insight into the particularity of Bengali culture to answer THAT basic question, which opens the door to Tagore's worldview, and hence, to his sensibility. Allegory, in its basic logic, connects the individual to a universal pattern, and sees the individual in terms of that universal: as an instatiation thereof. Allegory as an aesthetic device implies an ontology in which the essence of the individual IS its location in the ontic Logos (in Charles Taylor's words, or, to put it in more humanly understandable terms, in a meaningful cosmic order).
The key to understanding this approach to characterization is the realization that every one of Tagore's characters is both individual and archetype, and, he seems to insist, is an individual all the more so BECAUSE s/he is an archetype. So Nikhil is the voice of universalism, reason, and humanism (but also something much more fundamental than humanism, which relates the individual not merely to the human race, but also to the universe, as he describes in Sadhana). Sandip is the intransingent revolutionary principle of creation-by-destruction; he exists to give voice and embodiment to a materialism so voided out of all value, meaning and feeling as to slide into the demonic. And Bimala is the radically Other – Other even from herself (though I don't think Tagore's compassion for her extended so far as to realize her as such). She is Mother Nature, but a Nature without form; she is putty and canvas for the ideas of the two Subjects: Sandip and Nikhil. Her own feeling of herself is an echo of, and sometimes a comment on, their feeling of her. Each character is an individual BECAUSE they give voice to their correlative principle, which defines a way of being human in relation to the world (except for Bimala, who never entirely rises to full subjectivity).
Just as each individual is an archetype, so is the political moment depicted in archetypal terms. Thus, the book is more than a comment on the unique historical moment represented by the Swadeshi movement. BECAUSE Tagore is adopting the allegorical mode, he is using insight into his particular time in order to transcend to an insight into the invarying structure of the human condition itself: the particular becomes an instantiation of a universal principle. Thus, the conflict between Nikhil and Sandip over Bimala can never become "irrelevant," as much as we should wish to ward it off and shove it into a neat little box of untransportable historical curiosities. The fact that the inflamed, righteous Sandip - with his peerless knack for turning egotistical impulse into universal ethical principle - always wins in politics, but with devastating consequences, is a fact about human nature that is not likely to change wherever you go, and whatever "progress" occurs in our structuring of institutions.
Tagore's modernity, rationalism, universalism, and humanism make contemporary politics (and I am speaking about here in the West – I can't really speak for the rest of the world as global politics isn't my forte) seem medieval in comparison. “I am willing to serve my country, but my worship I reserve for Right which is far greater than my country. To worship my country as a god is to bring a curse upon it.” This statement speaks for itself as to why.
I would also suggest that perhaps we have something to learn from Tagore's more timeless, archetypally grounded picture of nature and character, which he was, for all his modern innovation, bravely keeping alive in spite of the obviously changing tide of the times. Consider the view such a passage reveals:
“If one had to fill in, little by little, the gap between day and night, it would take an eternity to do it. But the sun rises and the darkness is dispelled- a moment is sufficient to overcome an infinite distance.”
To see the moment as a confluence of eternities... My mind being grafted on the Western tradition, this passage made me think of Whitehead's thought:
“The foundation of reverence is this perception, that the present holds within itself the complete sum of existence, backwards and forwards, that whole amplitude of time, which is eternity.”
But this insight, too, is all in Tagore's Sadhana, which I think anybody should read before reading his fiction, as you can use the ideational scaffolding as a support when you wade into the sea of phenomena as he shows them to you in his fiction. It is this insight, this mode of description here, that to me, best exemplifies the uniqueness of Tagore's way of seeing, his worldview – or at least, the worldview as it gained expression in his unique genius.
My advice is to use the philosophy to guide you in the art, and to try to be more curious and a bit more willing to see yourself as a reader from the outside-in, as much as you can. Otherwise, Tagore's world will remain for you a garden seen through a foggy window.
August 27, 2020
জমিদার নিখিলের বউ বিমলা স্বদেশি নেতা সন্দ্বীপের প্রেমে পড়ে জেনেও নিখিল কিছুই বলে না। সে স্বদেশি আন্দোলনের নামে জনতাকে ফাঁকি দেওয়ার জাতীয়তাবাদে বিশ্বাসী নয়। রবিবাবু জাতীয়তাবাদকে ভালো চোখে দেখতেন না। অথচ আজকে তিনিই বাঙালি জাতীয়তাবাদের অন্যতম পাণ্ডা হিসেবে পূজিত হচ্ছেন!
বিমলা, নিখিলেশ ও সন্দ্বীপের জবানিতে পুরো উপন্যাস বিবৃত হয়েছে। নিখিলেশের মতো দৃঢ়চেতা উদারচিন্তার চরিত্রকে দীর্ঘদিন মনে থাকবে।
স্বদেশি আন্দোলনে বাঙালি মুসলমানের পুরো অংশগ্রহণ ছিল না - এটি ঐতিহাসিক সত্য। সেই সত্যকে তুলে ধরতে গিয়ে বাঙালি মুসলমানকে একপ্রকার নাহক আক্রমণকারী হিসেবে চিত্রিত করেছেন রবিবাবু। তার এই মনোভাব ভালো লাগেনি। তাতেই মুখ তেতো হয়ে উঠছিল।
বিমলা, নিখিলেশ ও সন্দ্বীপের জবানিতে পুরো উপন্যাস বিবৃত হয়েছে। নিখিলেশের মতো দৃঢ়চেতা উদারচিন্তার চরিত্রকে দীর্ঘদিন মনে থাকবে।
স্বদেশি আন্দোলনে বাঙালি মুসলমানের পুরো অংশগ্রহণ ছিল না - এটি ঐতিহাসিক সত্য। সেই সত্যকে তুলে ধরতে গিয়ে বাঙালি মুসলমানকে একপ্রকার নাহক আক্রমণকারী হিসেবে চিত্রিত করেছেন রবিবাবু। তার এই মনোভাব ভালো লাগেনি। তাতেই মুখ তেতো হয়ে উঠছিল।
December 30, 2016
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0857wv3Description:A vivid, powerful and compelling story of love, power and political awakening. Tanika Gupta updates Rabindranath Tagore's classic novel to a contemporary British Muslim context.
Nusrat arrives in the UK from Pakistan to marry Nabeel, a wealthy, progressive and educated businessman. Fearful of the wider society, Nusrat locks herself away in the house reading newspaper articles that only serve to heighten her concerns. Nabeel encourages Nusrat to broaden her horizons and to enter the outer world as he believes that only then will they know if their love is true. When, at Nabeel's insistence, Nusrat attends a public meeting led by Nabeel's university friend Sultan, a charismatic leader of a charity that Nabeel funds, Nusrat's eyes are opened to the potential for action and change.
Both a romantic-triangle story and a philosophical take on violence in times of revolution 'The Home and the World' was originally set in British Colonial India in 1908 at the height of the Swadeshi movement, a boycott of British goods. Gupta reimagines the story transposing it to an unnamed Northern British town in 2016, where anger and resentment against Islamophobia is thriving. Young Muslim men and women search for a sense of belonging, a cause and a way to make their voices heard. The central philosophical questions of Tagore's novel resonate strongly with current events.
July 7, 2019
If "Timelessness" defines whether a book is a classic or not, then "Ghare Baire" or "The Home and The World" is in true sense a great Classic.
Before this book, 'Chokher Bali' was the only other novel that I had read of Tagore, and can't say I was too impressed with it. But, this book was just revelation to me what a radical thinker Tagore was.
It has been 100 years since the book was written, during the days of 'Swadesi Movement', Indian uprising against the British, transition of the traditional to the modern, Hindu-Muslim Rich-Poor conflicts. But the book is as relevant today as it was then.
The book tales the story of three contrasting characters, narrated all in first-person, about their convictions, confusions and realizations. A nationalist who holds "being might" above "being right", a rationalist who questions the common beliefs and a liberated woman who struggles between her lust for a spirited man, fighting the social prejudices and her admiration for her righteous husband.
The sections dealing with the debate between "rationalism" and "nationalism" are extremely relevant to today's world, especially now when there is a sudden emergence of overt fundamentalism in many places.
With the first-person narratives Tagore tries to avoid any kind of bias, but his inclination towards rationalism against the strong sense of patriotism could be easily sensed.
Pongalswamy said, "You 'Adarsh Liberals' believe in an utopian world which is not realistic at all."
I asked, "Doesn't pragmatism somehow hinder imagination?"
Before this book, 'Chokher Bali' was the only other novel that I had read of Tagore, and can't say I was too impressed with it. But, this book was just revelation to me what a radical thinker Tagore was.
It has been 100 years since the book was written, during the days of 'Swadesi Movement', Indian uprising against the British, transition of the traditional to the modern, Hindu-Muslim Rich-Poor conflicts. But the book is as relevant today as it was then.
The book tales the story of three contrasting characters, narrated all in first-person, about their convictions, confusions and realizations. A nationalist who holds "being might" above "being right", a rationalist who questions the common beliefs and a liberated woman who struggles between her lust for a spirited man, fighting the social prejudices and her admiration for her righteous husband.
The sections dealing with the debate between "rationalism" and "nationalism" are extremely relevant to today's world, especially now when there is a sudden emergence of overt fundamentalism in many places.
With the first-person narratives Tagore tries to avoid any kind of bias, but his inclination towards rationalism against the strong sense of patriotism could be easily sensed.
"What I really feel is this, that those who cannot find food for their enthusiasm in a knowledge of their country as it actually is, or those who cannot love men because they are men, – whose needs must shout and deify their country in order to keep up their excitement, – those love excitement more than their country.
To try to give our infatuation a higher place than Truth is a sign of inherent slavishness. Where our minds are free we find ourselves lost. Our moribund vitality must have for its rider either some fantasy, or someone in authority, or a sanction from the pundits, in order to make it move. So long as we are impervious to truth and have to be moved by some hypnotic stimulus, we must know that we lack the capacity for self- government. Whatever may be our condition, we shall either need some imaginary ghost or some actual medicine-man to terrorize over us."
Pongalswamy said, "You 'Adarsh Liberals' believe in an utopian world which is not realistic at all."
I asked, "Doesn't pragmatism somehow hinder imagination?"
April 6, 2015
In 1913, Tagore became the first non-Western writer--and to date the only Indian or Bengali--to with the Nobel Prize for Literature. Reading his work, it isn't very difficult to imagine why, since they possess a Chekhovian focus on the lives, thoughts, and struggles of small people in a large world, all laid against the changing politics of the time.
Yet the structure left something to be desired: Tagore writes in the first person, but switches characters every few chapters. this could have been interesting and effective, perhaps giving aRashomon-type view that shows how different people view the same events differently--but that isn't what we get. Rather, between descriptions of the action, we are given these internal soliloquies that explain each character's thoughts, motivations, and desires.
A big part of what made Chekhov so impressive as an author was the way he showed the internal lives of his characters through their actions. Though it was rare for them to openly express what they felt or thought, you always understood from how they presented themselves, or what the didn't say, what was on their mind. Of course, that is a technique available only to master writers, but perhaps that is the sort of writer who should be receiving a Nobel Prize.
There are some quite lovely passages, and a number of effective metaphors and symbols throughout which demonstrated that Tagore is insightful and imaginative, but the blatant way ideas and characters were explained to the audience made the story much less intriguing, for me. It was something akin to being cornered at a party by a number of dull, selfish people and then listening to them explain their lives, thoughts, and relationships at length. It left me feeling that a naturalistic story deserves a more naturalistic approach.
Yet the structure left something to be desired: Tagore writes in the first person, but switches characters every few chapters. this could have been interesting and effective, perhaps giving aRashomon-type view that shows how different people view the same events differently--but that isn't what we get. Rather, between descriptions of the action, we are given these internal soliloquies that explain each character's thoughts, motivations, and desires.
A big part of what made Chekhov so impressive as an author was the way he showed the internal lives of his characters through their actions. Though it was rare for them to openly express what they felt or thought, you always understood from how they presented themselves, or what the didn't say, what was on their mind. Of course, that is a technique available only to master writers, but perhaps that is the sort of writer who should be receiving a Nobel Prize.
There are some quite lovely passages, and a number of effective metaphors and symbols throughout which demonstrated that Tagore is insightful and imaginative, but the blatant way ideas and characters were explained to the audience made the story much less intriguing, for me. It was something akin to being cornered at a party by a number of dull, selfish people and then listening to them explain their lives, thoughts, and relationships at length. It left me feeling that a naturalistic story deserves a more naturalistic approach.
June 28, 2017
এর আগে "শেষের কবিতা" পড়ে মুগ্ধ হয়েছিলাম। সেই মুগ্ধতা আকাশ পরিমাণ বাড়ল "ঘরে বাইরে" পড়ার পর। রবীন্দ্রনাথ রবীন্দ্রনাথই। বাংলা আর বাঙালির রবীন্দ্রনাথ ভিন্ন গতি নেই। কেন নেই, সেটা এই উপন্যাসটা পড়ার পরে আরেকবার অনুভব করলাম।
"ঘরে বাইরে" রবীন্দ্রনাথের রাজনৈতিক উপন্যাস হিসেবেই পরিচিত। মূলত স্বদেশি আন্দোলনের প্রেক্ষাপটেই লেখা উপন্যাসটা। গল্পের মূল চরিত্র তিনজন- বিমলা, নিখিলেশ আর সন্দ্বীপ। বইয়ের সবটুকু অংশই তিনজনের কারো না কারো জবানিতে প্রকাশ পেয়েছে। তিনজনের আত্মকথায় তাদের জীবনবোধ আর রাজনৈতিক বোধ প্রকাশ পেয়েছে প্রবলভাবে। আমার মনে হল, এরা তিনজন কেবল তিনটা চরিত্র নয়, সেসময়কার বাংলার তিন ধরনের চিন্তা-বিশ্বাসের মানুষ। তাদের চিন্তা ও রাজনৈতিক মতাদর্শের পার্থক্য যেন সেই সময়ের বাংলাকেই প্রকাশ করছে।
রাজনৈতিক উপন্যাস পরিচয়ের বাইরে ব্যক্তিগতভাবে আমার কাছে যে পরিচিয়টা বড় হয়ে উঠেছে সেটা হল সম্পর্কের আর মনস্তত্ত্বের উপন্যাসের। তিনজনই চাক বা না চাক, মানুষ হয়ে জন্মানোর দায়ে একটা করে মন তাদের অধিকারে আছে। সেই মন যে পাগল মন, সে যে কত কথা বলে তার কি ঠিক আছে! মানসিক দ্বন্দ্ব, চাওয়াপাওয়া, শুন্যতাবোধ আর টানাপড়েন নিয়েই মূলত এগিয়েছে গল্প।
এই মানসিক টানাপড়েনের মূলে আবার রয়েছে সম্পর্কের টানাপড়েন। নিখিল আর বিমলা স্বামী-স্ত্রী। এক সময় তাদের মাঝে প্রবেশ করে সন্দ্বীপ। না, শুদ্ধবাদী ঋষি রবীন্দ্রনাথ এখানেও কোনো পরকীয়া আনেননি। কিন্তু সবকিছুর পরেও মানুষের মন এক রহস্যে ঘেরা বস্তু, তার কোনো হিসেব চলে না। সন্দ্বীপের ব্যক্তিত্ব শেষের খানিকটা অংশ বাদে প্রায় পুরোটা উপন্যাস জুড়েই আচ্ছন্ন করে রাখে বিমলাকে। অন্যদিকে সন্দ্বীপও তার ব্যবহার করতে ছাড়ে না। আর নিখিল যেন অন্যজগতের কেউ, যে মনুর সন্তান হয়ে জন্মে ভুল করে ফেলেছে, দেবকুলেই তার জন্ম নেয়া উচিৎ ছিল।
মানুষ তো চিরকাল মানুষের মাঝেই থাকে, মানুষ তাই মানুষের কাছে একান্তই আটপৌড়ে জিনিস। তিনবেলা খাবার ভাতের চেয়ে যে মানুষের বছরের দুবেলার খাবার পোলাও-কোর্মা ভালো লাগে, তা তো মানুষের দুর্বলতা। মানুষ হিসেবে সে দুর্বলতা আমারও আছে বৈকি। আর তাই এই জগতের বিমলা বা সন্দ্বীপের চেয়ে অন্য জগতের মানুষ নিখিলেশের প্রতি একরকম পক্ষপাত কাজ করে আমার। সন্দ্বীপ আগের পাওয়ার কথা বলত, নিখিলেশ বলত সেই পাওয়ার পরের পাওয়া। সন্দ্বীপের আগের পাওয়া আমরা পেয়ে গেছি, কিন্তু নিখিলিশের পরের পাওয়াটাকে সম্ভবত চেয়েছি সবচেয়ে বেশি, অন্ততঃ এখন চাইছি। তাই নিখিলেশের প্রতিই আমার পক্ষপাত। শুধু আমার কেন, আমার ধারণা রবিঠাকুরও তার প্রতি পক্ষপাত দেখিয়েছেন।
সম্পর্কের টানাপড়েন, উত্থান-পতন, মানবিক-মানসিক দ্বন্দ্ব আর তার মাঝে রাজনৈতিক আদর্শ-বিশ্বাস নিয়ে লিখতে লিখতে স্বাভাবিকভাবেই গল্প ঝুঁকে গেছে একদিকে। আর সব আন্দোলনের মত স্বদেশি আন্দোলনেরও বেশকিছু নেতিবাচক দিক ছিল, সেগুলো স্পষ্টভাবেই দেখা গেছে উপন্যাসে। এই ঝুঁকে যাওয়াটা কি কেবল গল্পেরই কোনো এক চরিত্রের ঝুঁকে যাওয়া, নাকি ব্যক্তি রবীন্দ্রনাথও সেদিকে ঝুঁকে ছিলেন, তা জানিনা। জানার তেমন আগ্রহও আমার নেই। আমি সাহিত্যিক রবীন্দ্রনাথকে চিনতে পারলেই খুশি, ব্যক্তিকে কেই বা চিনতে পারে?
ব্যক্তিগতভাবে আমিও স্বদেশি আন্দোলনের পক্ষে নই সেভাবে। শুরুতে আদর্শ ঠিক ছিল কিনা জানিনা, তবে পরে যে তা উগ্রতার কেরোসিনে পুড়ে যায় তা নিশ্চিত। হিটলারের শেখানো দেশপ্রেম উগ্রতার আগুনে সারা পৃথিবীকে পুড়িয়েছে। যে ধুঁপ এমনিতে পুড়লে সুগন্ধ ছড়ায়, কেরোসিনের আগুনে পুড়লে সেই সুগন্ধও যেন চাপা পড়ে যায়। সে যাক, স্বদেশি আন্দোলনের ইতিহাস যতটা জানি, তাতে আমার মনে হয়েছে ভারতবাসীর বা বাঙালির স্বার্থ না, কলকাতাবাসী একটা গোষ্ঠীর স্বার্থেই ব্যবহার হয়েছে এই আন্দোলন।
তবে আমার ভাবনাই শেষ কথা না। এর বাইরেও অনেকে ভাবেন। সেকালেও ভাবতেন। সেরকম অনেকেই রবীন্দ্রনাথকে চিঠি লিখে তাদের আপত্তির কথা জানিয়েছেন। আমি বিশ্বসাহিত্য কেন্দ্রের প্রকাশিত সংস্করণ পড়েছি। তাতে উপন্যাসের শেষে ভিন্নমতপোষণকারী অজ্ঞাতনামা এমনই এক বঙ্গরমণীর এক চিঠির জবাব দেয়া আছে, যা স্বয়ং রবীন্দ্রনাথ দিয়েছিলেন সবুজপত্র পত্রিকায়। সেই জবাবের ভাষাতেই বলি, লেখকের গল্প লেখার উদ্দেশ্য গল্প লেখাই। গল্প-চিত্রকলা বা অন্যকোনো শিল্পমাধ্যমের যে অন্তরতম রস, পাঠক যদি নিজের বলয় থেকে বেরিয়ে তা পান করতে না পারেন, তবে দুর্বলতা লেখকের না, পাঠকেরই।
"ঘরে বাইরে" রবীন্দ্রনাথের রাজনৈতিক উপন্যাস হিসেবেই পরিচিত। মূলত স্বদেশি আন্দোলনের প্রেক্ষাপটেই লেখা উপন্যাসটা। গল্পের মূল চরিত্র তিনজন- বিমলা, নিখিলেশ আর সন্দ্বীপ। বইয়ের সবটুকু অংশই তিনজনের কারো না কারো জবানিতে প্রকাশ পেয়েছে। তিনজনের আত্মকথায় তাদের জীবনবোধ আর রাজনৈতিক বোধ প্রকাশ পেয়েছে প্রবলভাবে। আমার মনে হল, এরা তিনজন কেবল তিনটা চরিত্র নয়, সেসময়কার বাংলার তিন ধরনের চিন্তা-বিশ্বাসের মানুষ। তাদের চিন্তা ও রাজনৈতিক মতাদর্শের পার্থক্য যেন সেই সময়ের বাংলাকেই প্রকাশ করছে।
রাজনৈতিক উপন্যাস পরিচয়ের বাইরে ব্যক্তিগতভাবে আমার কাছে যে পরিচিয়টা বড় হয়ে উঠেছে সেটা হল সম্পর্কের আর মনস্তত্ত্বের উপন্যাসের। তিনজনই চাক বা না চাক, মানুষ হয়ে জন্মানোর দায়ে একটা করে মন তাদের অধিকারে আছে। সেই মন যে পাগল মন, সে যে কত কথা বলে তার কি ঠিক আছে! মানসিক দ্বন্দ্ব, চাওয়াপাওয়া, শুন্যতাবোধ আর টানাপড়েন নিয়েই মূলত এগিয়েছে গল্প।
এই মানসিক টানাপড়েনের মূলে আবার রয়েছে সম্পর্কের টানাপড়েন। নিখিল আর বিমলা স্বামী-স্ত্রী। এক সময় তাদের মাঝে প্রবেশ করে সন্দ্বীপ। না, শুদ্ধবাদী ঋষি রবীন্দ্রনাথ এখানেও কোনো পরকীয়া আনেননি। কিন্তু সবকিছুর পরেও মানুষের মন এক রহস্যে ঘেরা বস্তু, তার কোনো হিসেব চলে না। সন্দ্বীপের ব্যক্তিত্ব শেষের খানিকটা অংশ বাদে প্রায় পুরোটা উপন্যাস জুড়েই আচ্ছন্ন করে রাখে বিমলাকে। অন্যদিকে সন্দ্বীপও তার ব্যবহার করতে ছাড়ে না। আর নিখিল যেন অন্যজগতের কেউ, যে মনুর সন্তান হয়ে জন্মে ভুল করে ফেলেছে, দেবকুলেই তার জন্ম নেয়া উচিৎ ছিল।
মানুষ তো চিরকাল মানুষের মাঝেই থাকে, মানুষ তাই মানুষের কাছে একান্তই আটপৌড়ে জিনিস। তিনবেলা খাবার ভাতের চেয়ে যে মানুষের বছরের দুবেলার খাবার পোলাও-কোর্মা ভালো লাগে, তা তো মানুষের দুর্বলতা। মানুষ হিসেবে সে দুর্বলতা আমারও আছে বৈকি। আর তাই এই জগতের বিমলা বা সন্দ্বীপের চেয়ে অন্য জগতের মানুষ নিখিলেশের প্রতি একরকম পক্ষপাত কাজ করে আমার। সন্দ্বীপ আগের পাওয়ার কথা বলত, নিখিলেশ বলত সেই পাওয়ার পরের পাওয়া। সন্দ্বীপের আগের পাওয়া আমরা পেয়ে গেছি, কিন্তু নিখিলিশের পরের পাওয়াটাকে সম্ভবত চেয়েছি সবচেয়ে বেশি, অন্ততঃ এখন চাইছি। তাই নিখিলেশের প্রতিই আমার পক্ষপাত। শুধু আমার কেন, আমার ধারণা রবিঠাকুরও তার প্রতি পক্ষপাত দেখিয়েছেন।
সম্পর্কের টানাপড়েন, উত্থান-পতন, মানবিক-মানসিক দ্বন্দ্ব আর তার মাঝে রাজনৈতিক আদর্শ-বিশ্বাস নিয়ে লিখতে লিখতে স্বাভাবিকভাবেই গল্প ঝুঁকে গেছে একদিকে। আর সব আন্দোলনের মত স্বদেশি আন্দোলনেরও বেশকিছু নেতিবাচক দিক ছিল, সেগুলো স্পষ্টভাবেই দেখা গেছে উপন্যাসে। এই ঝুঁকে যাওয়াটা কি কেবল গল্পেরই কোনো এক চরিত্রের ঝুঁকে যাওয়া, নাকি ব্যক্তি রবীন্দ্রনাথও সেদিকে ঝুঁকে ছিলেন, তা জানিনা। জানার তেমন আগ্রহও আমার নেই। আমি সাহিত্যিক রবীন্দ্রনাথকে চিনতে পারলেই খুশি, ব্যক্তিকে কেই বা চিনতে পারে?
ব্যক্তিগতভাবে আমিও স্বদেশি আন্দোলনের পক্ষে নই সেভাবে। শুরুতে আদর্শ ঠিক ছিল কিনা জানিনা, তবে পরে যে তা উগ্রতার কেরোসিনে পুড়ে যায় তা নিশ্চিত। হিটলারের শেখানো দেশপ্রেম উগ্রতার আগুনে সারা পৃথিবীকে পুড়িয়েছে। যে ধুঁপ এমনিতে পুড়লে সুগন্ধ ছড়ায়, কেরোসিনের আগুনে পুড়লে সেই সুগন্ধও যেন চাপা পড়ে যায়। সে যাক, স্বদেশি আন্দোলনের ইতিহাস যতটা জানি, তাতে আমার মনে হয়েছে ভারতবাসীর বা বাঙালির স্বার্থ না, কলকাতাবাসী একটা গোষ্ঠীর স্বার্থেই ব্যবহার হয়েছে এই আন্দোলন।
তবে আমার ভাবনাই শেষ কথা না। এর বাইরেও অনেকে ভাবেন। সেকালেও ভাবতেন। সেরকম অনেকেই রবীন্দ্রনাথকে চিঠি লিখে তাদের আপত্তির কথা জানিয়েছেন। আমি বিশ্বসাহিত্য কেন্দ্রের প্রকাশিত সংস্করণ পড়েছি। তাতে উপন্যাসের শেষে ভিন্নমতপোষণকারী অজ্ঞাতনামা এমনই এক বঙ্গরমণীর এক চিঠির জবাব দেয়া আছে, যা স্বয়ং রবীন্দ্রনাথ দিয়েছিলেন সবুজপত্র পত্রিকায়। সেই জবাবের ভাষাতেই বলি, লেখকের গল্প লেখার উদ্দেশ্য গল্প লেখাই। গল্প-চিত্রকলা বা অন্যকোনো শিল্পমাধ্যমের যে অন্তরতম রস, পাঠক যদি নিজের বলয় থেকে বেরিয়ে তা পান করতে না পারেন, তবে দুর্বলতা লেখকের না, পাঠকেরই।
July 27, 2018
"É Agosto e o céu explode em chuva apaixonada;
Mas, ai de mim, está vazia a minha casa."
— Vidyapati
A acção deA Casa e o Mundo decorre em Bengala, no início do século XX, tendo como pano de fundo as convulsões sociais originadas pelo Movimento Swadeshi(*).
Narrado na primeira pessoa, pelas três personagens principais, este romance é um retrato da Índia em conflito com o desejo de modernidade e os valores ancestrais, simbolizado pela personagem feminina, Bimala.
Nikhil é um marajá que, preservando os valores morais e espirituais, está aberto à evolução. É um homem bom e justo e não aceita que a mulher, Bimala, viva reclusa e sem educação, conforme os costumes; quer, e age, para mostrar a Bimala o mundo fora da casa. Esta, inicialmente, repudia a mudança mas quando conhece Sandip, um amigo do marido, acaba a envolver-se na sua causa política.
Sandip é um jovem de ideias radicais, que despreza as tradições, e coloca acima de tudo a revolução, e o poder, usando de todos os meios ao seu alcance: a crueldade e a manipulação dos sentimentos dos amigos.
"Quando, como um rio, nós, mulheres, nos mantemos dentro das nossas margens, damos alimento com tudo quanto possuímos; quando as galgamos, destruímos com tudo o que somos."
"Os que são capazes de seguir a sua vida com energia têm forçosamente de vencer no fim. Mas os deuses não querem que tal jornada seja fácil, por isso encarregaram uma sereia chamada compaixão de distrair o viandante, de lhe obscurecer a visão com a sua neblina de lágrimas."
"Os que querem dominar não temem as falsidades; as grilhetas da verdade estão reservadas àqueles que caírem sob a sua influência. Não estudaste história? Não sabes que nos imensos caldeirões onde fervilham os vastos progressos políticos, as mentiras são os principais ingredientes?"
"aqueles que outra coisa não fazem que enganar acabam por se enganar a si próprios, sempre que Sandip cria uma nova falácia, convence-se de que descobriu a verdade, por mais contraditórias que as suas invenções possam ser, comparadas umas com as outras."
(*)Movimento Swadeshi
Mas, ai de mim, está vazia a minha casa."
— Vidyapati
A acção deA Casa e o Mundo decorre em Bengala, no início do século XX, tendo como pano de fundo as convulsões sociais originadas pelo Movimento Swadeshi(*).
Narrado na primeira pessoa, pelas três personagens principais, este romance é um retrato da Índia em conflito com o desejo de modernidade e os valores ancestrais, simbolizado pela personagem feminina, Bimala.
Nikhil é um marajá que, preservando os valores morais e espirituais, está aberto à evolução. É um homem bom e justo e não aceita que a mulher, Bimala, viva reclusa e sem educação, conforme os costumes; quer, e age, para mostrar a Bimala o mundo fora da casa. Esta, inicialmente, repudia a mudança mas quando conhece Sandip, um amigo do marido, acaba a envolver-se na sua causa política.
Sandip é um jovem de ideias radicais, que despreza as tradições, e coloca acima de tudo a revolução, e o poder, usando de todos os meios ao seu alcance: a crueldade e a manipulação dos sentimentos dos amigos.
"Quando, como um rio, nós, mulheres, nos mantemos dentro das nossas margens, damos alimento com tudo quanto possuímos; quando as galgamos, destruímos com tudo o que somos."
"Os que são capazes de seguir a sua vida com energia têm forçosamente de vencer no fim. Mas os deuses não querem que tal jornada seja fácil, por isso encarregaram uma sereia chamada compaixão de distrair o viandante, de lhe obscurecer a visão com a sua neblina de lágrimas."
"Os que querem dominar não temem as falsidades; as grilhetas da verdade estão reservadas àqueles que caírem sob a sua influência. Não estudaste história? Não sabes que nos imensos caldeirões onde fervilham os vastos progressos políticos, as mentiras são os principais ingredientes?"
"aqueles que outra coisa não fazem que enganar acabam por se enganar a si próprios, sempre que Sandip cria uma nova falácia, convence-se de que descobriu a verdade, por mais contraditórias que as suas invenções possam ser, comparadas umas com as outras."
(*)Movimento Swadeshi
March 18, 2021
My best exposure to non-Western literature comes courtesy of Egypt's authors. In comparison to them I was rather disappointed byMidnight's Children, about India. But when I read this short novel by Tagore I encountered a Bengali author capable of matching Naguib Mahfouz, although writing about completely different subjects.
If this sounds too esoteric to readers in search of good writing who haven't yet ventured into non-Western literature, it's my way of saying simply to read this book. You'll be glad you did.
If this sounds too esoteric to readers in search of good writing who haven't yet ventured into non-Western literature, it's my way of saying simply to read this book. You'll be glad you did.
July 25, 2021
Tagore’s poetic love triangle is a metaphor for the forces of nationalism that overtook India and eventually brought about its Independence from Britain. Set in the palace of a maharajah in 1909, in a divided Bengal, itself a proxy for the subsequent partitioning of British India forty years later, the domestic conflicts within mirror those at large in the country.
Nikhil is the idealistic Maharajah who believes in a self-reliant India, in freedom and education for the population, including women, and in trade with the outside world. His wife is Bimala, a representation of Mother India, childless despite being married for nine years; in fact, there are no children even in the widowed sister-in law’s family, and I wondered whether Tagore was sending us a message about the barrenness of royalty in India, a social hierarchy heading towards extinction post-Independence. The villain of the peace is Sandip, the greedy and opportunistic Nationalist, who is openly seducing Bimala while enjoying the largesse of her husband. Amul is the loyal acolyte of Sandip, who also bears allegiance to Bimala, and is caught up in the nationalism conflict like the average Indian on the street.
The respective philosophies of the principal characters are interesting. These extracts should say it best:
Nikhil: “the soul transcends success.”
Bimala: “I am only human. I am covetous. I would have good things for my country. If I am obliged, I would snatch them and filch them. I have anger. I would be angry for my country’s sake.”
Sandip: “Man’s chief business is the accumulation of outside material. Those who are masters in the art, advertise the biggest lies in their business, enter false accounts in their political ledgers with their broadest-pointed pens, launch their newspapers daily laden with untruths, and send preachers abroad to disseminate falsehood like flies carrying pestilential germs. I am a humble follower of these great ones.” – shades of the fake news phenomenon that modern politicians engage in, perhaps?
Amul: “Do you know, we always insist on Sandip Babu travelling First Class? The greatest weapon of those who rule the world, Sandip Babu has told us, is the hypnotism of their display. To take the vow of poverty would be for them not merely a penance — it would mean suicide.”
One wonders why Nikhil continues to prop up Sandip. Is he practicing the philosophy of assuming good intent in everyone, or is he trying to keep his enemies close? Nikhil’s passiveness drives Bimala into the more passionate Sandip who uses flattery to extract favours from her, including influencing her to steal her husband’s money to fuel his cause. When the pangs of conscience interfere, Bimala tries to right the wrong she has committed, and this leads to a series of contrived events that made me wondered whether Tagore, the master of mellifluous prose, got lost in his plotting. Finally, I decided to abandon the threadbare and silly plot and focus on the moral of the story instead.
And Tagore’s moral is strong: idealism dies, misguided passion loses, and the tenacious ones live to fight another day.
I found the painting of life in a Maharajah’s palace very interesting: men and women eat separately, including husbands and wives; widows are cared for by the in-laws and given status within the family; there are many rooms for the few inhabitants; royalty lead isolated and self-absorbed lives. A good read to gain an understanding of the last days of colonial power in India, as experienced from the local perspective, for there are no British characters in this story at all.
Nikhil is the idealistic Maharajah who believes in a self-reliant India, in freedom and education for the population, including women, and in trade with the outside world. His wife is Bimala, a representation of Mother India, childless despite being married for nine years; in fact, there are no children even in the widowed sister-in law’s family, and I wondered whether Tagore was sending us a message about the barrenness of royalty in India, a social hierarchy heading towards extinction post-Independence. The villain of the peace is Sandip, the greedy and opportunistic Nationalist, who is openly seducing Bimala while enjoying the largesse of her husband. Amul is the loyal acolyte of Sandip, who also bears allegiance to Bimala, and is caught up in the nationalism conflict like the average Indian on the street.
The respective philosophies of the principal characters are interesting. These extracts should say it best:
Nikhil: “the soul transcends success.”
Bimala: “I am only human. I am covetous. I would have good things for my country. If I am obliged, I would snatch them and filch them. I have anger. I would be angry for my country’s sake.”
Sandip: “Man’s chief business is the accumulation of outside material. Those who are masters in the art, advertise the biggest lies in their business, enter false accounts in their political ledgers with their broadest-pointed pens, launch their newspapers daily laden with untruths, and send preachers abroad to disseminate falsehood like flies carrying pestilential germs. I am a humble follower of these great ones.” – shades of the fake news phenomenon that modern politicians engage in, perhaps?
Amul: “Do you know, we always insist on Sandip Babu travelling First Class? The greatest weapon of those who rule the world, Sandip Babu has told us, is the hypnotism of their display. To take the vow of poverty would be for them not merely a penance — it would mean suicide.”
One wonders why Nikhil continues to prop up Sandip. Is he practicing the philosophy of assuming good intent in everyone, or is he trying to keep his enemies close? Nikhil’s passiveness drives Bimala into the more passionate Sandip who uses flattery to extract favours from her, including influencing her to steal her husband’s money to fuel his cause. When the pangs of conscience interfere, Bimala tries to right the wrong she has committed, and this leads to a series of contrived events that made me wondered whether Tagore, the master of mellifluous prose, got lost in his plotting. Finally, I decided to abandon the threadbare and silly plot and focus on the moral of the story instead.
And Tagore’s moral is strong: idealism dies, misguided passion loses, and the tenacious ones live to fight another day.
I found the painting of life in a Maharajah’s palace very interesting: men and women eat separately, including husbands and wives; widows are cared for by the in-laws and given status within the family; there are many rooms for the few inhabitants; royalty lead isolated and self-absorbed lives. A good read to gain an understanding of the last days of colonial power in India, as experienced from the local perspective, for there are no British characters in this story at all.
March 6, 2018
My sole familiarity with Tagore's works were singing the national anthem and reading some down-scaled translated version of 'Kabuliwalah', both during school days. But watching 'Stories By Rabindranath Tagore' interpreted by Anurag Basu in an unique manner, on Netflix, aroused my curiosity. The man did contribute a chunk to India's literary heritage, after all!
So, the story is about three people: Bimala, her husband, Nikhil, and her lover, Sandip. But it's not really. The backdrop is the Swadeshi movement in India that was aimed at boycotting British goods and reviving Indian industry. The story is basically a treatise against nationalism and fanaticism, something that India can relate to deeply even today. Issues about caste discrimination arise even during the nationalist movement. Relate to it yet? And there is cow vigilantism! It is as if nothing has changed since the last hundred years in this country. This slim novel should resonate soundly with people even today since some of the issues discussed in it are still relevant to our society.
But the story itself I found rather dragging and Tagore certainly employed purple prose to full effect. The characters were uninteresting and I was unable to merely see them as vehicles for the underlying message. The monologues and dialogues became tiresome after a while. It was as if Tagore was unable to shake off his poet's garb when writing this novel.
Despite relating deeply to what the author has to say, I actually found reading this book rather boring. I am rating for the story, not the message, as usual.
So, the story is about three people: Bimala, her husband, Nikhil, and her lover, Sandip. But it's not really. The backdrop is the Swadeshi movement in India that was aimed at boycotting British goods and reviving Indian industry. The story is basically a treatise against nationalism and fanaticism, something that India can relate to deeply even today. Issues about caste discrimination arise even during the nationalist movement. Relate to it yet? And there is cow vigilantism! It is as if nothing has changed since the last hundred years in this country. This slim novel should resonate soundly with people even today since some of the issues discussed in it are still relevant to our society.
But the story itself I found rather dragging and Tagore certainly employed purple prose to full effect. The characters were uninteresting and I was unable to merely see them as vehicles for the underlying message. The monologues and dialogues became tiresome after a while. It was as if Tagore was unable to shake off his poet's garb when writing this novel.
Despite relating deeply to what the author has to say, I actually found reading this book rather boring. I am rating for the story, not the message, as usual.
November 15, 2021
A story about the three protagonists - a good hearted Zamindar (South Asian landlord) who cares for his subjects, his wife who is drawn to the freedom struggle unlike her husband and an unscrupulous freedom fighter who sways the general populace with his fiery seductive speeches.
The novel gives an insight into the Swadeshi movement during the British rule over India, with focus on Bengal, which encouraged the ban and burning of foreign goods and promotion of indigenous ones. But this affected the poor who were forced by the rich and powerful to buy the more expensive indigenous products. They were also forced to burn all the foreign goods at home, were not given any compensation and thus they were reduced to penury and untold miseries.
There isn't much to the story, no elaborate plots and twists. It's more about the beautiful prose that draws you into reading the book. The debates between the various characters also stood out.
The novel gives an insight into the Swadeshi movement during the British rule over India, with focus on Bengal, which encouraged the ban and burning of foreign goods and promotion of indigenous ones. But this affected the poor who were forced by the rich and powerful to buy the more expensive indigenous products. They were also forced to burn all the foreign goods at home, were not given any compensation and thus they were reduced to penury and untold miseries.
There isn't much to the story, no elaborate plots and twists. It's more about the beautiful prose that draws you into reading the book. The debates between the various characters also stood out.
January 5, 2022
Home and the World is a thought provoking and beautiful novel—among my all-time favorites—but the “classic” 1919 translation by Surendranath Tagore is a serious impediment to enjoying it. Surendranath, the author’s nephew, cut out whole passages of prose and poetry and collapsed two secondary characters. More importantly, he turned the prose of a man who won the Nobel for his poetry into something awkward and unremarkable. Having read both the 1919 translation and a modern translation by Sreejata Guha, I strongly recommend that you hunt down the latter if you want to fully appreciate the nuance and poetry of this masterwork.
October 22, 2024
Será que Tolstoi, Flaubert e Tagore, conseguiram perceber bem o âmago feminino? Podem ser, Anna Karenina, Emma Bovary e Bimala, representantes fiéis da sensibilidade de uma mulher, ainda que ideada por um homem?
March 19, 2024
Titulo: La Casa y el Mundo
Autor: Rabindranath Tagore
Motivo de lectura: #MarzoAsiatico2024
Lectura / Relectura: Lectura
Mi edicion: Electronico
Puntuacion: 3.5/5
Como primer punto me gustaria destacar que Rabindranath Tagore fue el primer escritor no europeo en recibir el premio nobel de literatura en el año 1913.
Esta novela esta narrada desde tres puntos de vista. Nikhil y Bimala (que son marido y mujer) y Sandip (amigo revolucionario de Nikhil). La historia esta ambientada durante el movimiento Swadeshi (el cual hacia incapie en una India nacionalista e independiente, y abogaba por el uso de elementos nacionales y no importados).
El autor nos presenta dos hombre totalmente distintos, que a pesar de sus enormes diferencias son amigos, el personaje femenino se vera atrapada entre la dinamica de ambos y sera ella quien intentara decidir cual es su posicion en esa dinamica. El autor sin dudas hace un gran trabajo en la metamorfosis femenina, despues de todo, esta es una novela que nada es lo que parece.
La pluma de Rabindranath Tagore es bellisima, y en varios pasajes se nota el background del autor (era poeta).
Pero uno de los problemas que le encuentro a esta novela es un final realmente acelerado y abrupto. Es un libro que me gusto, pero lamentablemente no pude amarlo.
Autor: Rabindranath Tagore
Motivo de lectura: #MarzoAsiatico2024
Lectura / Relectura: Lectura
Mi edicion: Electronico
Puntuacion: 3.5/5
Como primer punto me gustaria destacar que Rabindranath Tagore fue el primer escritor no europeo en recibir el premio nobel de literatura en el año 1913.
Esta novela esta narrada desde tres puntos de vista. Nikhil y Bimala (que son marido y mujer) y Sandip (amigo revolucionario de Nikhil). La historia esta ambientada durante el movimiento Swadeshi (el cual hacia incapie en una India nacionalista e independiente, y abogaba por el uso de elementos nacionales y no importados).
El autor nos presenta dos hombre totalmente distintos, que a pesar de sus enormes diferencias son amigos, el personaje femenino se vera atrapada entre la dinamica de ambos y sera ella quien intentara decidir cual es su posicion en esa dinamica. El autor sin dudas hace un gran trabajo en la metamorfosis femenina, despues de todo, esta es una novela que nada es lo que parece.
La pluma de Rabindranath Tagore es bellisima, y en varios pasajes se nota el background del autor (era poeta).
Pero uno de los problemas que le encuentro a esta novela es un final realmente acelerado y abrupto. Es un libro que me gusto, pero lamentablemente no pude amarlo.
June 8, 2011
The Home and the World is a literary masterpiece by Rabindranath Tagore. Set as a love triangle in the backdrop of Swadesi movement in the then Bengal, it is essentially an exploration of the noosphere surrounding the revolution, encapsulating Tagore's personal critique on the movement's ideology.
All the three central characters of the novel are distressed, while treading their paths for greatness. Bimala is a young wife who seeks greatness (which every "woman is entitled to") through utmost devotion and surrender, and she finds the cause in the passionate desires of her husband's friend and in the nationalist movement. Nikhil, a rich businessman and Bimala's husband, is a noble soul who seeks to be just by abiding to his spiritual principles while he is being denounced as a traitor by the countrymen. Sandip is Nikhil's childhood friend and local leader of the nationalist movement who falls in love with Bimala. He seeks glory through power and material success, and considers restraint as a sign of weakness.
Each of the three characters narrate their trials and tribulations in first person in long monologues ('tell, not show'). While this style takes some time getting used to, by the time one finishes the book it becomes clear that Tagore could not have invented a more suitable technique for narration. There is but only a minimal tangible action and the central drama of the story unfolds within the characters, slowly and turbulently... and giving three distinct perspectives for the readers to brood on.
With fluency and lyric Tagore turns the characters inside out... something inconceivable for me as a writer just yet.
The crux of the novel lies in the philosophical debates (illusion v/s truth, pragmatism/materialism v/s spiritual idealism, passion v/s virtues) it is rich with. They are relevant and enthralling, and raise important questions that are applicable for all such expeditions.
Having been raised to sing Bande Mataram with supreme pride (and seeing the recent political dramas in the country), I find the book unique and extremely important for this generation, and the next.
Can't wait to watch Satyajit Ray's cinematic adaptation!
All the three central characters of the novel are distressed, while treading their paths for greatness. Bimala is a young wife who seeks greatness (which every "woman is entitled to") through utmost devotion and surrender, and she finds the cause in the passionate desires of her husband's friend and in the nationalist movement. Nikhil, a rich businessman and Bimala's husband, is a noble soul who seeks to be just by abiding to his spiritual principles while he is being denounced as a traitor by the countrymen. Sandip is Nikhil's childhood friend and local leader of the nationalist movement who falls in love with Bimala. He seeks glory through power and material success, and considers restraint as a sign of weakness.
Each of the three characters narrate their trials and tribulations in first person in long monologues ('tell, not show'). While this style takes some time getting used to, by the time one finishes the book it becomes clear that Tagore could not have invented a more suitable technique for narration. There is but only a minimal tangible action and the central drama of the story unfolds within the characters, slowly and turbulently... and giving three distinct perspectives for the readers to brood on.
With fluency and lyric Tagore turns the characters inside out... something inconceivable for me as a writer just yet.
The crux of the novel lies in the philosophical debates (illusion v/s truth, pragmatism/materialism v/s spiritual idealism, passion v/s virtues) it is rich with. They are relevant and enthralling, and raise important questions that are applicable for all such expeditions.
Having been raised to sing Bande Mataram with supreme pride (and seeing the recent political dramas in the country), I find the book unique and extremely important for this generation, and the next.
Can't wait to watch Satyajit Ray's cinematic adaptation!
March 28, 2015
রবিঠাকুর কেন রবিঠাকুর তার আরেকটি নিদর্শন এই গ্রন্থটি (কোনটি নয় সেটা একটা প্রশ্ন!)। কখনো বিমলা, কখনো নিখিলেশ বা কখনো সন্দীপের আত্মকথা নিয়ে এই উপন্যাসটি এগিয়ে চলেছে। পড়তে মনে হয় আমি ওদের অনেক কাছের বন্ধু তাই মানুষগুলো আমার কাছে ঘটে যাওয়া ঘটনা, ঘটনাকে ঘিরে ভাবনা, মানুষকে ঘিরে ভাবনা এ সবকিছু বলে যাচ্ছে। কোনো কপটতা আমার এবং চরিত্রগুলোর মাঝে নেই। আমি যেভাবে আমার বন্ধুদের চিন্তার জায়গাটা স্পর্শ করতে পারি, ঠিক সেভাবে চরিত্রগুলোর চিন্তার স্পর্শও বাস্তব। আমি ওদের বুঝতে পারি। বুঝতে পারি পারস্পরিক সম্পর্ক এবং দ্বন্দ্বকে। নিজের সাথে চলা দ্বন্দ্বগুলোও বাদ যায় না। হয়তো ওদের ভাবনার খানি��টা ধরতে পারিও না। এভাবেই খানিকটা ধরা-অধরায় ওদের মনের ঘরকে দেখি এবং জানতে পাই বাইরের মানুষটাকেও।
উপন্যাসটিকে অনেকেই রাজনৈতিক উপন্যাস বলেছেন, স্বদেশী আন্দোলনের সময়টা ব্যাকগ্রাউন্ডে থেকেও বেশ প্রকট হয়ে উঠেছে মানুষগুলোর আচরণে, কিন্তু এটুকু রাজনীতি কি একে রাজনৈতিক উপন্যাস বলার জন্য যথেষ্ট? কি জানি!
সে যাক, বন্ধুদের সবাইকে তো আর সমান ভালবাসা যায় না, আবার সমান শ্রদ্ধা করাও চলেও না। সবার চিন্তার সাথে একমত ও হওয়া যায় না। এখানেও আমার ব্যক্তিগত প্রিয় রয়েছে। সে নিখিলেশ। আমি মনেহয় নিখিলেশকে নিয়ে এখন বড়সড় রচনা ফেঁদে বসতে পারবো। তবে তা নিষ্প্রয়োজন। রবিঠাকুর যা বলেছেন নিখিলেশকে বুঝতে হলে এর বেশী কিছু দরকার নেই। খামোখা আমার ক্ষুদ্র মস্তিষ্ককে কষ্ট আর না দিই। আমি শুধু জানি জীবনে চলার পথে নিখিলেশের মত কাউকে পেলে নিজেকে সৌভাগ্যবান মনে করবো। তাই বলে কেউ আবার ভেবে বসবেন না যেন আমি বিমলা হতে চাই। বিমলার সাথে আমার বিস্তর পার্থক্য। পার্থক্য, তা সে সবার সাথেই, নিখিলেশ, বিমলা কিংবা সন্দীপ। আমি ওদের কেউ নই। আমি নিখিলকে ভালবাসি, তার চিন্তাকে সমর্থন করি কিন্তু নিখিলের উন্মুক্ততা, ঔদার্য এবং চিন্তার স্বচ্ছতা পুরোপুরি আমার মাঝে নেই। আবার আমি বিমলার মতও সহজে প্রভাবিত হতে পারিনা, নারীত্বের চেয়ে মনুষ্যত্ব নিয়েই আমার গর্ব বেশি, কিন্তু নিজেকে ছাড়িয়ে যাবার ইচ্ছা যে আমার মাঝে নেই তাও আবার বলতে পারি না। সন্দীপের আকাঙ্ক্ষার মুল সুরটি যেমন নেতিবাচক, আমারটি প্রকটভাবে ইতিবাচক কিন্তু কখনো কখনো সন্দীপের ইচ্ছার তীব্রতাকে, ইচ্ছায় অন্ধ হয়ে যাবার প্রবণতাকে নিজের থেকে আলাদা করতে পারি না। ওদের এসব চিন্তাগুলো আমার সাথে বহুদিন থাকবে বলেই মনে হচ্ছে।
উপন্যাসটিকে অনেকেই রাজনৈতিক উপন্যাস বলেছেন, স্বদেশী আন্দোলনের সময়টা ব্যাকগ্রাউন্ডে থেকেও বেশ প্রকট হয়ে উঠেছে মানুষগুলোর আচরণে, কিন্তু এটুকু রাজনীতি কি একে রাজনৈতিক উপন্যাস বলার জন্য যথেষ্ট? কি জানি!
সে যাক, বন্ধুদের সবাইকে তো আর সমান ভালবাসা যায় না, আবার সমান শ্রদ্ধা করাও চলেও না। সবার চিন্তার সাথে একমত ও হওয়া যায় না। এখানেও আমার ব্যক্তিগত প্রিয় রয়েছে। সে নিখিলেশ। আমি মনেহয় নিখিলেশকে নিয়ে এখন বড়সড় রচনা ফেঁদে বসতে পারবো। তবে তা নিষ্প্রয়োজন। রবিঠাকুর যা বলেছেন নিখিলেশকে বুঝতে হলে এর বেশী কিছু দরকার নেই। খামোখা আমার ক্ষুদ্র মস্তিষ্ককে কষ্ট আর না দিই। আমি শুধু জানি জীবনে চলার পথে নিখিলেশের মত কাউকে পেলে নিজেকে সৌভাগ্যবান মনে করবো। তাই বলে কেউ আবার ভেবে বসবেন না যেন আমি বিমলা হতে চাই। বিমলার সাথে আমার বিস্তর পার্থক্য। পার্থক্য, তা সে সবার সাথেই, নিখিলেশ, বিমলা কিংবা সন্দীপ। আমি ওদের কেউ নই। আমি নিখিলকে ভালবাসি, তার চিন্তাকে সমর্থন করি কিন্তু নিখিলের উন্মুক্ততা, ঔদার্য এবং চিন্তার স্বচ্ছতা পুরোপুরি আমার মাঝে নেই। আবার আমি বিমলার মতও সহজে প্রভাবিত হতে পারিনা, নারীত্বের চেয়ে মনুষ্যত্ব নিয়েই আমার গর্ব বেশি, কিন্তু নিজেকে ছাড়িয়ে যাবার ইচ্ছা যে আমার মাঝে নেই তাও আবার বলতে পারি না। সন্দীপের আকাঙ্ক্ষার মুল সুরটি যেমন নেতিবাচক, আমারটি প্রকটভাবে ইতিবাচক কিন্তু কখনো কখনো সন্দীপের ইচ্ছার তীব্রতাকে, ইচ্ছায় অন্ধ হয়ে যাবার প্রবণতাকে নিজের থেকে আলাদা করতে পারি না। ওদের এসব চিন্তাগুলো আমার সাথে বহুদিন থাকবে বলেই মনে হচ্ছে।
August 18, 2016
أول تجربة لي مع أديب الهند الأبرز و أعظم قاماته على الاطلاق , وكانت تجربة مفيدة للغاية .
رواية تقليدية عن المجتمع الهندي , برع فيها الكاتب في توصيف مشاعر شخصياته , وتقديم العادات والتقاليد المجتمعية في صيغة ممتعة وشاملة في نفس الوقت , تنوع بين العمق النفسي و ظاهر الإنسان ليقدم لك كافة التفاصيل المفيدة لخدمة روايته .
رواية متمكنة احترافية , فيها ترابط بين تسلسل الأحداث و تطورات الشخصية , و نهايتها تقليدية للغاية مما أثر على الشكل العام للرواية (ولكن يمكن أن نغفر ذلك لزمن الكتابة نفسه 1961) .
الرواية تتمركز حول 3 شخصيات أساسية , رجل هندي (عصري وطني يحب وطنه) وبين زوجته (إمرأة هندية مطيعة) و بين عاشق للسلطة مدمن لها من خلال ادعاءه المثالية و المبادئ القيّمة , وبين كل هؤلاء تتنوع الشخصيات الثانوية التي تخدم سياق العمل .
العمل جيد في تقديم زمان و مكان وشخصياتهما , ففيه برع الكاتب في نقلك لعالمه و الاستمتاع معه ,
ترجمة شكري عياد كانت موفقة للغاية , وهوامش العمل مفيدة جدا.
في المجمل : تجربة جديدة موفقة مع طاغور .
April 15, 2025
Rabindranath, the first non-westerner to win a Nobel Prize for Literature, was an Indian polymath-- a profound intellectual who was adept at so many phases of creativity, including novels, plays, social-philosophical commentary & painting; but first & foremost he was a perennial poet. Tagore's century-old novel,The Home & the World seemed in many ways both prescient & universal.
The book is focused on a triangle of well-educated Calcutta-based Indians, with the world views of two men drastically different and a woman who was caught in the crosshairs between the two. Nikhil is the sensitive owner of a large estate who sees himself as a modernist, while Sandip, his friend & former schoolmate, is a passionate local leader of theSwadeshi movement aimed at the overthrow of British rule, beginning with the boycotting of British goods.
While both Nikhil & Sandip are patriotic Indians, the former favors self-reliance, the peaceful resolution of problems & allowing those who work for him to render their own decisions, while the latter wishes to instill a revolutionary, even messianic fervor, employing the rousing battle cryBande Mataram, "Hail to the Motherland!". Amidst Sandip's proclamations to his fervent followers, is the belief that violence is often necessary to achieve social & political change, or a "new nationalism".
Nikhil's wife, Bimala, has seldom left her own home & has been treated as a caged bird by her husband, who now wishes to offer her the gift of freedom to make her own decisions, even if it means that his beloved wife will eventually fly free from him. Obviously, this would have been considered an exceedingly radical stance in early 20th century Bengal or elsewhere in India.
Upon meeting the firebrand Sandip, Bimala becomes intoxicated with the force of his rhetoric, in contrast to her loving but placid husband. In time, the newly independent Bimala will be forced to decide between her calm but steady mate and the radical oratory & demagoguery of Sandip, between the logic & harmonic views of an Apollo and the ecstatic emotionalism of a Dionysian figure. Nikhil believes in the equality of the sexes and also in keeping a balance between mind & senses but now fears losing Bimala.
Sandip feels that if one desires something & it fails to come naturally, it must be gained by force. He says that "ignorant men worship gods. Sandip shall create them. My supreme legacy is to unite the nation." Meanwhile, Nikhil declares that he must "fight against the attempt to enslave the minds to tyranny by those who torture the truth."
An interesting aspect of Tagore'sThe Home & the World is that all 3 primary characters at one point in the novel question their own beliefs. Another is that both Nikhil & Sandip tell Bimala that she is free, Nikhil early on & Sandip when his corrosive presence in her life begins to wear thin & she is forced to confront his demands. Feminists have taken differing views on Bimala.
Much of the novel is about the battle between truth, (Satya in Sanskrit) & illusion, with Nikhil an advocate for truth at all times, while Sandip believes in the power of illusions to incite the people he courts with his radical rhetoric.
Tagore met with Gandhi, who preached non-violence andSatyagraha, or truth-force. He traveled widely, including to America on several occasions & also interacted with Albert Einstein in Berlin in 1930, sharing thoughts on science and religion.
Some years ago, while in Calcutta (Kolkata), I visited Rabindranath Tagore's estate, touring his personal library and walking in rooms of paintings the Nobel laureate had created later in life. This novel may fall short of Tagore's poetry for some readers but I found it rather entrancing.
By way of a caution, this is not an easy book to assimilate, as there are many foreign terms and references to literary & sacred books that play an important in the lives of most Hindus. Yet, for the reader willing to patiently embrace the novel's context & to devote some attention to the history of India,The Home & the World will pay a substantial reward.
*There is also an excellent film version ofThe Home & the World, directed by the great Bengali film director, Satyajit Ray, who was himself a former student at Tagore's school at Santiniketan, India. **My version of the novel includes an introduction by Anita Desai & a new preface by William Radice, both excellent.
***Within my review are two photo images of Tagore, one with Albert Einstein); a photo of Tagore's home in Calcutta; and lastly, a painting by Tagore of himself with Mahatma Gandhi and British official Charles Andrews.
The book is focused on a triangle of well-educated Calcutta-based Indians, with the world views of two men drastically different and a woman who was caught in the crosshairs between the two. Nikhil is the sensitive owner of a large estate who sees himself as a modernist, while Sandip, his friend & former schoolmate, is a passionate local leader of theSwadeshi movement aimed at the overthrow of British rule, beginning with the boycotting of British goods.
While both Nikhil & Sandip are patriotic Indians, the former favors self-reliance, the peaceful resolution of problems & allowing those who work for him to render their own decisions, while the latter wishes to instill a revolutionary, even messianic fervor, employing the rousing battle cryBande Mataram, "Hail to the Motherland!". Amidst Sandip's proclamations to his fervent followers, is the belief that violence is often necessary to achieve social & political change, or a "new nationalism".
Nikhil's wife, Bimala, has seldom left her own home & has been treated as a caged bird by her husband, who now wishes to offer her the gift of freedom to make her own decisions, even if it means that his beloved wife will eventually fly free from him. Obviously, this would have been considered an exceedingly radical stance in early 20th century Bengal or elsewhere in India.
Upon meeting the firebrand Sandip, Bimala becomes intoxicated with the force of his rhetoric, in contrast to her loving but placid husband. In time, the newly independent Bimala will be forced to decide between her calm but steady mate and the radical oratory & demagoguery of Sandip, between the logic & harmonic views of an Apollo and the ecstatic emotionalism of a Dionysian figure. Nikhil believes in the equality of the sexes and also in keeping a balance between mind & senses but now fears losing Bimala.
The bloom has gone from the face of the sky. What has happened? I longed to see Bimala blossoming fully in all her truth & power. I had hoped to free Bimala in the outer world from her infatuation with tyranny. To give our marriage a higher place than truth is a sign of inherent slavishness.In response to being called indifferent to the fate of India, Nikhil declares:
I must not lose my faith: I shall wait. The passage from the narrow to the larger world is stormy. When she is familiar with this freedom, then I shall know what my place is. If I find that I no longer fit in, I shall not quarrel with my fate but silently take my leave. Use force? For what? Can force prevail against Truth?
I am willing to serve my country but I reserve for Right that which is far greater than my country. To worship my country as a god is to bring a curse upon it.
Sandip feels that if one desires something & it fails to come naturally, it must be gained by force. He says that "ignorant men worship gods. Sandip shall create them. My supreme legacy is to unite the nation." Meanwhile, Nikhil declares that he must "fight against the attempt to enslave the minds to tyranny by those who torture the truth."
An interesting aspect of Tagore'sThe Home & the World is that all 3 primary characters at one point in the novel question their own beliefs. Another is that both Nikhil & Sandip tell Bimala that she is free, Nikhil early on & Sandip when his corrosive presence in her life begins to wear thin & she is forced to confront his demands. Feminists have taken differing views on Bimala.
Much of the novel is about the battle between truth, (Satya in Sanskrit) & illusion, with Nikhil an advocate for truth at all times, while Sandip believes in the power of illusions to incite the people he courts with his radical rhetoric.
Tagore met with Gandhi, who preached non-violence andSatyagraha, or truth-force. He traveled widely, including to America on several occasions & also interacted with Albert Einstein in Berlin in 1930, sharing thoughts on science and religion.
Some years ago, while in Calcutta (Kolkata), I visited Rabindranath Tagore's estate, touring his personal library and walking in rooms of paintings the Nobel laureate had created later in life. This novel may fall short of Tagore's poetry for some readers but I found it rather entrancing.
By way of a caution, this is not an easy book to assimilate, as there are many foreign terms and references to literary & sacred books that play an important in the lives of most Hindus. Yet, for the reader willing to patiently embrace the novel's context & to devote some attention to the history of India,The Home & the World will pay a substantial reward.
*There is also an excellent film version ofThe Home & the World, directed by the great Bengali film director, Satyajit Ray, who was himself a former student at Tagore's school at Santiniketan, India. **My version of the novel includes an introduction by Anita Desai & a new preface by William Radice, both excellent.
***Within my review are two photo images of Tagore, one with Albert Einstein); a photo of Tagore's home in Calcutta; and lastly, a painting by Tagore of himself with Mahatma Gandhi and British official Charles Andrews.
August 22, 2008
an amazing view of swadeshi in the early 1900´s India. The three sotries being told seem to reflect the higher consciousness (Nikihl), the concious (Bimala) and the lower conciousness (Sandip). True Bimala loses her way to sensationalism, terror and nationalism but at some point you mustpay the piper to your higher self and reflect at some point, Bimala of course does. I loved that Tagore tells the story from three points of view and is able to captuer the voice of Bimala so clearly. This should be required reading in times of extreme patriotism so we can learn a lesson, albeit fictional, from history.
August 21, 2020
Tagore, while undoubtedly a master of literature, never really worked for me as a novelist. His short stories take his capacities and gifts of insight and brings them into all of the three dimensions. Likewise, his poetry (albeit awkwardly translated from the Bengali) sears with passion and power and prowess. His novels? Well, they tend to be somewhat clunky, overly plotted, and far too influenced by the social realism of writers like Gorky and Premchand. The Home and the World tries to say a lot, but imparts very little feeling or atmosphere. I would have preferred it as an essay, or as a shorter work, maybe of 50-60 pages.
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