BLiterature-Apratim

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Tasher Desh (The Play-Cards’ Land) shows the incongruities of home politics
in the guise of personified play-cards’ tale.
His other important plays are Raja O Rani (The King and the Queen),
Chandalika (The Untouchable Girl), Sharodyotshab (The Autumn Festival) etc.
He wrote essays on different issues like art, philosophy, religion, politics,
society etc. His autobiographical work Jiban-Smriti (Memory of My Life) is highly
estimated in essay literature. And his Russiar Chithi (Letters from Russia), which
was banned by the British rulers, shows his liberal ideas about politics.
Bangla literature bore Tagore’s legacy for a long time. The poems of Nazrul,
Bishnu, Sudhindranath and Buddhadev have the mark of his influence. Also the
prose of the following decades acknowledge his contribution. Even Ahmad Sofa’s
classic translation of Faust (1986) is indebted to his poetic style.
It is not true that he was relatively silent about the colonial rule in India. His
vision of impermanence of everything includes his belief in the ultimate fall of the
British Raj.
Tagore is also sometimes criticized for not portraying Muslim characters or
society. Think for a while: if he did, wouldn’t the Muslims focus more on his negative
comments on them (and get angry) than on the positive ones, since a writer can’t
always praise a society or a community?
From an overall impression, Tagore’s poems are a door to the great world of
unending mysteries; his novels are a message of peace and amity for the diverged
human species; his short stories tell us of helpless and forlorn earthly beings; the
plays of Tagore are a mirror of the internal conflicts and clashes of ideological rivals;
his paintings are the alarm of an impending darkness; and in his songs, all
perplexities, concerns and turbulences are subsided by a universal vision of
unearthly bliss.
The following words by Saratchandra perfectly evaluate Tagore’s
achievement – “Master of poets, our astonishments find no limit looking at you.”
Saratchandra Chattopadhyay (1876-1938)
Saratchandra was a desperate and lonely passer-by in the way of progression
of the Bengali Hindu community. Despite being a son of a conservative Brahmin
family, he torn out of his social net and became a bright star in the whole history of
the Bengalis’ effort of gaining social and psychological liberty. In spite of writing in
the great Tagore’s era, he presented unique creations and bluntly saying, surpassed
even Tagore in artistry of the genre of novel. And so much progressive outlook is
hardly found in other contemporary Bengali writers’ works.
In most of his works Sarat depicts social evil, some good men’s fight against it
and human (especially female) psyche; and he was a propagandist against the
institution of marriage.