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Remembering Rabindranath Tagore Volume - High Commission of ...

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106<br />

<strong>Remembering</strong> <strong>Rabindranath</strong> <strong>Tagore</strong><br />

god ‘friend’,’master’and ‘king’? He came to grips with an idea –or if you like it ‘a spiritual<br />

awareness’- all his life and that idea was god to him.<br />

The day was when I did not keep myself in readiness for thee;<br />

and entering my heart unbidden even as one <strong>of</strong> the common crowd,<br />

unknown to me, my king, thou didst press the signet <strong>of</strong> eternity upon<br />

many a fleeting moment <strong>of</strong> my life.<br />

And today when by chance I light upon them and see thy signature,<br />

I find they have lain scattered in the dust mixed with the memory <strong>of</strong><br />

joys and sorrows <strong>of</strong> my trivial days forgotten.<br />

Thou didst not turn in contempt from my childish play among dust,<br />

and the steps that I heard in my playroom<br />

are the same that are echoing from star to star.<br />

He lived his normal life and when in his mature days he recollects it he finds it ‘scattered<br />

in the dust mixed with the memory <strong>of</strong> joys and sorrows <strong>of</strong> my trivial days forgotten’. But<br />

his god understands for he does not ‘turn in contempt from my childish play among dust.<br />

And the steps that I heard in my playroom are the same that are echoing from star to star’.<br />

Here the poet speaks <strong>of</strong> sympathy and understanding. The sound <strong>of</strong> steps he heard in his<br />

playroom he hears spreading form star to star. There is glory in even the most humble<br />

situation in life. He finds that his heart is glad within.<br />

and the breath <strong>of</strong> the passing breeze is sweet<br />

from dawn till dusk I sit here before my door<br />

and I know <strong>of</strong> a sudden the happy moment will arrive when I shall see...<br />

Humanity is classless; there is no distinction between the rich and the poor or the high<br />

and the low. It is an abiding sympathy, irrespective <strong>of</strong> distinctions, that should reach out<br />

towards mankind. Pride cannot reach these l<strong>of</strong>ty ideals...<br />

Pride can never approach to where thou walkest in the clothes <strong>of</strong> the humble<br />

among the poorest, and lowliest, and lost<br />

My heart can never finds its way to where thou keepest company with the<br />

companion less among eh poorest, the lowliest, and the lost.<br />

Are we chasing after shadows far away when the real thing we seek is within us? We think<br />

it is difficult to achieve, it is l<strong>of</strong>ty and somehow we are unworthy <strong>of</strong> it. There is some<br />

deficiency in us however much we yearn for what we seek day and night.<br />

On the day when the lotus bloomed, alas, my mind was straying, and I knew it<br />

not. My basket was empty and the flower remained unheeded.

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