Rabindranath Tagore, a universal man with many facets

At Bahuroopi

The exhibition brings to fore the many faces of Tagore - a writer, a poet, a stage artiste, painter, humanist, thinker, social scientist — a universal man with yearning for peace and freedom and much more. The journey of this legend of Indian and world history is awe inspiring and is an experience by itself.

From his birth on May 7, 1861 till his death, the displays at the expo traverse through the grandeur and composure of Tagore through all difficult, challenging and enriching times in his life.

A young Rabindranath is a stage artiste in Valmiki Prathibha and dons the role of Raghupathi in the play, Visarjan in his middle age.

 Along with his innumerable works in literature, Tagore is a artist and conducts solo exhibition of his paintings in France, England, Germany, Switzerland and United States in the 1930s in his last years.

As an orator, Rabindranath receives worldwide acclaim from intellectuals, litterateurs, scientists, freedom fighters - one can catch a glimpse of all this at the expo.

His final lecture, “crisis in civilisation” written during the second world war encapsulates on dangers of hyper-nationalism.

Whirlwind tour

Tagore travelled all around world visiting Singapore, Russia, Persia, Austria, England, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Czekhoslovakia, Greece, Egypt, China and others delivering lecture on the subject and called the radical nationalism, “a cruel epidemic of evil”.

It was in 1928 that Tagore started painting and created some absolutely mesmerising works with close resemblance to a bird and started creating doodles on his writings.
A portrait shows Tagore engrossed in painting. Interestingly, the legend created a self portrait too.

Legends meet

The most interesting part of the expo is the meeting of the legends, Tagore and Albert Einstein, Tagore with Mahatma Gandhiji, with Romain Rolland in Italy and Leonard Emherst in Russia.

He also met famous British painter William Rothenstein, who arranges for the publication of Gitanjali with an introduction by poet W B Yeats, which won Tagore the nobel and first honour to India. Another photocopy brings a meeting of men of the millennium, Mahatma Gandhi and Tagore.

For peace

Many displays show Tagore’s love for peace, his passion for initiating people into education and development. He renounces the knighthood in protest against the Jallianwallah Bagh massacre that happened during the freedom struggle, a carnage that left thousands of patriots dead. His foreign tours and lectures raised funds for the establishing the Vishwa Bharathi University.

The strife

Amidst all these, Tagore silently suffered losing his close ones in a span of few years. His wife Mrinalini Devi died in 1902. It was followed by death of his second daughter Renuka.
Then came another blow - father Debendranath died in 1905, while youngest son Samendranath expired in 1907. But, life moved on for the legend in his Upasana Griha, the Shanthiniketan in Kolkata.

The copy of the rare collections at the expo are brought to city from Rabindra Bhavan, a museum of Vishwa Bharathi University, Kolkata, an institution founded by legedary icon of Indian history. Incidentally, former director Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysore Uday Narayana Singh, who headed the language institute for a decade is currently the Director for Indira Gandhi Centre for National Integration, Rabindra Bhavan, Vishwa Bharati, Kolkata.

Singh will be in Mysore on Friday to attend the National Seminar on Rabindranath Tagore, organised as part of the Bahuroopi festival.