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Tagore in his 150th birth anniversary

Md. Masum Billah : The 150th birth anniversary is being observed in the Bangladesh and India in the governmental level along with the cultural and literary world. Tagore, the versatile genius, actually is poet of the world. He left no branch of literature untouched. Today I will shed some light on his short stories and his glorification of women characters. Tagore is undeniably regarded as the inventor of the modern Bengali short story and is credited with introducing colloquial speech into Bengali literature. For his excellent creations of short stories he has been compared to Edgar Allen Poe, Anton Chekhov and Guy de Maupassant. Tagore's short fiction is often set in rural Bengali villages and is peopled by characters from the underprivileged sectors of society, reflecting Tagore's commitment to social realism. Many people said how it was possible for him to come to the common people being a son of 'Zamindar'. He actually was not touched by the sufferings of common people. If we go through his short stories we can easily find that he has dealt with very common people, their life and philosophy. Tagore's poems primarily deal with beauty, nature and his search for what is beyond mundane life, his short stories depict the lives of ordinary people. Women's struggle and sufferings are particularly highlighted also in his short stories. Tagore reveals the unequal social structure that oppress women. He also creates courageous women to challenge traditions of the society. Women are encouraged to find an identification of their own going beyond the normal way of the society. His short story, ' Kabuliawala' concerns a man who appears brusque, crude and violent -to the extent that he is in prison-but is so sentimental about his faraway daughter that he cherishes a crumpled piece of paper because is smudged with her fingerprints. 'The Return of Khokababu' is about a servant who while caring for the infant for a wealthy couple briefly looks away from the child during which time it drowns and is never found. The servant moves away, marries and has son of his own. When the son is grown, the servant brings him to the wealthy couple claiming that he had in fact kidnapped their infant son years also and is now returning him. In 'Postmaster' a young orphaned girl named Ratan was employed by the postmaster . A peculiar kind of relationship developed between them which Ratan thought that the postmaster would be always with her. But he left Ulapur village for Kolkata but Ratan was still waiting for him.. ' A Wife's Letter' is narrated by a woman writing to her husband describing the many injustices imposed upon married women. In the tale 'Vision' a women goes blind after which her husband begins to neglect her and falls in love with a young girl. 'Number One' depicts a woman who commits suicide in order to escape conflict she feels between her sense of duty to her husband and her love for another man. In 'Punishment' a man kills his wife in a fit of rage, his brother wishing to save him from punishment, convinces his own wife to testify that she is the murderer . Several short stories by Tagore involve supernatural elements such as 'Konkal'. Tagore's early perception of women as mentioned previously was born out of romanticism. In his thirties when he became invoiced in looking after the family's estates, he became aware of the day to day life of common people as well as the unfair social oppression of women. During the last period of his life, Tagore's perception relating to women became fully developed. He discovered that a woman's identity is no longer limited to the role of a mother or a wife. We have arrived at a stage when women are demanding their right as human beings. They want to be counted as individual human entities. Tagore actually gave us some powerful women characters befitting the new age. With that he assaulted unobtrusively in his own way the established social system and notions inimical to the advancement of women. Early reviewers in English received Tagore's stories with mixed appraisal while some applauded his shot fiction, others found them of negligible quality. Later critics have commented that these early reviewers were ignorant of the contexts of Indian culture in which the stories are set. Commentators have praised Tagore for his blending of poetic lyricism with social realism as well as the way in which his unearthly tales maintain psychological realism within an atmosphere of supernatural occurrences. Scholars frequently praise Tagore's short stories for the deeply human quality of the characters and relationships. Tagore was the first Bengali writer to elevate the short story to a serious art form. He easily intermingled idealism in his stories which reflected the contemporary life in rural and urban Bengal. Many of the stories portray conflicts or tensions between the new and the old, cruelty and sensitivity, solitude and crowd, male and female. Tagore's shot stories received strong criticism when they first appeared. The non-Bengali readers had to rely on translations, many of which were of poor quality. Thus his genius as a short story writer was not recognised for years. Mary Lago in her work 'Imperfect Encounter' searched for the reasons for thee unsatisfactory translations. C.F. Andrews managed Tagore's relations with the English publishers rather badly interposing himself between the author and political complement translations. Many of the stories reflect Tagore's rural experiences, his love of nature and his deep insight into human relationships. It is indeed a pleasure to come across such uniform and high quality Bengali literature. In most of these stories, universal themes transcend regional and cultural barriers. This is why Tagore is said that he is a world poet. Yet his heart and soul are rooted in this sub-continent.