You might not know that Rabindranath Tagore’s first sustained experience of America was not New York or San Francisco, but the farming/university town of Urbana, Illinois. He went there in 1912, to visit his son Rathindranath, studying at the University of Illinois. Father Rabindranath had wanted his son not to study literature or the arts at a place like Oxford or Cambridge (or London, as Rabindranath himself had done), but rather agricultural science in the service of what Tagore hoped would turn into a program for village development.
You might expect this small-town Illinois experience in 1913 to have been a lesson in culture shock for the cosmopolitan (soon to be world-famous) Tagore, who just a few weeks earlier had been dining with the cream of the crop in literary London. But no, Tagore fit right in, impressing the local Unitarians and making friends as he would do wherever he went in those years. He quickly moved from Urbana to Chicago, where he was a hit with the literati there, and from Chicago he started getting invitations to lecture at some major universities, which he accepted.
Tagore actually made five trips to the US, starting in 1912, and ending in 1930, according to his biographers Krishna Dutta and Andrew Robinson, in their excellent (but out of print!) book Tagore: The Myriad-Minded Man. (Note: Their book is the source for most of the information in this post.) By looking at those trips in particular, we can get an image of the man rather different from the aristocratic ‘Gurudev’ that most people know. Tagore came to America, first, to visit his son (who did not stay long), then to raise money for his new university at Shantiniketan. But above all, he came to argue with Americans about American business, industry, and war. What he said and how it was received tells an interesting story about both Tagore and the U.S. in those days. 1. The Mystic
In his early visits to the U.S., Tagore presented himself as a mystic poet and a philosopher, and was received by rapt audiences at packed lectures, standing-room only, at dozens of U.S. universities. But it’s tricky: in his lectures in the U.S. (especially in the second go-round, in 1916-17), Tagore did present a kind of mysticism, mainly as a response to modern political repression. Tagore was deeply critical of the British “machine” in India, even if he wasn’t quite a nationalist (not after the failure of the Swadeshi movement in Bengal). In his later visits, though some of this mystical language remained in his speeches, Tagore spoke quite directly about current events, and criticized British and American policies quite specifically. He also got into some fights with people in the American print-media (for instance, when a reviewer made a comment about his views on Indian child marriage), and wrote copious ‘letters to the editor’ when newspapers misquoted or misunderstood his ideas. As this image of Tagore took hold, he became much less popular than earlier -– but he nevertheless showed he could hold his own quite well.
2. ‘$700 Per Scold’
By his second trip in 1916, Tagore was a Nobel Laureate and a worldwide literary star. He was booked for lectures in twenty-five American cities, many of them at university campuses. He gave talks organized by a professional lecture agency associated with his publisher (Macmillan), and received impressively hefty fees ($700-$1000 a pop – a huge sum in those days). He was lecturing, essentially, against western materialism and for a kind of universal spiritual awareness. There was of course an irony in getting paid very well for criticizing materialism, and the Minneapolis Tribune called him on it:
Half-way through the tour the Minneapolis Tribune called Tagore ‘the best business man who ever came to us out of India’: he had managed to scold Americans at $700 per scold’ while pleading with them ‘at $700 per plead’. (Dutta and Robinson, 204)
(Of course, Tagore wasn’t scolding Americans for his own benefit. By this point he had begun planning for his university at Shanitiniketan, and all of the money he earned would go to that cause.)
Tagore was, not surprisingly, speaking out against militarism a great deal during this lecture series (you can get a flavor for his perspective in the lectures collected in Nationalism). Here he was lucky in his timing; he managed to leave for home just before the U.S. entered World War I.
On his third trip in 1920, Tagore stayed primarily in New York, trying to raise money from wealthy American industrialists. This trip was a failure, in large part because many of the wealthy men he met – people like J.P Morgan -– were involved in businesses that in one way or another depended on dealings with the British empire, and were leery of helping out anyone who was speaking out against it. As Rathindranath put it in a letter, “It was easier for us to speak out against the British Empire in England than in America.” And there were signs that the earlier intense curiosity Tagore’s presence inspired had worn thin. Perhaps America was a different place in 1920 than it had been before the War, or perhaps (as Dutta and Robinson suggest), fashions had merely changed.
Fortunately, Tagore came to depend less and less on the mysticism and other-worldliness that characterized his early years. As he gained experience, his political critiques of American capitalism became more specific and targeted, less like the vast generalizations about eastern and western ‘civilization’ of 1917, and more on the order of international power politics.
[We’re skipping Tagore’s fourth brief trip to the U.S., as not much of consequence transpired, except that he was harassed by immigration at the Canadian border. (Nothing changes, eh?) He also made some statements to the press about the ghastly book by Katherine Mayo called Mother India, which was then a huge bestseller in the U.S. Mayo’s book offers that other old myth of India: poor, backwards, savage.]
3. Arguing with America
Tagore’s final trip to the U.S. in 1930 was, by comparison to the intermediate visits in the 1920s, a definite success. Though he still took every opportunity to scold western militarism and American business practices (while politely requesting American money for his university), Tagore got invites to all the right parties:
Apart from [Tagore’s] striking looks and personality, India was in the news because of Gandhi, and Tagore’s [sympathetic] attitude to Soviet Russia had aroused curiosity; probably too, editors realized that this would be Tagore’s last visit. In the sixty-seven days Tagore was in the USA, the New York Times ran twenty-one reports on him, including two interviews and a beautiful photograph of him with Einstein, captioned ‘A mathematician and a mystic meet in Manhattan.’ He was given a private interview with President Hoover, introduced by the British ambassador (a strange contrast with British official behaviour in 1917-1918. When Tagore once more spoke at Carnegie Hall in New York, which held 4000 people, thousands had to be turned away. A dance performance was given at the Broadway Theater by Ruth St. Denis as a benefit for Shantiniketan; Tagore appeared on stage introduced by his admirer Will Durant. There were exhibitions of his paintings in New York and Boston, to which Ananda Coomaraswamy wrote an interesting introduction. (Dutta and Robinson, 298)
On this final visit, Tagore was more careful than earlier about how he posed his critique of western civilization. But he was still ready to dish it:
At a dinner in New York in his honour . . . in the presence of Franklin Roosevelt, the governor of New York, Sinclair Lewis, the latest Nobel laureate in literature . . . and five hundred others, Tagore said: ‘The age belongs to the West and humanity must be grateful to you for your science. But you have exploited those who are helpless and humiliated those who are unfortunate with this gift. A great portion of the world suffers from your civilization.’ At Carnegie Hall a week later, he went even further. As always he expressed admiration for the ideals of liberty and self-expression of the West at the close of the nineteenth century, but he deplored its failure to live up to them in the East, in particular the failure of Americans to recognize the appeal of India to be free. ‘Our appeal does not reach you, because you respond only to the appeal of power.’ Japan appealed to you and you answered because she was able to prove she would make herself as obnoxious as you can.’ This remark ‘elicited considerable laughter and hand-clapping’, according to the New York Times (Dutta and Robinson, 300-301)
Reading this account today provokes several thoughts.
It’s important to keep in mind that Tagore was not a life-long nationalist figure. He was responding to the situation, and making his critique in language which he thought his listeners would understand. If someone with the Tagore’s aristocratic demeanor were around today, he would be talking about very different kinds of issues, and doing it differently. Hopefully, he would be aware that talk of “civilizations” is generally oversimplified and counterproductive. But he made his point: Tagore’s aim was criticize an unjust practice (colonialism) and an international system (the League of Nations) which was thoroughly unsympathetic to the plight of colonized people in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Moreover, he was – in the halls of American power — pointing out how badly the international system was, even on its own terms, utterly failing.
In some respects, it’s surprising how similar America today is to the America of the 1910s and 20s. There is something very typical about the media frenzy that accompanied his first major lecture tour, the dud of his intervening visits, and finally the glamor (with dignity) he managed to get on his last visit there in 1930. He had weathered the initial clamor and the subsequent backlash, and had ended up as a kind of “opinionated celebrity.”
Of course, being a “celebrity” rather than an actual political organizer or a committed philosopher has its limits, and it’s hard to say whether Tagore’s visits to the U.S. had any lasting impact in the American imagination. Certainly, the self-translated Gitanjali has pretty much always been in print, though it has few champions amongst serious literary critics. (These days, Tagore’s novels in Bangla are read much more closely; some, like Gora, have been newly translated.) However, though Tagore’s literary reputation was generally in decline in the west in his later years, it always remained high in India (where Tagore’s “Jana Gana Mana” was adopted as the national anthem), and particularly in Bengal (where ‘Rabindra Sangeet’ remains incredibly popular and influential). But for all the work fundraising, Shantiniketan suffered for a long while, never quite becoming the site of worldly enlightenment Tagore had hoped for (Visva-Bharati University prospers today). Finally, Tagore’s point about the U.S. only recognizing an opposing perspective when backed up by force seems as true today as it was then. At the very least, it seems clear that Tagore knew the American media beast for what it was, and found a way to work with it without compromising himself.
Ok, so it’s not an inspiring story of total triumph (but how many of those do we have?). The story of Tagore in America is still instructive, and I think we’ve seen versions of it again –- with the rapid rise and quick declines in popularity of people like Deepak Chopra (note: he’s now making ‘spiritual’ video games), and perhaps even Arundhati Roy. (If you benefit by exoticization, prepare to spend your life in a cage of well-lit irrelevance.) After his first two trips, I believe, Tagore realized how he was being used, and worked to find a different, more honest way to speak to America.
Tagore was the first Indian writer to really succeed on a global stage not as a curiosity or show-piece, but on the strength of his ideas and his writings. He did a lot to overcome western misconceptions about Indians, even if he did (especially early on) play into some western stereotypes of mystic India. He also probably helped fight the dominant racism of the time, partly by example and partly by his specific political ideas and positions.
More on Tagore:
Another article on Tagore’s experience in the U.S.
Articles at Parabaas (including some in Bangla)
Azlan Shah,
According to Dutta and Robinson, it’s probably true. Here’s what they say:
‘Jana Gana Mana’ is today India’s national anthem, selected in the 1950s and composed by Tagore in late 1911. Officially it was written for the meeting of the Indian National Congress in Calcutta in December 1911, where it was sung for the first time. Most probably it was really composed for the occasion of George V’s coronation at the Durbar held in Delhi in the same month — but not sung at the Durbar because it was insufficiently ‘loyal’.
D&R have a letter from one of Tagore’s friends backing up this account: the friend says that Tagore was asked to write a song for the occasion, but couldn’t. So he wrote Jana Gana Mana, gave it to the national committee member that had requested it and said: ‘Here is the poem I have written. It is addressed to the deity. But you may give it to the national committee. Perhaps it will content them.’ The implication is ‘sly civility’; he knew exactly what he was doing.
This is an awesome site! YaÂ’all (the desi collective) are so knowledgeable all things desiÂ… I apologize in advance for the intrusion but I didnÂ’t know of any other place where I could ask thisÂ…
I’m creating a list of “desi diaspora” related books, music cds, DVDs that my library can procure. I’d greatly appreciate any suggestions for my list or links to any other resources.
South Asian American bibliography.
Here in Urbana, they hold an annual “Tagore Festival” (in a building run by the Unitarians you mentioned above). At the last festival I think I heard them talk about trying to buy, from the present owners, the house that Tagore used to live in.
Ashvin,
Awesome! I did not know that. I might have to try and show up sometime to check out the scene.
Sorry all..the owners of the film history documentary won’t let me share it so i had to take it down. grrr.
Beautiful post Amardeep. I love the Illinois connection.
It’s always frustrating to me how unavailable Tagore’s books are in English in American bookstores. I’m sure there’s a market for them because I invariably go looking for them after hints are dropped by non-desi friends that they’re interested in reading older Indian literature but want help with selection. You can reliably find Gitanjali, and less reliably but fairly often find Home and the World, and Selected Short Stories, translated by Radice. (The last two by Penguin.) But I’ve never seen this edition of Gora nor this edition of Choker Bali in stores, though I have seen them here. I know Rupa&Co and plenty of other publishers in India publish plenty of Bengali novels in translation (I found a copy of Kamalakanta in Kolkata without even trying) so the market is certainly not limited to the Bangla diaspora that might want to stick to the original. I’m sure this applies to plenty of other languages.
Of course it’s easy enough to find it on Bookfinder (a desi enterprise, btw), but I rather like to browse. This doesn’t just apply to desi literature. I’ve been thinking for a while that I’d like to have a list of bookstores specializing in translated literature, from all over the world. Anyone know of any?
Wow! Amardeep on SM and what an informative piece it was. It’s a double treat. Keep it up guys. Cheers!
Saheli, for the next time you’re in the civilized part of the country:
I checked the websites of St. Marks Bookshop and Labyrinth (which you probably know about) and both had several pages of Tagore books (a lot of repeats, though). I would assume they would have other books in translation too. (And I think the Barnes and Nobles textbook store on 18th and 5th may as well and Strand–maybe college bookstores in general might be a good bet).
“Thanks, Saurav,”she said drily. I may very well be selling my own Bay Area bookshops short. . .I don’t think I’ve ever done a search for Tagore at some place serious, say, Cody’s or Green Apple or City Lights. And I got my Home and The World at Moe’s. When I mean, “American Bookstores” I mean sort of your generic good but not great bookstore. Regular Barnes and Noble–not the mothership. I’ve heard Powells has good stuff. But I still like the idea of translation speciality bookstores.
Irish-Punjabi seems common too
drunk enough not to notice the back-hair? 🙂
For a while, I struggled not to go to Barnes and Nobles because of my impression that they’re evil, corporate @#@$@#$s that are helping to destroy the independent book industry, but I’ve lately given up. As with McDonalds, I was taught to love them too young, I think, to truly hate them now. Plus I have no specific evidence.
So I kind of understand why you would go there as a booklover, but surely one can do better at amazing places like labyrinth (assuming one doesn’t have dust allergies).
I like your world-in-translation bookstore idea as well. I was thinking you should maybe start it 🙂
Shame about the history doc Saurav, thanks for trying. Was looking forward to that.
What’s all this about Irish-Punjabi or Indian-German pairings? I can only think of one, Diya Mirza. I think she’s half German half Bengali, isn’t she? I’m Bengali/English/Irish/Scottish/Dutch!
Interesting article Amardeep.. My impression of Tagore- Compared to many indians during his time, Tagore was very lucky, he had excellent upbringing born in a rich family with his father who was a very well read man in those days, half of Tagores brothers were very well educated and were writing poetry and had poetry clubs at their houses and Tagore if I remember it right went to england or US for higher education and had private tutors teaching him at home everyday with lot of servants taking care of him. There was nothing so great about his achievements or his literary works either.
But he was definetely a multitalented individual..and was into composing music, dance, indianising english plays etc., I personally had a friend from shantiniketan, I cannot follow bengali but I felt rabindra sangeet was great and also rabindra nritya was also very creative form of dance with slow movements compared to bharatnatyam,kuchipudi or kathak and is a probably a mixture of all these but very pleasant to watch..
He happened to be born in the right place at the right time in the right family.Most of his novels are somewhat autobiographical or characters in his own family ( charulata etc.,) and his character portray life of poeple of his times. Most of his characters are feminine and people say were about women in his family or his friends. His idea of starting shantiniketan was great and seems to be a different form of education system..
I read quite a few translations of Tagore’s novels and also Gitanjali. I like some poems of Gitanjali and Tagore is a mystic and there is a tenderness and softness about his writings, poetry, dance, music…. On the whole he is just a multitalented individual with great upbringing..but his contributions to literature and politics of india at his time are not all that impressive.
Uhh…come again? Have you read any Tagore? You don’t have to read it in Bengali to appreciate it. If his literary contribution was so piffling, then which Indian author do you think has contributed more, do pray tell? So he was rich, your point is? Does someone have to work their way up from the gutter in order to have achieved something? Bill Shakespeare was pretty upper class and rich too. Guess his “contribution is not that impressive.”
a quick comment bong breaker..will write a detailed one later when i have more time.. I read translations of 3-4 novels of tagore( some 15yrs back cannot remember all names), read gitanjali, a collection of tagores works which included crossing, gardener,stray birds,the waterfall , lovers gift and a couple of his lectures/articles on eastern philosophy like sadhana.. these are all translations..sometimes I wished I knew Bengali.Translations are never as good as originals..even Tagore admitted that in his nobel laurette acceptance speech I think, I remember to have read it some 15 yrs back.. I didnot read all indian authors to say if anyone contributed more..there are a lot of good writers in hindi and many local languages..but no one was as multitalented as Tagore who could create music, dance, paint, write plays, act other than just writing novels ,poems. His nobel prize was given for “Gitanjali”. If you read 100 poems from Gitanjali u will realise most of them dwell on women…descriptions of the woman of his time, longing for love , some on nature, mysticism but none are that impressive that u will remember them for a lifetime .2-3 poems remain with u like “where knowledge is held high” “I love the truth””suicide of the star” After reading atleast some of his novels, shortstories, poems, articles I just felt that he was a good writer but not that impressive.He just portrayed the life of his times, people of his times, wrote about nature and mysticism and had shades of eastern philosophy/living in his poems based on the environment and conditions around him at his time. At that time when he got the nobel prize, his east philosophy/mysticism was new to the west and so they thought it was unique and gave him a nobel prize.But that does not mean he is an alltime great writer or his literary works are all that impressive. Like if Aldous huxley wrote “Brave new world” now it is not all that great because science has advanced so much now, its easy to imagine and create one such a novel. But because he thought way ahead of his times in 1930 and wrote that book then in 1930, it was considered a great book. Shakespeare or sartre or aynrand who either came up with great works thinking way beyond their times or came up with new philosophies through their works of fiction that changed the way people think belong to a different class. To me I assess an individual’s greatness based not on one or two of his literary works ,or just his body of work or what he contributed to society, its also about where he was brought up, the society of his times and if he/she could come up with something new way beyond his premises that would change the way world thinks for centuries and will always be considered great work all the time and something u will carry it with u for a lifetime and always remember the books/novels for a lifetime. anyway should stop here, have to rush. Interesting article.
I don’t really understand where you’re coming from prakruti. As someone who, to an extent, rose above the intellectual currents of the times he lived in to develop an authentic and yet still (somewhat) engaged way of living in the world, Tagore impresses me. For a West Bengali zamindari at the turn of the century who started out orthodox Brhamin to become a nationalist and later shift towards humanist values and to live a life that offers at least a little inspiration (to me, anyway) is an accomplishment.
Lovely post, Amardeep. Thank you.
we might also mention Aparna Sen, who made a big splash with ‘Mr. and Mrs. Iyer’ a couple of years ago. (Earlier, she did a series of very arty films.
On Aparna Sen’s films, I thought I would add that her first film, 36 Chowringhee Lane, is still considered her best work to date. And, arguably, among the ten best Indian films ever made. Well, I think so. 🙂
It has Jennifer Kendall and Geoffrey Kendall, apart from Dhritiman Chatterjee and Debashree Roy (and a cat named Sir Toby Belch :)). Vaguely surreal effects, but Jennifer Kendall’s extraordinary performance as the lonely Anglo-Indian schoolteacher lifts the film to another level altogether.
I’m also jealous of gujaratis, marathis, and south indians for having much better veggie food.
Saurav,
I’m a tam married to a bong and… have you ever tasted jhinge posto? It’s superb… :))
What’s jhinge? I can’t remmebr. In any case, I hate all varieties of suktos and postos. Give me a heaping plateful of idlees anyday 🙂
Oh, and for anyone who’s intersted, I found a treasure trove of Satyajit Ray, Aparna Sen, and Ritwik Ghatak dvds for $5 each (at least some subtitled–perhaps all). It’s in J. Heights on 73 street (the bangali block) on the first video/cd/music store on the left (it’s quite bit–abokash or something–i think it’s 37-18 73rd) as you walk away from the train station. They have a whole bunch of other stuff too and there are several other bong video/music stores on the same block.
What’s jhinge?..
Prawns or shrimps as they call it here in the US, are called jhinga in Maharashtra (maybe rest of India too?). And for anyone who cares or might be traveling, methinks, the best prawn curry can be had in any of the beach-side shacks in Goa. Yum!!
Now, what is this posto? Some kinda pasta equivalent?
Saurav, Suhail: No, no!!::) Jhinge is ridge gourd, and posto is poppy seeds… Here’s a recipe. Totally recommended. Especially for Sunday lunch, the poppy seeds put you to sleep in minutes..:))
Jhinga is prawn… in Marathi, I think. In Bengali, prawns are called chingri.
Yes, now this sounds familiar. It’s the orange posto. Which I also detest.
If I were not veg, I would live off of fish fry with lebu and onion, bhath, daal, and some assorted other things (and mishti 🙂 and rolls. until my heart gave out.
JOIN THE IMPERIAL EMPIRE!!!!! CRUSH THE REBEL SCUM!!!!
http://banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/I_0109.HTM
Besides Tagore Bengali poetry was also enriched by Kaji Nazrul Islam who is the national poet of Bangladesh.
Besides Tagore Bengali poetry was also enriched by Kaji Nazrul Islam who is the national poet of Bangladesh.
Thanks for bringing him up! We also love him in WB…and Long Island 🙂
Together Tagore and Kaji Nazrul Islam have taken Bengali literature in particular and Indian literature in general to a different realm.
I just wanted to share one of Kaji Nazul Islam’s poems in English translation. He is sometimes completely overshadowed by Tagore. He was a contemporary of Tagore and had his distinctive literary style. In a lot of his poems, he invokes images from Hindu, Muslim, Greek, Roman and Hebrew mythologies. He was a polyglot and translated immnensely from Arabic and Persian to Bengali. Here is poem by Kaji Nazrul Islam:
I am the unutterable grief,
I am the trembling first touch of the virgin, I am the throbbing tenderness of her first stolen kiss. I am the fleeting glance of the veiled beloved, I am her constant surreptitious gaze…
…
I am the burning volcano in the bosom of the earth, I am the wild fire of the woods, I am Hell’s mad terrific sea of wrath! I ride on the wings of lightning with joy and profundity, I scatter misery and fear all around, I bring earth-quakes on this world! “(8th stanza)â€Â
I am the rebel eternal, I raise my head beyond this world, High, ever erect and alone! “(Last stanza)â€Â[7] (English translation by Kabir Choudhary)
This is in reply to Prakruti’s comments. I believe that a poet’s appreciation ultimatley rests with the audience. So in that sense, if Tagore is not appealing to you that is perfectly legitimate. But to neglect his contribution to Indian literature and his contribution to Indian philosophy would be foolish and a sheer sign of ignorance. To name a few legacies that has been left behind by Tagore is the canon of literature which rises from individual romanticism all the way to modernism. In terms of art criticism, Tagore’s letters and essays fuses the critical literary traditions of India and the West. In the realm of philosophy his ardent internationalism is something we still cherish and should draw our lesson from, especially in an age of intolerance and violence (please read his Crisis in Civilization). And his contributions to society? — Creation of the Vishva Bharati University (drawing from Indian ancient system of Gurukul) — a truly first of is kind international university. He donated all his Nobel prize money to the creation of his university. — Creation of several social projects to uplift the handicrafts of rural India — His ardent criticism of British imperialism — His explosive article at what he thought was the breakdown of civilization at the dawn of the second World War. His personal letters to Romain Rolland, Albert Einstein and several leading American and European intellectuals at his time. At this time he was eighty years old. — His way of creating the ‘Rakhi Bandhan Utsav’ where Hindus and Muslims would tie rakhi to each other. This was a mark of protest to Lord Curzon’s decision to divide Bengal in 1905. Due to these protests, the British government finally stopped implementing the division.
Hello everyone.
I am looking for a copy of the Vande Mataram song as first recorded in the Voice of Rabindranath Tagore, believe in 1906 by a Calcutta record company named H Bose Records. I believe that was the first time the song was recorded. It was originally a poem, by Bankim Chatterji, to which Rabindranath had applied the music score himself, and sung it about ten years earlier at a Congress conference in 1896. It got recorded ten years later as the words “Vande Mataram” was becoming a rising call for nationalism and independence, perhaps initiated from the protest against partition of Bengal in 1905.
Anyhow, I believe that the song as well as the chanting of the slogan “Vande mMataram” got banned by the British, who subsequently sent the police to H Bose Record company’s warehouse and destroyed it, along with all copies of the record. Somehow, a few records still survived, in Europe, and I am told that All India Radio eventually published a CD or something in the late 1990s with the song as originally sung by Tagore almost a hundred years ago.
I am looking to buy this CD, or the song, or to listen to it somehow. Can anyone help ?
Thanks
too baaaaaaaad…….. i want to get the accurate thing
i m looking 4 ASSESS the contribution of Tagore’s educational thought in the present context. it is important 4 me… its my assignment… can any1 help???? thanx..