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Friday, June 22, 2012

Rabindranath Tagore, a movie by Satyajit Ray



Together come here two great names of the Bengali universe, Rabindranath Tagore and Satyajit Ray. A documentary made in 1961, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Tagore.

It was a tribute of admiration, and Ray was careful to strictly keep within the limits of the portrait as known and revered throughout India, to avoid any possibly controversial aspect, any iconoclast question. The whole space of the movie was reserved to Tagore, and Ray tried to hide completely any mark of his own presence. However, in the scenes of Tagore as a boy, you feel the universe from Pather Panchali, the way the boy Tagore is looking at the world call in mind the fascinated eyes of Apu. It is there that you feel the encounter of the two titans. And Ray once said that ten or twelve minutes of it (of the documentary) were among the most moving and powerful things he had produced (http://www.satyajitray.org/films/tagore.htm).




Rabindranath Tagore, a documentary by Satyajit Ray (1961)
(video by sshoibal)

(Satyajit Ray)

(Rabindranath Tagore)

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Clouds and Waves




Mother, the folk who live up in the clouds call out to me-
We play from the time we wake till the day ends.
We play with the golden dawn, we play with the silver moon.
I ask, But how am I to get up to you ?
They answer, Come to the edge of the earth, lift up your
hands to the sky, and you will be taken up into the clouds
My mother is waiting for me at home, I say, How can I leave
her and come?
Then they smile and float away.
But I know a nicer game than that, mother.
I shall be the cloud and you the moon.
I shall cover you with both my hands, and our house-top will
be the blue sky.
The folk who live in the waves call out to me-
We sing from morning till night; on and on we travel and know
not where we pass.
I ask, But how am I to join you?
They tell me, Come to the edge of the shore and stand with
your eyes tight shut, and you will be carried out upon the waves.
I say, My mother always wants me at home in the everything-
how can I leave her and go?
They smile, dance and pass by.
But I know a better game than that.
I will be the waves and you will be a strange shore.
I shall roll on and on and on, and break upon your lap with
laughter.
And no one in the world will know where we both are.





Picasso famously said that at the age of five he was painting like a Raphael, and then, throughout his life, he had tried to paint like a boy of five.

(Rabindranath Tagore)

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Thursday, June 21, 2012

Tagore: Closed Path



I thought that my voyage had come to its end
at the last limit of my power,—that the path before me was closed,
that provisions were exhausted
and the time come to take shelter in a silent obscurity.

But I find that thy will knows no end in me.
And when old words die out on the tongue,
new melodies break forth from the heart;
and where the old tracks are lost,
new country is revealed with its wonders.





La capatul puterilor,
credeam ca s-a sfarsit calatoria mea,
ca drumul s-a inchis,
ca nu mai am nimic si ca timpul vietii mele s-a retras
in adapostul unei obscuritati mute.

Dar vad acum ca voia Ta n-are sfarsit inlauntrul meu.
si ca, atunci cand vechile cuvinte mor in toate limbile pamantului,
cantece noi tasnesc din inima,
iar acolo unde vechile urme se sterg,
ia fiinta o noua patrie, cu alte si alte minuni.


(Rabindranath Tagore)

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Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Tagore: Unending Love

Dancing Girl, a drawing by Tagore
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rabindranath_Tagore_Untitled_Dacing_Girl.jpg)
no copyright infringement intended


I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, it’s age old pain,
It’s ancient tale of being apart or together.
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
Clad in the light of a pole-star, piercing the darkness of time.
You become an image of what is remembered forever.

You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.
At the heart of time, love of one for another.
We have played along side millions of lovers,
Shared in the same shy sweetness of meeting,
the distressful tears of farewell,
Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.




Sembra che ti abbia amato in innumerevoli modi, innumerevoli volte…
nella vita dopo la vita, ripetutamente, sempre.
Il mio cuore incantato ha creato e ricreato la collana delle canzoni,
che hai accettato in dono e hai messo attorno al tuo collo a modo tuo,
nella vita dopo la vita, ripetutamente, sempre.
Ogni qualvolta odo vecchie cronache d’amore, è un’annosa pena,
l’antica storia di trovarci lontani l’uno dall’altro o insieme.
Quando mi perdo nel mio passato, alla fine tu emergi da esso,
rivestita della luce di una stella polare,attraverso le ombre del tempo.
Diventi un’immagine di ciò che è impossibile dimenticare.
Tu ed io abbiamo galleggiato qui sul ruscello che ci porta con sé dalla fonte.
L’amore reciproco, nel cuore del tempo.
Abbiamo giocato insieme a milioni di amanti,
abbiamo condiviso la stessa timida dolcezza dell’incontro,
le stesse penose lacrime di addio,
antico amore ma in forme che si rinnovano di continuo.
Oggi questo amore trabocca ai tuoi piedi, ha trovato la sua fine in te.
L’amore di tutta una vita: gioia universale, dolore universale, vita universale.
Si fondono con il nostro i ricordi di tutti gli amori-e le canzoni dei poeti di tutti i tempi.


(http://jayaramanms.multiply.com/journal?&page_start=20)
no copyright infringement intended


Te amé de tantas maneras y de tantas formas,
de vida en vida, de época en época,
Siempre…

Mi corazón hechizado,
hizo una y otra vez un collar de canciones
que tomaste como un regalo
y usaste alrededor de tu cuello,
a tu modo y de tantas formas,
de vida en vida, de época en época,
Siempre…

Donde quiera que escucho
las viejas historias de amor,
su antiguo dolor y ese viejo cuento
de estar juntos o separados,
me detengo y una y otra vez
miro al pasado y al final de todo,
emerges TÚ,
revestida con la luz de una estrella polar,
traspasando la oscuridad del tiempo,
y te conviertes en una imágen
que recordaré por siempre.

Tú y yo flotamos aquí,
en la corriente de un corazón lleno de amor
de uno por el otro.
Jugamos al amor
al lado de millones de amantes,
hemos compartido la tímida dulzura
del primer encuentro,
las mismas lágrimas de angustia
en cada despedida.

El viejo amor,
el que se renueva una y otra vez,
Siempre…
Hoy, este amor está a tus pies,
encontró su morada en tí.
Ese amor,
el amor cotidiano de todos los hombres,
el amor del pasado, el amor de siempre,
el regocijo universal, la pena universal,
la Vida misma,
la memoria de todos los hombres,
las canciones de todos los poetas
del pasado y de siempre,
se funden en este Amor,
que es el Nuestro.




(Rabindranath Tagore)

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Tagore: His Repudiation of British Knighthood


In 1919 Rabindranath Tagore, who had been knighted by King George V, decided to give up his British knighthood, in protest against the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. He sent a letter of repudiation to Lord Chelmsford, Viceroy of India. The letter was published in The Statesman, on June 3, 1919.

Your Excellency,
The enormity of the measures taken by the Government in the Punjab for quelling some local disturbances has, with a rude shock, revealed to our minds the helplessness of our position as British subjects in India. The disproportionate severity of the punishments inflicted upon the unfortunate people and the methods of carrying them out, we are convinced, are without parallel in the history of civilised governments, barring some conspicuous exceptions, recent and remote. Considering that such treatment has been meted out to a population, disarmed and resourceless, by a power which has the most terribly efficient organisation for destruction of human lives, we must strongly assert that it can claim no political expediency, far less moral justification. The accounts of the insults and sufferings by our brothers in Punjab have trickled through the gagged silence, reaching every corner of India, and the universal agony of indignation roused in the hearts of our people has been ignored by our rulers- possibly congratulating themselves for imparting what they imagine as salutary lessons. This callousness has been praised by most of the Anglo-Indian papers, which have in some cases gone to the brutal length of making fun of our sufferings, without receiving the least check from the same authority, relentlessly careful in something every cry of pain of judgment from the organs representing the sufferers. Knowing that our appeals have been in vain and that the passion of vengeance is building the noble vision of statesmanship in out Government, which could so easily afford to be magnanimous, as befitting its physical strength and normal tradition, the very least that I can do for my country is to take all consequences upon myself in giving voice to the protest of the millions of my countrymen, surprised into a dumb anguish of terror. The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in the incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part, wish to stand, shorn, of all special distinctions, by the side of those of my countrymen who, for their so called insignificance, are liable to suffer degradation not fit for human beings. And these are the reasons which have compelled me to ask Your Excellency, with due reference and regret, to relieve me of my title of knighthood, which I had the honour to accept from His Majesty the King at the hands of your predecessor, for whose nobleness of heart I still entertain great admiration.


Yours faithfully,
RABINDRANATH TAGORE
Calcutta,
6, Dwarakanath Tagore Lane,
May 30, 1919 





(Rabindranath Tagore)

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Tuesday, June 19, 2012

A Moment's Indulgence


Cu puncte ce aduc aminte
De peştii iuti de prin şuvoaie
Împinge vara înainte
Căldura zilelor greoaie.


With such dots, calling in mind
The fish swarming through the rapids,
Is summer pushing its days forward,
Its days with their heavy, slow heat
.

An image meditated in a small poem: the author is Casian Balabasciuc. I tried a translation, a very poor rendering. I am always a bit disconcerted by his poetry: there is freshness, also peace of mind there, and the chaining of the words  is simply too unexpected - they call in mind some poems of Tagore.

Well, Tagore was a god who created a universe. Balabasciuc is an artist living there. Yes, it's daring, unexpected, and a bit disconcerting.

The image and the poem above are untitled. I'm thinking at A Moment's Indulgence. But that is a poem by Tagore:

I ask for a moment's indulgence to sit by thy side. The works
that I have in hand I will finish afterwards.

Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite,
and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil.

Today the summer has come at my window with its sighs and murmurs; and
the bees are plying their minstrelsy at the court of the flowering grove.

Now it is time to sit quite, face to face with thee, and to sing
dedication of life in this silent and overflowing leisure.






Cer răsfăţului unei clipe să-ţi stau alături. Tot ce am de muncit
o voi face după aceea.

Despărţit de vederea feţei tale, inima mea nu ştie nici odihnă, nici răgaz,
Iar munca mea devine o nesf
ârşită trudă într-un ocean de trudă neţărmurit.

Azi vara mi-a sosit la fereastră, cu înfăţişările ei, şi cu şoapte;
iar albinele cântă, menestreli la nobila curte a crângului în floare.

Este vremea acum de stat liniştit, faţă către faţă cu tine, şi de cântat
o închinare vieţii, în această tihnă ce se revarsă
.



(Rabindranath Tagore)

(Casian Balabasciuc)

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Rabindranath Tagore



The photo was taken probably in 1909 in Kolkata. It  was included in Les Prix Nobel en 1913. The book was published the following year, in 1914.


(A Life in Books)

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