The Poet And The Prize

That Rabindranath Tagore's Nobel Prize medallion, along with other memorabilia remains stolen and missing isof course old news now. Within a few years of winning the Nobel, though in another context, the poet had beenprovoked to comment: 

"... I for my part wish to stand, shorn of all special distinctions..." 

Today's thieves chose to impart such poetic justice that posterity hadn't.

The usual din that surrounds all disasters in India, natural and factitious, had risen and is thankfully nowon the wane. Ministers, chief and prime, have visited Santiniketan, expressed their dismay and assured allsupport; CBI is now in charge. Of retrieving the medal and redeeming a situation where "badges of honourmake our shame glaring in their incongruous context of humiliation".

The reaction among the intelligentsia is curious. Some call it a national calamity, some liken it to an atomicexplosion, others draw parallels with the mindlessness of Mahatama Gandhi's murder. And a few others saysagely that a medal is just a medal, it may be open to heist, but Tagore and his teachings aren't. 

As sleuths and sniffer dogs swamp Santiniketan, this may be an  opportune though unfortunate moment toexplore Tagore's relationship with the Nobel. If petty pilferers have awakened us to what Tagore's Nobel Prizemedallion means to us and our national identity; it is also a time to reflect on what the Prize meant for itsrecipient.

Tagore returned to India in the Autumn of 1913 from his trip to England. His book ofpoems, Gitanjali(a transcreation of poetry  from his eponymous collection in Bengali and othervolumes, originally written to pass the ennui of illness), had been received with very great enthusiasm in theEnglish literary circle of Yeats, Rothenstein, Pound and others. T Sturge Moore recommended Tagore's name tothe Swedish Academy for the Nobel Prize.

On November 13, 1913 Tagore was informed that the Nobel Prize for literature has been awarded to him. Hereceived the news with equanimity and humour and reportedly told an associate that the money for constructinga drainage system at Santiniketan has finally arrived. His school at that time (as always during his lifetime)was in dire need of funds.

However, within a few days, qualms about the Prize seem to have crept into the poet's mind; he wrote toRothenstein on November 18, 1913: 

"The perfect whirlwind of public excitement it has given rise to is frightful. It is almost as bad astying a tin can at a dog's tail, making it impossible for him to move without creating noise and collectingcrowds all along. I am being smothered with telegrams and letters for the last few days and people who neverhad any friendly feelings towards me nor ever read a line of my works are loudest is their protestation ofjoy." 

The metaphor of tying a tin can at a dog's tail is powerful and disturbing, and indeed very much alien toTagore's usual elegant expression. It suggests a disgusted and mortified realization that he was being made aspectacle of, his every move to be followed by a raucous rabble.

Soon thereafter a train load of Bengalis from Calcutta descended on Santiniketan  to felicitate him onbeing awarded the Prize. The group had many distinguished personae, some closely known to Tagore such as thescientist Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose, poet Mohitlal Majumdar et al. In the idyllic settings, speaker afterspeaker sang paeans to the poet, basking in the reflected glory of his Occidental success. Tagore was expectedto accept the homage with customary complaisance.

Instead, he began his speech at the public reception by saying:

"It is not in my power, to accept without diffidence, and in its entirety, the honour you have comehere to bestow upon me in the name of the country as a whole.              

The calumnies and insults from the hands of countrymen which have fallen to my lot have not been trifling.Till now I have borne all that in silence. In such circumstances, I am unable myself to understand fully asyet how I have come to obtain this honour from abroad."

He then placed the Prize in the context he saw it:

"However that may be and whatever the reason, today Europe has placed its garland of honour on me. Ifthat has any value it lies only in the artistic discrimination of the arbiters of taste there. There is nogenuine link between that and our country. No literary work can have its quality or appeal enhanced by theNobel Prize."

And he continued hammering the discordant note in a scathing choice of words, never expected and perhapsnever again emitted from a man of such supreme sensitivity and grace:

"Therefore how can I shamelessly appropriate to myself the honour of which you are making a present tome as representatives of the general public of the whole country ? This day of mine will not last for ever.The ebbtide will set in again. Then all the squalor of the muddy bottom will be exposed in bank afterbank."

He drew a parallel between the adulation of his countrymen to the foaming froth of liquor, and said withbare bitterness that he might put the chalice to his lips on the demands of Western civility, but never wouldhe drink that ale of intoxication.

At the end of the speech he is said to have even left the arena in a dog cart, spraying ancillary dust on thedevotees who swarmed the road behind him on foot.

Many causes have been ascribed to Tagore's reaction to the only public reception given to him on winning theNobel. His biographers suggest the outburst might have been provoked by incidental reasons, seeing some of hisworst maligners kowtowing in the crowd or perhaps on account of receiving a vituperative letter that evening,written and dispatched evidently before the correspondent knew of Tagore winning the Nobel.But it is unlikelythat a man of Tagore's reserve and poise would have vented his ire at an august occasion withoutpre-meditation.

Tagore had a deep longing for appreciation from his own people, perhaps arising out of a subconscious pride ofhis abounding contribution to Bengali language, literature and life. But astounding as it may seem in today'smilieu of praise and panegyric, in his lifetime Tagore was more often regarded with malice and misgiving;perhaps for his patrician pedigree, consistent criticism of dogma or maverick models of education. Trivialityof individual invective apart, the University of Calcutta had quoted a passage from Tagore in itsMatriculation Examination question paper in the early 1900s, asking students to paraphrase the same in chasteand grammatical language. Then of course, soon after the Nobel, an honorary Doctorate was bestowed on Tagoreby the very same seminary.

Tagore's official response to the Prize, a single sentence telegram  read by Mr. Clive, British Chargéd'Affaires, at the Nobel Banquet at Grand Hôtel, Stockholm, December 10, 1913, simply stated "I beg toconvey to the Swedish Academy my grateful appreciation of the breadth of understanding which has brought thedistant near, and has made a stranger a brother." This one-liner contains the germ of Tagore'sunderstanding of the award and expectations from it, a synergy spreading across cultures and continents,sweeping aside fetters of politics and prejudice.

But ironically, his expression of angst at the Santiniketan audience, many of whom were his genuine friendsand admirers, drove the wedge of deep alienation between the poet and his own people. Dissent at his speechsimmered for a while and then morphed into nagging cycles of cant and calumny. Preposterous imputations thatthe Gitanjali translations were the handiwork of hired English hacks and that the award of the Prizewas the outcome of importune personal lobbying, were bandied with wicked relish. That Tagore was not whollyabove the torment such attitude brought about is testified by the tone of disappointment and despair in hisletters.

Many of his interlocutors evidently believed he must have indulged at least in some self-promotion to have wonthe Nobel. On October 29,1931, he wrote to one such correspondent:

"There is a question in your letter whether I have engaged paid agents to spread my fame.This sort ofsuspicion is possible only in Bengal. It is here that people whisper that I won the Nobel Prize by a trick,and the English of the poems which brought me fame was written by a certain Englishman. " 

Then again in September 14,1933, he writes:

"What is the matter for real regret is that the business of running me down is profitable. That makesme realize how widespread in my country is the keen hatred for me and how little my countrymen are hurt by theattacks on me and the insults heaped on me."

However, this alienation created a space of detachment around the poet, perhaps essential and favourable toa genius of his stature. Tagore, who had virtually led a political movement against the Partition of Bengal,withdrew as much as he could from the frenzy of public platforms. The nearly three more decades he lived afterwinning the Nobel are marked by a fabulous fecundity in literary, musical and artistic output. The post-Nobelpoet far surpassed the pre-Nobel in the sublimity of his creative voice and vision.

The Nobel Prize was a predicament for Tagore which snared and strained him and sat like a crown of thorns onhis head. It gave him recognition in far and distant lands but queered the pitch for his own people'sunderstanding of him. Perhaps for ever.

But it could not staunch the fount of his creative zest, and ultimately the Poet transcended the Prize.

References :
1. Thy Hand, Great Anarch! by Nirad C Chaudhuri, First US Edition, First Printing, July 1988,Addison-Wesley Publishing Company,Inc
2. Rabindranath O Santiniketan by Pramatha Nath Bishi
3. Nobel e-Museaum


Nandan Datta writes in English and Bengali and has published widely in the print and electronic media.