THE POET IN HIS HOME

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 97, 15 July 1927, Page 12

THE POET IN HIS HOME

(Special to THE SUN.) “i-Santiniketan is Tagore, and Tagore is Santiniketan. One canot imagine one without the other.” So said an Indian when talking of the great Bengali poet and his educational institutions at Bolpur. Truly it would be difficult in India to think of one without the other, and yet it was not at Santiniketan that I saw the poet, but at the family home in Calcutta. The long vacation had arrived, when the heat upon the plains becomes overpowering, and as many as could had fled in search of cool breezes and a sunshine that was more tempered in its outpourings. That I should have seen the poet in the ancestral home at Jorosanko was of even more interest than to see him at Santiniketan, which I had already visited. At Jorosanko he was in the surroundings which had helped to mould him and in which he had grown from infancy to manhood, one of a brilliantly notable family. In the very heart of the Indian quarter of Calcutta, it was situated, a big house of two or three stories, with a wide flight of stone steps leading up to the entrance doors and a.courtyard flanked by trees. Somehow one could not imagine the poet in any place that had not trees, green things and flowers growing, birds and all creatures that loved the sunshine, the winds and the brooding companionship of the skies. Following my guide, I was taken up a flight of stairs into a very large room that at the first glance betrayed the interests of the family who used it. At the further end was a stage, the curtains of which were drawn back, and in a window recess at one side was a dais on which were stacked musical instruments of many kinds. Divans, low chairs and tables over which were thrown pieces of richly-coloured embroidery and many objets d’art, completed the setting of the picture into which the poet shortly entered. THE POET Time has very lightly laid its fingers upon the face and form of Rabindranath Tagore and beyond the silvering of the beard there is little trace of age. The; finely chiselled features are without a line, the eyes are brilliant with all the fire of youth, but tempered with a serenity, a wisdom that youth cannot, show, and the slightly-built form, clad in loosely flowing white, is as erect as ever. As he talked the beautifully fine, sensitive hands were folded together and the whole personality bespoke serenity, an inward and outward vision, and a wide humanity that touched the heights and depths of life’s troubled tides. And with him one finds the heart of a child, the same directness, the same simplicity, the same intuitional response. It is astonishing how much seems to be known in this country about Australia and New Zealand, and I was not altogether surprised when the poet began to talk of them. At one time he had been on the point of visiting Australia and would have gone on to New Zealand, but circumstances had arisen which caused him to cancel his proposed tour. What he had heard of the latter country from friends and what he had read of it had interested him greatly. “Your freedom,” he said, “appeals to me, especially your freedom of thought and your attitude to other races, and I have heard much of its beauty from my friend, Mr. C. F. Andrews. I should very much like to see it.” Speaking of India and of the attitude of mind with which some people look at it, he added: “To realise India, to learn its spirit and to know its people, you must view it free from any superciliousness, free from any sense of superiority. You must look at it from the purely human point of view.” ICONOCLAST AND BUILDER Outside India people usually think of Rabindranath Tagore as poet and writer of plays. It is not so generally known that he also is one of the greatest authorities upon music and that his songs are sung from one end of India to another. The mere mention of music caused his face to glow as he turned to answer a question. “Indian music,” he said, “had had rio notation and had been passed on from generation to generation for centuries without it. It was based on melody, and that of the West upon harmony. The melody was determined by the adherence to certain fixed standards.” Speaking of the raga, he said: “There you find the song wedded to the music. It is cast in one mood throughout and both time and melody are woven into one homogeneous whole. That mood persists throughout the raga and variations are not allowed to alter it.”

Of music in general the poet added that while there were characteristics in a nation’s music that might belong to it alone, certain aspects that were peculiarly national, yet behind it was the universal appeal inherent in true music. Just as in prose and poetry Rabindranath Tagore has broken with ageold rules and traditions and has made a flexible thing of them, so too has he done the same for music. In his hands it has become fluid, elastic. This, of course, has not been done without criticism and censure in regard to both music and letters from those to whom tradition and long association are the voice of authority, but these are as the voice of one crying in the wilderness. To-day in India Tagore’s prose is the model upon which the younger school is basing its standard and so, too, with many of the colleges and schools. Quoting the words of a brilliant Indian woman who had expressed the belief that India had lost its religion and until it had regained it would not progress, I asked him did he agree. Very decisively came the answer “No. I do not think she is right. There are people everywhere who live by the outward forms, the rites and ceremonies of religion, but these alone do not reach the inner man or woman. You hq.ve people who go to church on Sundays, but for the rest of the week forget religion altogether in their conduct. It is only by the intensest spiritual seeking and striving that one gains the inner vision . . . and by suffering. India has those souls today as much as she ever had in the past. No! I do not think she is right.” With reluctance I left him, but the Tagore home is a many-sided meeting ground for people from many countries and of many schools of thought, and there were others waiting to see him. The farewell salutation was characteristic—the swift, graceful raising of the folded hands, the beautiful gesture of Indian courtesy, followed by the European handshake —East and West in symbols. LAURA BUNTING. Darjeeling. India.

“NOT SHOP-SOILED”—Mr. Bernard Shaw's portrait (painted by Mr. John Collier) was recently rejected by the Royal Academy, which august body accepted, in its place, one by the same artist of Mr. Aldous Huxley. Interviewed, Mr. Shaw said: “The news is surprising to me as it is to everyone else. All I can say is that there is nothing wronf with me. If the Royal nathing wrong with me. Ilf the Royal Academy thinks the public is tired of portraits of me and eagerly curious to see what Mr. Huxley is like then I heartily agree with the Academy and am delighted to yield my place 'on the line’ to my young and much less shopsoiled literary colleague.” Mr. Huxley’s portrait is reproduced herewith. His books include “Chrome Yellow,” “Little Mexican,” “Mortal Coils,” “On the Margin” and the much-discussed “Antic Hay.”