How Tagore’s songs were ahead of their time in form and feeling

Speaking in a lecture on English Romantics, one professor concluded: “Read Tagore, I beg you to understand that, unlike poets like Shelley and Keats, he has no difficulty in reconciling imagination and reality. This tip has stuck with the students of Jadavpur University, from whom I borrowed the anecdote to embark on this highly rewarding but daunting endeavor to celebrate the poet’s musical works on his 165th birth anniversary, celebrated last week.”

Bengalis who grew up in Calcutta will readily admit how central Rabindranath Tagore was to their formative years. It was ubiquitous in school textbooks, music on the radio, and home recordings; not to forget the compelling desire of each of us to sing, recite and perform with confidence, often unmindful of the dazzling individual limitations of craft and performance.

One of my earliest memories of the Rabindra Sangeet is Hemanta Mukhopadhyay’s rendition of ‘Ogo nodi apon bege’, a river song that eagerly describes life’s many turns among the meadows and landscapes. Later, the songs of ‘Chandalika’, a dance drama about love against social exclusion, would be played on loop, gradually giving way to timeless anthems like ‘Dhono dhannay’, ‘More bina uthe kon shure baje’ in school and college. These experiences are not exclusive in any way. On the contrary, they are stereotypically ‘Bangalee’. Still, these were very important; It was a rite of passage that paved the way for serious cultural and intellectual exploration of Tagore’s songs. This is a work in progress that opens doors, and sometimes an entirely new horizon, at every hearing for passionate audiophiles.

Where does the essence of Tagore’s music lie? In her sample book, Reba Som explains that Rabindra Sangeet offers the ultimate synthesis of words, tones and melody: Singer and His Song. Incredible as it may sound, Tagore has songs for every emotion. Every season has a song; It can tell the story of sunshine and rain, spring flowers and winter fog. And in doing so, he reveals the ideas of love, faith, devotion and surrender, introducing us to sublime thoughts with sometimes disarming simplicity.

Where does the essence of Tagore’s music lie? In her sample book, Reba Som explains that Rabindra Sangeet offers the ultimate synthesis of words, tones and melody: Singer and His Song. Incredible as it may sound, Tagore has songs for every emotion. Every season has a song; It can tell the story of sunshine and rain, spring flowers and winter fog. And in doing so, he reveals the ideas of love, faith, devotion and surrender, introducing us to sublime thoughts with sometimes disarming simplicity.

While introducing some of his own translations of Tagore’s songs to a gathering of British intellectuals circa 1912, the Irish poet W.B. Yeats said, “I know of no one in my time who has done anything equivalent to these lyrics in the English language.” The events that followed are well known. Gitanjali It was published in England the same year. Tagore won the Nobel in 1913 and was knighted two years later. By then the western world had taken notice of the eponymous genre of Rabindra Sangeet and his genius for embedding in his music over 2,200 songs in the storied tradition of ‘lieder’, which encompasses poetic expression in an enduring musical form to create an astonishing unity of narratives, emotions and timeless interpretations.

Debabrata ‘George’ Biswas expresses the cosmic wonder of existence in ‘Aakash bhora surjo tara’ with his magnificent baritone. While Kanika Bandopadhyay brings peace through ‘Anandadhara bohichhe bhubane’, the song of universal truths, Ritu Guha offers solace through ‘Eki labonye’ purno pran’, his ode to the ‘Lord of Life’.

In ‘Amar mukti aloye aloye’, Suchitra Mitra celebrates the freedom that lies in the light of the sky beyond the boundaries of body and mind. Sagar Sen’s candid ‘Aj jyotsnarate shobai gechhe bone’ It captures the silence of a moonlit night “when everyone else leaves and I choose to stay.” And Santideb Ghosh, with his ‘kirtani’ storytelling krishnakoliIt evokes the image of the dark village girl who comes to life in the mournful relief of a flute.

Appreciation for Tagore may be rooted in the Bengali language, but he is by no means the sole preserve of Bengal. Because his music is a good source of thought that includes everything about life. Filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak spoke about it with extraordinary candor: “I cannot speak without Tagore… I have nothing new to say… in the final analysis, you will find that he has the final say.”

And if you’re still wondering, ‘How did we let go of who we were and become who we are now?’ If you are one of those interested in the question, you may want to turn to ‘Klanti amar khoma karo prabhu’ (Forgive my weariness, oh God) and then perhaps embrace the continuity in the precision of ‘Achhe dukkho, achhe mrityu (there is sorrow, there is death) especially Srikanta Acharya’s interpretation, here is Reba Som’s translation:

There is pain, there is death…

Still laugh at the sun, moon and stars

Spring came to the gazebos with different colors

The waves meet the rising waves

Flowers disperse to bloom again

No erosion, no end

There is no trace of poverty,

It is under the feet of the multitude

My mind is begging for space.

It was published – 15 May 2026 10:49 IST