Avtar Mota
(“Where the mind is without fear
and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up
into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches
its arms toward perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost
its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward
by thee into ever-widening thought and action –
Into that heaven of freedom,
My Father, let my country awake.”) …………….. Rabindranath Tagore..Gitanjali
Tagore received Nobel Prize in 1914. This was a hectic year for the poet. He visited many places lecturing and meeting students, writers and people in general. In early 1915, he wrote his famous play Phalguni (The Cycle of Spring) and one of his major novels Ghare- Baire (The Home and the World). He was knighted in 1915 ( he resigned the honour as a protest against British policies in India.).He had hectic sessions at Shantiniketan where his play Phalguni was staged and he played the role of the blind Baul. He also wrote about 100 songs in 1915. He suggested that he should take a break and move to some hill station. And Tagore decided to go to Kashmir.
In October 1915, Rabindranath Tagore visited Kashmir for a fortnight’s holiday. He was accompanied by Bengali poet Satyendra Nath Datta, his son Rathinder Nath and Pratima Devi. He was simply captivated by the beauty of the valley, especially the autumn season. Quite often, he would sit on the banks of River Jhelum in thoughtful silence. To a friend, he wrote that River Jhelum was like his native Padma. He started composing the famous Balaka ( Flight of Cranes )series of poems in Kashmir.
The Kashmir invitation was extended to Gurudev by a senior Bengali officer, Jagdish Chander Chatterji who worked as Superintendent of the State Research Department during Maharaja’s rule. All the arrangements were made by the said official and his dedicated team in Srinagar. Gurudev’s party arrived via Rawalpindi and stayed in the houseboat “Paristaan” Moored on the banks of the Dal lake in Srinagar. Later, Gurudev and his family shifted to another houseboat located on the banks of the Jhelum river.
Gurudev visited many places in Kashmir . He also visited King Lalitaditya’s Martand Sun Temple. Dina Nath Hanjura, principal of DAV School, Rainawari once told us in our class that Gurudev Tagore had praised the intellectual loftiness of King Lalitaditya of Kashmir by looking at the location and grandeur of the Martand temple ruins in Kashmir. And again Badri Nath Sidda, a learned Purohit from Mattan had informed me in 1988 that his Yejmaan Bahi ( patrons record register) had signatures of a Mahatma from Bengal named Rabindranath Tagore who had visited Martand Teertha of Kashmir in 1915. Mahatama Tagore is Gurudev Tagore .
While in Kashmir, Gurudev’s literary work was disrupted by people coming to meet. He also accepted an invitation from Pandit Anand Kaul for a dinner at his downtown, Zainakadal residence in Srinagar city. Apart from being a writer, Anand Kaul worked as Sheriff in the office of Raja Amar Singh’s Council of Regency and later President of Srinagar Municipality from 1914 to 1917. He was a scholar and a historian who had published some books through the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Master Zinda Kaul and Pandit Anand Koul brought Gurudev in Tonga for the dinner and the literary meeting. Many people say that Kashmiri poet Mehjoor was also present in this gathering but this needs some authentic confirmation. In his interview with Prof V S Naravane, Master Zinda Kaul has not confirmed Mehjoor’s presence. In this poetic gathering, Tagore had advised Kashmiri poets to be careful about the choice of their themes. Apart from enjoying a Kashmiri dinner at Pandit Anand Kaul’s residence, Tagore also requested some books on Kashmir’s Shaivism from the learned Pandit. A poetic gathering was also held in the house of Pandit Anand Koul. Many young poets joined this gathering and Gurudev was amused to listen to the Kashmiri poems. These poems were translated into English by Pandit Anand Koul and copies of the English translation were provided in advance to Gurudev. Master Zinda Kaul also participated in this poetic gathering.
Gurudev also helped his nephew Abanindranath Tagore who accompanied him to paint some views, especially the paintings depicting Ashoka sitting atop Shankaracharya hill and looking at Hariparbat, Shahjajan in Shalimar garden during night, Chashm e Shahi garden, Nishat garden, Nasim Bagh and some more. With these paintings and the Balaka series of poems, Kashmir was showcased to the Bengali elite for the first time.
At the invitation of I K Sharga ( a Kashmiri Pandit from Lucknow and the then principal of S P College, Srinagar ), Gurudev also addressed students and intellectuals inside the S P College auditorium. Pandit Samsar Chand Koul Ganhar (well-known bird watcher, writer and a teacher in Mission School, Fateh Kadal, Srinagar ) also visited Gurudev while he stayed in the houseboat ,Paristaan . Pandit Samsar Chand requested Gurudev for a visit to Mission School ,Fateh Kadal to address the students. Gurudev expressed his inability and told him that he had a hectic and busy schedule. He invited Pandit Samsar Chand Koul and the boys of the Mission School, Fateh Kadal to SP College where he addressed a gathering of the students, teachers and intellectuals and also sang verses from his Book Gitanjali.
Kashmir remembered Gurudev’s visit when in 1958, Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad decided to name the newly built Cultural Complex in Wazir Bagh as ‘Tagore Hall’ . This was possibly a humble tribute to Gurudev who had many admirers in the J&K state. About his visit and getting inspiration in Kashmir to write the Balaka series ( poems), Gurudev writes this:-
” My coming to Kashmir has helped me to know clearly what I want. It will likely become obscured again when I go back to my usual routine; but these occasional detachments of life from the usual round of customary thoughts and occupations lead to the final freedom – the Santan, Sivam, Advaitam. I was in Kashmir. One evening, I sat by the River Jhelum. There was stillness all around. I felt like I was sitting beside the Padma. Of course, when I lived on the Padma, I was a young man, now I am old. Yet that difference seemed to have been wiped out by some link transcending time. A flock of geese flew over my head across Jhelum. I seemed to hear some ineffable call, and be led by its impulse to some far journey.”
Balaka or “The Flying Geese”, the title word usually means a heron; but the poet points out that it refers to a flock of flying geese. I add a poem from the Balaka series:-
“O flying geese,
Your wings are maddened by the tempest’s wine:
With the resounding laughter of piled-up joy,
Rising waves of wonder, beat along the sky.
The rush of wings rose around,
A dancing nymph composed of sound,
Breaking the meditation of the silence.
The mountains sunk in gloom
Suddenly shuddered, and the deodar woods.
felt the message of those beating wings
For instant bring
The impulse of motion to the enraptured depths
Of all that’s immobile.
…Of mountains, and this forest, fly from strange
To strange realm, isle to isle
The pulse of the stars’ flight
Starlets the dark with the sound of weeping light.
I heard the words of men flying in the flocks
Along invisible tracks
From the dim past to some new unformed age.
Night and day in my heart have I heard
With countless other birds, this
Relinquishing its nest, through light and darkness go –
From what shore to what shore?
The infinite’s wings send out their song through space:
Not here but elsewhere, elsewhere- in some other place.”
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