A K Bhattacharya: Other books

Uma Das Gupta
Price: Rs 225
Oxford University Press

For those who still view Rabindranath Tagore only as a great poet, philosopher, and a writer of short stories and novels, this book is a must read.

It is a short biography of India's best-known poet, revealing Tagore not just as a creative genius but also as a man of action. Tagore may not have gone to war as Lord Byron did.

But as an educator and a rural reformer, he demonstrated his commitment to the ideas that he espoused in his writings. Uma Das Gupta sees in Tagore's Santiniketan the poet's practical attempts at rural reconstruction and citing before the nation a living example of "constructive Swadeshi".

Santiniketan for him was an experiment with education, the relationship between the teacher and the taught and finally with the links that he thought the academia should establish with society.

She brings out Tagore's concern at racial humiliation and the apparent contradiction between the West's ideas of humanism and the evils of British imperialism, a thought that bothered him till the end.

An added attraction of the book is a collection of original letters he wrote to Nehru, Andrews, Chelmsford, and his other friends.

Don't forget to read the one where he informs Chelmsford of his decision to return the title of knighthood in the wake of the Jalianwalla massacre. You might wonder why people accuse Tagore of poor English.