Celebrating the life and work of Tagore

This year marks the 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore, the late great Bengali poet and Nobel Laureate who mesmerised a world through the power of his words. The Indian and Bangladeshi High Commissions in Sri Lanka have jointly planned a series of events to celebrate the life and times of this literary giant, scheduled to be held over the coming months. 

As part of the commemoration, an evening of song and melody was held at the Lionel Wendt, Colombo, on 28 March where distinguished Rabindra Sangeet Artiste Rezwana Chowdhury Bannya, at the invitation of the Bangladesh High Commission, performed some of Tagore’s most celebrated works to a full house of both novice and ardent Tagore fans.

Bangladesh Foreign Secretary Mijarul Quayes, the Bangladesh High Commissioner, Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Shri Ashok K. Kantha, Senior Minister Sarath Amunugama and Minister Dilan Perera were among the guests at the event. Bannya, a highly respected, critically-acclaimed musician admired by fans of Robindro-Shongeet (as Tagore’s compositions are known) in both Bangladesh and India, has released several albums that pay homage to the poet through her divine renditions of Tagore songs with a perfect blend of her own style and fashion without disturbing the original notation and specification.  She is also a former student of the prestigious Visva-Bharati University in Shaniniketan.

Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to political and personal topics. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced), and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and contemplation. Tagore was perhaps the only litterateur who penned anthems of two countries - Jana Gana Mana, the Indian national anthem and Amar Shonar Bangla, the Bangladeshi national anthem.

The Bannya event and the planned future celebrations are a result of an Indo-Bangladesh Joint Communiqué signed between Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Sheik Hasina in January, 2010.  In addition to the festivities taking place in the two countries, several events will be held in Sri Lanka recognising the subtle, yet significant influence Tagore has had on modern Sri Lankan art.

Bangladesh High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Mahbub uz Zaman said that Tagore, who wrote and composed the national anthems of India as well as Bangladesh, had an indirect influence on the national anthem Sri Lanka Matha.

Ananda Samarakoon, who wrote and composed the Sri Lankan national anthem sometime in the late 1930s, was once a disciple of Tagore himself when the former was studying at the Visva-Bharathi University, or Shantinketan, founded by the poet.  An insititution which has spawned and shaped a generation of poets, playwrights, authors and critics that have taken the literary world by storm. According to K. M. A. Bandara of the Tagore Society of Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Matha and Jana Gana Mana are closely related in more ways than one.

“There’s a close relation between the Indian and Sri Lankan national anthems. It is original, but styled on Rabindrasangeet (the poet’s body of songs); it could be called a sister song,” Bandara has said.

But Tagore’s connection to the island nation goes a lot deeper than that. His last of three visits to Ceylon was in 1934 when he came with his troupe and staged a dance drama called Sampochon in Colombo. In the audience was none other than S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike – later to be Prime Minister of Sri Lanka – who wrote a critique of the performance for the Ceylon Daily News.