Prose

Tagore was essentially a Master-poet by temperament, immediately and exquisitely conscious of every claim of mellifluous beauty in all its multifarious forms. His was a personality of singular charm, and a character of singular sweetness. The more we sing Tagore’s songs, the better the transparent sincerity breathing through them impresses us.

Needless to say, in the field of prose, too, he is undoubtedly a treasure-house of penetrating wisdom, sublime and beautiful thoughts. His sparkling prose-works are both great and delightfully helpful to the present-day need of humanity. Many of his prose books guide us rightly and purposely through the thick and thin of life. And it is, as it were, an imperative need for an adorer of Bengali literature to quote Tagore’s prose to justify the author’s own genius.

Let me reproduce here a pleasantly readable remark made by Tagore on prose.

Truth had a peculiar dream. In the dream he saw Tagore’s prose and Tagore’s poetry exchanging hot words.

Prose: “Poetry, you must admit that I gave Rabindranath perfection long before you. And when? When he was but in his teens.”

Poetry: “True, you gave him perfection before me. But the real sense of it came only after I had been recognised. It is the Nobel Prize given to me that illumined your own depths to the world.”

Prose: “Sufficient. Tagore is not all he is on the strength of your gift alone.”

Poetry: “But without me, he will never be the real Rabindranath.”