For him: With Tagore’s help, he starts life as Birpurush, the warrior, sings through his youth, survives middle age crisis and reaches the calm resignation of age

Metro lists 20 reasons why Bengalis cannot do without Rabindranath Tagore

The celebrations have begun for the 150th year of Rabindranath Tagore’s birth. Here are 20 reasons why the Bengali still needs him. Without Tagore:

It would be difficult to convince the world that some Bengali men were always tall. And handsome.

Ad-women would have been different, too, especially during Pujo and Poila Baisakh. Take the one featuring the pretty young woman in a red-bordered sari, freshly bathed, eyes lined with a flat thick soft line of kajal, a glowing big sindur bindi on her forehead, holding a tamrapatra full of puja ingredients, smiling shyly and invitingly with her full but demure lips, perhaps smelling of champa phool? So far so good. Until she sights the dude wearing The Deo and tumbles into something very un-Bengali-ladylike. When she emerges from the, er, event, the bindi is smudged and the sari slightly askew. Very Rabindrik, front and back, though, perhaps, not in the middle.

The dropping anchal, or pallu, of the ad can’t lure our eyes away from the beautiful young widow in a sheer, okay, almost, white sari, no blouse and all, heaving with passion. No Tagore, no Aishwarya Rai, no Chokher Bali, the recent film.

Staying with the moving picture, what would happen to TV versions of classic tales from Bengali literature? The ones that feature pretty women in dure (horizontal stripes) sari, worn the traditional way with full make-up?

Think also of what Bengali artistes would have done if there were no Bangotsavs abroad to allow them to visit London and New York, especially during Pujo. And there would have been no Rabindra Jayanti when the Bengali artiste can sing or recite without having to travel so much, though getting to Rabindra Sadan could take as long.

Talking of reciting, as in abritti that has to be learnt in specialised schools, there wouldn’t have been any without Tagore, perhaps. Reading his poetry, aloud, as everyone else in the world does — they read poetry, they don’t recite — wouldn’t do for the Bengali. We like to hear our voices tremble and trill like the wails of the violin.

Missing, too, would be the trill of the “hit” remixed version of Pagla Haoar Badal Dine, featured in a recent cool Bengali film. The song goes oola la oola la oola la hey ey in its refrain.

Bengali cinema would be bereft of some of its musical “moments”. Soumitra Chatterjee’s voice changing into Kishore Kumar’s with the song Ami chini go chini tomare ogo bideshini (Charulata).

For her: She performs Tagore, pines with Tagore, seeks solace from stress with Tagore and finally lets go with Tagore

Moments, did you say? The Book Fair wouldn’t have its moments without Tagore. The sideshows at the fair — often the main draws — would be starkly different. No calendar featuring Tagore’s outline, followed by Chitto jetha bhoyshunyo, uchcho jetha shir (Where the mind is without fear), or no printout of Jete jete ekla pothe nibechhe mor bati (The lamp went out as I was journeying, all alone), framed and written in a faux Tagore hand. We would have been robbed of our fair sensibility.

We would have been stripped of our naming ability as well. How would the next big thing be named? Think upcoming Metro stations. Think of the existing ones — and all the auditoriums, educational institutions, literary awards, local libraries and district cultural centres and, not to forget, bridges and stadiums and, of course, water bodies. Howrah bridge is Rabindra Setu, don’t forget. In Tagore, we have an overarching entity that holds up Bengal’s cantilevers.

Worse, we would’ve been stripped of the Nobel first, too. Bengalis would not have known how to turn the nose up every time it was mentioned that they produced the first, and for a long time the only, Indian Nobel Prize winner. They would’ve had to wait long for Amartya Sen to come along.

Thieves would have had no Tagore Nobel Prize medal to steal. Sad.

If things were to turn out so different on the world stage, the home theatre would also have played out differently. We are speaking of Mamata Banerjee’s stage entry, usually accompanied by the blast of alarums, trumpets, conches and ululation, if not thunderclap. The music she possibly likes most — and, anyway, her colleagues play — is rousing and inspirational and Rabindrasangeet. Songs such as Shankochero bihvalata or Nai nai bhoy. In their absence, one would have to listen to her voice alone.

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee would have had no Nandan to visit in the evenings to dip his beak into the civilising water of culture. For if there was no Rabindra Sadan, there would be no Nandan.

Just as Buddhababu would have been cheated out of his away-from-Writers’ getaway, we would have no cheap weekend getaways in Santiniketan.

Not to speak of the non-existent chhatimtala for the Visva-Bharati VC to sit and try to listen to his inner voice as an employee agitation raged.

And no jokes at the cost of Santiniketan: No “Ei goru shore ja nahole phool chhunre marbo (O cow, please move or I’ll throw a flower at you)”.

Without Tagore… but these are all frivolous, external matters. Those that pertain to “bahir”, the outside. There are more — important — matters related to “ghar” or, better still, “antar”, the inside. Tagore enters our imagination early. It may be as early as when we are two or three. Chances are you had begun your performing life on the para stage as a toddler, dancing to Ore bokul parul or Aaye tabe shahachari. Thus was inaugurated the great dialectics of your personal life between tradition and individual talent. Tagore acts as a bridge between the two in the life of Bengalis. But here the metaphor gets a little mixed, for with Bengalis, Rabindranath is tradition.

Chances are you began life on stage reciting Birpurush. Horse hooves hitting the hard ground, you are travelling far into unknown country with your mother sitting in a palki, you are her brave protector from moustachioed evil men. It is a defining moment of your life, something the Austrian doctor Sigmund Freud, just five years younger than Tagore, would have called the Oedipal epiphany. The point is, performing Tagore early in life is a crucial rite of passage for many Bengalis.

The really fortunate discover the power, passion and poetry of his words. That can leave a deep, psychological impact, for long, perhaps forever, like a terminal condition. To each his own.

Without him, a Bengali’s language of love, or just pining, would be impossible. “Tumi robe neerabe, hriday e momo…” holds even in a swank, crowded coffee shop, with Channel V running in the background.

Stress would wring you dry. When you are cursing your family, your boss, your EMIs, the traffic, your life, only words such as Jibono jokhono shukaye jaye can make you feel there was someone who knew what you are going through. The words are like designer stuff, made only for you, but it’s free. By the time you realise all this, the song is over, but the phrase plays and replays in your mind. Jibono jokhono shukaye jaye…

Without Tagore — and without Achhe duhkho achhe mrityu — even your afterlife or the post-death you, as experienced by your dear ones, would be without the sun, the moon and stars.

If you, the reader, have more reasons to add, write to ttmetro@abpmail.com