Remembering Rabindranath
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On Tagore's 150th birth anniversary papers were presented on his women characters.
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The session saw litterateurs share their insight.
It was exhilarating to know that some litterateurs had decided to pool together and celebrate 150th birth anniversary of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore.
The three-sessions of the seminar had contemporary writers of Telugu fiction read out papers on Tagore's women characters, his essays, his drama, the Gitanjali and his greatness as a poet. The presentations for the most part were spiced with excerpts from Tagore's short stories, analyses of women portrayals, his vision and so on. Some of them were apologetic for not being able to give an in-depth study of his dramas as very few translations were available in libraries. As one author quipped, “A Telugu translation of one of Tagore's dramas was found in the library and was last issued in 1983 after which in 2011 it was sought out by me!” She later went on to point out the impact drama had in Indian literature right from the time of Kalidasa. In her opinion drama was the forerunner of Most other writers chose to dwell on the empowered Bengali women in Tagore literature and drew comparisons with the women in Tagore's family, speculating on his inspirations in characterising strong, determined women in almost all his stories. Women were pivotal in most of his works and around them the entire story was spun.
Certain aspects of Tagore which were discussed were his myth-making power where he borrowed time-tested values from antiquity and shaped them to suit a modern mind. He redefined Bengal theatre and bestowed a new dimension to stage plays. These points were profoundly put forward and kindled the audience interest.
Facts like Tagore translating the 103 verses of his original Bengali Gitanjali into English for his close friends, the number of languages this great poetic treatise was translated into across the globe, Tagore bagging this prestigious literature prize against a giant like Thomas Hardy and other details were eye-openers to lovers of literature. It was surprising that none of the regional writers took up the issue of Rabindranath Tagore's influence on Telugu literary writing which witnessed quite a few translations from Bengali literature at one point of time. That would have been the crux of celebrating Tagore. The first day session ended with some lovely readings of short-stories by talented authors, while the second day was devoted to Telugu literature alone. The seminars were hosted at Ravindra Bharati under the aegis of Sahitya Academi and AP Department of Culture along with Lekhini Mahila Chaitanya Literary Association.
R.K.
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