Germany, 1931.
Last picture of Rabindranath, 1941
Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of
Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It
affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit
to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that
"Our prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds
not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore
confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the
voice of essential humanity."[60] To the end Tagore scrutinised
orthodoxy—and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed
thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the
oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious
inferences.[61] He mourned the perennial poverty of
Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal. He detailed these newly
plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing
double-vision foreshadowedSatyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar.[62][63] Fifteen new volumes appeared, among
them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935),
and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his
prose-songs and dance-dramas: Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939),
and Chandalika (1938); and in his novels: Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934),
and Char Adhyay (1934).[citation needed]
Clouds
come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add
color to my sunset sky.
“
”
—Verse
292, Stray Birds, 1916.
Tagore's remit expanded to science in his
last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, 1937 collection of essays.
His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and
astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and
verisimilitude.[64] He wove theprocess of
science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin
Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five
years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began
when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near
death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell. He never
recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest.[65][66]A period of prolonged agony ended with
Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged eighty; he was in an upstairs room of the
Jorasanko mansion he was raised in.[67][68] The date is still mourned.[69]A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief
election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior
to a scheduled operation: his last poem.[70]
I'm lost in the middle of
my birthday. I want my friends, their touch, with the earth's last love. I will
take life's final offering, I will take the human's last blessing. Today my
sack is empty. I have given completely whatever I had to give. In return if I
receive anything—some love, some forgiveness—then I will take it with me when I
step on the boat that crosses to the festival of the wordless end.
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