Utpal Chatterjee
Indeed, they do. Rabindra Nath Tagore does.As do several other creative minds and literary geniuses like William Shakespeare. It is only incidental that a day happens to be the Birth Anniversary of Tagore.
But every other day, we see him come alive when a new aspect in his multi-faceted genius is discovered.The same holds just as true for Shakespeare too. Since the last 450 years, researchers have been discovering something new,a thesis gets written and the bottomless well of creativity keeps yielding every year. The great Huxley brothers,Julian and Aldous,had arrived at the conclusion that the average man uses, at the most,around 7% of the capacity of the brain. He is then deemed “bright”.A true genius uses upto 11%.That is the category where a Shakespeare or a Tagore belong. The rest of the brain remains dormant.
A neurosurgeon of great repute agrees. But,coming back to Tagore, he has been an integral part of my life for as long as I can remember. Since my childhood, when I read and recited his poems or acted in “Dakghar” when I was all of six,I grew up reading and learning of him. Even as I am writing this,the perspective has changed and I deem myself so fortunate to have been born in the same land as he was.A literary genius like him belongs not just to every proud Bengali and Indian but every literate and educated mind the world over.His writings apart, his songs belong to a different genre,”Rabindra Sangeet.”Films have been made based on his plays and stories. A cinema great like Satyajit Ray even attempted a documentary on him. Say what you will,Tagore has been an inexhaustible quiver of creativity. There was so much of sensation and excitement when he was recognized and awarded the Nobel Prize so many years ago,more than a century ago. But,on hindsight, the Nobel recognition does not sum up his entire greatness.It is another story that contemporaries like Yeats and others discovered him too.True,he is responsible for the National Anthems of both India and Bangladesh and largely inspirational for that of Sri Lanka.Citizens of all three countries are equally proud. But,now some concerns arise. There are those who have expressed unhappiness that Tagore is gradually being transformed into an “industry”.The concerns are understandable. The other day, as I was browsing TV channels, I came across a singer who declared that he would sing Tagore songs in his own way and set to his own tune.Was he being creative,defiant, rebellious or, plain and simple, silly? Your guess is as good as mine.But in spite of rebels with or without a cause,Tagore will continue to live in our hearts and our minds. Such greats may not linger physically but they are there through the manifestations of their creativity. May they continue to inspire,entertain our minds and guide us along. Such great minds and geniuses come once in a millenium. Mere mortals like us can only bow before them.
