Tagore’s time and timelessness

natasha chanda acharya

Reviewing Gitanjali

Time as in timelessness or time as in endless languor or time as in time running out and much unfinished or time that’s too short for self-realisation or time whose inevitable destination is death. Which was the time that Tagore was preoccupied with? Was it indulgence, was it reverence or was it fear?

It is the timelessness and the languor that has come through his poetry most transparently and has been much talked about by his western admirers. Creating a sense of space and time and painting nature in its lethargic best forms the subject of much of his poetry. In Moment's Indulgence he writes, “My work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil. And to sing dedication of life in this silent and overflowing leisure...” And in the Boat, “The languid hours pass by on the shore---Alas for me! ...upon the bank in the shady lane the yellow leaves flutter and fall.” Yes, yellow leaves. And, they fall in the shady lane.

The popular “romantic” preoccupation with joys of nature and love of all things bright and beautiful often gives way to the disquieted restlessness, questioning and reasoning of the “modern / post modern” Tagore. This could be a possible clue to the element of contrast in his poetry that is so renowned. Contrast of light and shade, day and light, young and old, fruition and waste. “Where shadow chases the light...” Note that the shadow chases the light and the light does not chase the shadow away.

Which brings us to the matter of death. Was he, like contemporary modern and post-modern poets, preoccupied with death? In so many of his verses in the Gitanjali, he talks about death. Closed Path, Boat, Sleep, Death, Parting Words, Threshold, Last curtain, Ocean of forms, Beggarly Heart, Sail Away, and many others. In Lamp of Love, he writes, “There is the lamp but never a flicker of a flame---is such thy fate, my heart? Ah, death were better by far for thee!” Again in Death, “O thou the last fulfilment of life, Death, my death, come and whisper to me!”

But more than a morbid preoccupation with death, it is perhaps helplessness at the world lost and tasks unfinished. In Song Unsung, he writes, “The song that I came to sing remains unsung to this day.” Then again in Flower, “I fear lest the day end before I am aware, and the time of offering go by.” Hence we come back again to the theme of time and how time flies by and there so much to accomplish. In Endless Time, he writes, “We have no time to lose... we must scramble for a chance. We are too poor to be late.” In the Last Curtain, he talks about so mush beauty and wonder in the world which we never realise or appreciate and the time of death comes too soon. “...I see by the light of death thy world with its careless treasures.”

Was this the possible reason for his frenzied travel through the world? To see and delight in all that is, before the time is lost. A journey to seek, and see and also one of self realisation. In Journey Home, he writes, “The traveller has to knock at every alien door to come to his own.” Was there also fear that his time would run out before he grasped enough? In When Day Is Done he writes, “From the traveller, whose sack of provisions is empty before the voyage is ended.” He must have been troubled by the thought to have repeated it in Closed Path, “I thought that my voyage had come to its end that provisions were exhausted and the time come to take shelter in a silent obscurity.” So then, was it the journey leading to death? In Farewell he writes, “A summons has come and I am ready for my Journey.” Was he then seeking the “formless” through his travels? And as he was getting older, he probably transferred his search to understanding death, may be even preparing for death, and waiting for it. In Ocean of Forms he writes, “No more sailing from harbour to harbour with this my weather-beaten boat. Into the audience hall by the fathomless abyss I shall take this harp of my life. I shall tune it to the notes of forever, and when it has sobbed out its last utterance, lay down my silent harp at the feet of the silent.”

So inspite of popular belief, he does give the impression of a disquieted man who was romancing the unanswered. And so he writes, in Roaming Cloud, “...take this fleeting emptiness of mine, paint it with colours, gild it with gold, float it on the wanton wind and spread it in varied wonders.” That is perhaps the essence of his poetry. What we are left with, are poignant songs that echo “through all the sky in many-coloured tears and smiles, alarms and hopes; waves rise up and sink again, dreams break and form.” And we remember his Parting Words, “Let this be my parting word, that what I have seen is unsurpassable.” Life is unsurpassable. And that is the lesson we learn from a reading of the Gitanjali.