By - Dr. Ashim Ghosh

So, what is Rabindra Sangeet? The short answer to that question would be another question, Who
Cares? The fact is, almost nobody cares unless you are born and brought up in Bengal. “Rabindra”
came from the first name of Rabindra Nath Tagore. Yes, it’s the same old guy with a long beard who
got a Nobel Prize in literature more than 100 years ago for his “profoundly sensitive, fresh and
beautiful verse”. “Sangeet” means, as you all know, song or music. Hence, Rabindra Sangeet means
Tagore’s song, songs written and composed by Rabi Thakur – that’s how we, the Bengalis, call him
affectionately. But, lots of people have written lots of songs throughout the history of mankind, some
bad, some good and a few really memorable. So what’s so special about Rabindra Sangeet that most
of the Bengalis are willing to die for, even when the songwriter passed away 80 years ago? There is a
little secret that only Bengalis know about Rabindra Sangeet. There is always, always, a Tagore song
which is applicable in all of our life situations from birth to death and everything in between. We sing
Tagore song when someone is born; we interject Tagore songs between the Shehnai playing during
our weddings. Even the 7 crematoria in Kolkata play Tagore songs all day long. The first music lesson
of every Bengali kid is almost always a Rabindra Sangeet, irrespective of the style of music being
taught. We listen to Tagore songs from all traffic signals in Kolkata when we are waiting for the light to
change or hoping to get out of a horrendous traffic jam common to all its inhabitants. Apparently, the
song reduces “stress and tedium” of the drivers. That must be somewhat correct because I have not
heard about “killing by road rage” in my city in spite of the fact each and every driver on the road has
a very poor impression about every other driver’s driving ability and they loudly express it quite well
from time to time. The point is that the Bengalis have woven Rabindra Sangeet into every fabric of
their lives, from early twentieth century till today, for its emotive strength and beauty.
We all have emotions that we can’t explain in words. In Rabindra Sangeet, we find emotions
converted into words, no matter what that emotion is. The depth of the lyrics and the abstraction in
Rabindra Sangeet is clearly amazing. Sometimes, listening to Tagore’s song, I feel that he has
written that song just for me. I always wonder how he can be so accurate to understand my feelings
at that moment when I was born a long time after his death. I sincerely believe that, in all his songs,
he has not forgotten even one mood or emotion that the human mind experiences. It’s all there and
that’s why I am grateful that I understand Bengali.

Tagore’s creations have specialties of a huge number of musical styles. These include Hindustani
classical, Carnatic, Western and Traditional music – like Folk (baul), Kirtan (bhakti or devotion) and
Shyama Sangeet (Ram Prasad). Bhanusingher Padabali (compositions he wrote in Brajabuli or
Maithili languages when he was only 17 years old) and Nritya Natya (dance dramas) are two other
examples of his varied styles. Thus, Rabindra Sangeets are really true manifestations of the poet’s
versatility.

There are two very distinct parts of each Rabindra Sangeet, the lyrics, the internal meaning of a
song and the tune. Believe it or not, sometimes the lyrics are a lot more important in his songs
than the tune. Tagore primarily worked with 2 topics, the Human Being and Nature. These two
immense subjects along with how nature affects the behavior and expression of human beings
are the main themes of all his writings. All of his songs have been classified into six parjaays
(category). They are : Puja (devotional offerings), Swadesh (patriotic), Prem (love), Prokriti
(nature), Bichitro (diverse) and Anusthanic (ceremonial). All songs have its own style and rhythm
when it is sung. To sing a song correctly, notations (swaralipi) must be followed. Other core parts
of the songs are Taal and Raaga. It’s really amazing to think that, if one randomly picks a Taal
and a Raaga of one’s choice, one will definitely find a Rabindra Sangeet with that particular
combination. The puritans amongst us insist on following the exact grammar for each song’s
rendition and Bengali intelligentsia always have inherent anxiety about the purity of the style of
its rendition by individual artists, particularly when the younger generations are beginning to do
experimentation with Tagore songs.

Two other interesting and relevant tidbits about Rabindranath. First, he is the only poet I know
whose songs have been accepted as national anthems of two different independent countries,
India and Bangladesh. Nobody else can claim that coveted position. The second is a lot more
interesting. In spite of the fact that Tagore wrote a large number of songs and is well renowned
in this field at least in Bengal, he was actually a very prolific writer in ALL facets of literature. All
his songs - all 2230 of them - constitute less than 10% of his vast literary creations. What he has
written in his lifetime, you and I will not be able to read and understand that in its entirety in our
lifetime and that’s also a fact. Nobody can finish reading Rabindranath.

Let me end this article answering the same question I started with. Why doesn’t anybody
besides Bengalis care about such a vast ocean of gems? We remember Shakespeare 400 years
after his death. We read Shelly, Yates, Byron, Keats, and Wordsworth long after they are gone.
So, why doesn’t anybody remember Rabindranath and his works? He was no less qualified,
perhaps more, than any or all of the names I mentioned here. The Bengalis fondly named him
“Biswa Kobi” which literally means universal poet or poet of the universe. Unfortunately, that
universe is limited by the boundaries of Bengal. Why is that? In my opinion, that is mostly
because his songs and writings were never properly translated into other languages, especially in
English. There were haphazard attempts to do that project over the last 100 years that never
came to fruition. In spite of his excellent command of English language, he was never in a
position to translate all of his writings himself (he did translate Gitanjali in English which brought
him the Nobel Prize). The contemporary Bengali intellects of that era were either too proud or
too afraid to take up that job. Although Geetabitan.com has recently published the English
translation of all his songs, the rest of his literary creations still stayed regional and mostly
limited him as a regional writer, poet, and composer, even today.