The death of the young daughter-in-law of Bengals's first family threatened to and did in fact draw out tales from the woodwork. The fact the Jyotindranath and Kadambari's marriage was loveless was a known fact. Within Jorasanko, Kadambari was never allowed to forget the fact that she had failed to provide an heir to her husband. Post her death, all of a sudden this angle was elevated to centre stage, more so as she had adopted a relative's child after more than a decade of childlessness. However the child had died and it was stressed that this had led Kadambari to depression, in addition to Rabi's marriage and her own marital failures. A woman who had overflowed with music and poetry, a lover of nature and flowers had been suddenly cast into the light of a raving manic depressive to explain away her suicide.
However, there was another story that circulated like wild fire, but died in the aftermath of Rabindra's ascent as Rabindranth Tagore, the Nobel Laureate, the Shakespearean bard of Bengal and India's first international intellectual mammoth. It was rumoured that Kadambari, who had endured a loveless marriage for more than a decade and had been deemed infertile by the Jorasanko crowd for her childlessness was in fact at the time of her suicide, pregnant. And a scandal of epic proportions and consequences about to erupt such that would besmirch the Tagore name for generations. One can only imagine, the toll such a predicament, even sans the societal consequences would have taken on a long suffering woman. Of course this is all speculation and conjecture until we examine the finer details of the incident that strongly support this theory.
For one, why would the Tagore family in an open case of suicide, suppress all the facts and even record in their ledger that an amount of 52 Rupees was spent to do so ? And why, in a case of known opium overdose was the coroner's report and the suicide letter destroyed ? Did both these mandatory documents contain a fact that was deemed so dangerous as to require a blatant suppression of the regular suicide formalities by open bribery ? But the annihilation of documents didn't stop there. Kadambari's journals, her own written poetry and countless books were destroyed. Even today her room in Jorasanko is an attic closed to the public whereas the rest is open to tourists. Why single out a family member for such open venomous disdain ? More so one whom the most prodigal son constantly continued to credit his work to ?
Again, the above arguments remain in the realm of speculation. Until we turn to Bhanu Simha, Rabindra himself for answers. If we are to move logically in the light of Rahur Prem and his constant dedications of his work to Lady He - it is most logical to assume that Rabindra would have hinted at such a powerful fact of his relationship through his work ?
Indeed, he did.
In one of his novels Jogajog, the lead heroine by the name of Kumudini is a passionate woman, trapped by pregnancy, torn in a conflict between love and social honor. Not only is the name Kumudini eerily similar to Kadambari, BOTH these Hindi names mean White Lotus and imply the goddess Saraswati !
But let's go back to 1884. Post Kadambari's death Rabindra himself slipped into suicidal depression and took 3 years to recover. His own words express his turmoil ...
""That there could be any gap in the unbroken procession of the joys and sorrows of life was a thing I had no idea of. I could therefore see nothing beyond, and this life I had accepted as all in all. When of a sudden death came and in a moment made a gaping rent in its smooth-seeming fabric, I was utterly bewildered. All around, the trees, the soil, the water, the sun, the moon, the stars, remained as immovably true as before; and yet the person who was as truly there, who, through a thousand points of contact with life, mind, and heart, was ever so much more true for me, had vanished in a moment like a dream. What perplexing self-contradiction it all seemed to me as I looked around! How was I ever to reconcile that which remained with that which had gone?
The terrible darkness which was disclosed to me through this rent, continued to attract me night and day as time went on. I would ever and anon return to take my stand there and gaze upon it, wondering what there was left in place of what had gone. Emptiness is a thing man cannot bring himself to believe in; that which is not, is untrue; that which is untrue, is not. So our efforts to find something, where we see nothing, are unceasing. ""
In fact this emptiness would be his lifelong friend, erupting as bouts of depression that would be accompanied by feverish creative output. The Rahur Prem that had erupted in his heart and found expression in the form of Kadambari now turned inward and become both his demon and his drive.For if there was one thing, that he knew that would please the living and the dead Kadambari it was the Word, in verse or prose. The innumerable heroines who dominate his stories and novels are all blatant doppelgangers of Kadambari. They, very often are socially isolated, unloved by their husbands, childless and deemed sexually dangerous by their families and society. As if Rabindra was trying, feverishly to exorcise the woman who ceasing to be a human had come to possess him through his obsessive love for her.
Even in his seventies, Rabindra admitted to artist Nandalal Bose that Kadambari's eyes lay behind the hundreds of haunting portraits of women he painted in old age. Sigmund Freud himself was invited to look into his obsessive compulsions with his muse. His dreams and nightmares were an unchanging landscape where Kadambari continued to engulf him as Rahu. And if you still have any more doubts examine these paintings by Rabindra in sequence.
Perhaps there is little that is as precious or as poisonous as the obsessive love that can erupt as a flame in a man's heart when his soul is so touched by a woman. That Tagore loved, lost and carried the cross for life is one of those bittersweet ironies. Because if this tragic tale of love and loss hadn't played out we wouldn't have the thousands of priceless poems, songs, stories, novels and sketches.
Tis better to have loved and lost. Than to never have loved at all ......
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