Maharishi Tagore, beloved spiritual leader for the time aspired that Rabi be the first barrister in the family and soon he was dispatched to England. Here Tagore's eldest sister-in-law and his niece and nephew who were close to him in age, were sent to live with him and keep him company - an uncharacteristic move considering the same thoughtfulness had been absent for most of his childhood. Perhaps to ensure that he didn't leave school out of home-sickness. Or possibly, the family had awakened to his extraordinary bond with Kadambari and wanted to ensure he didn't run back to her and resume a path that would lead to the unthinkable. Nevertheless, after reading briefly at University college Tagore left school yet again for an independent study. He returned in 1880 without the degree his father had hoped, but resolute in his ambition to blend European novelty with Brahmo customs. He moved in with his elder brother and Kadambari yet again.
There is no information on his activities in the three years spanning his return to Kolkata
in 1880 until 1883. That is the year when things finally came to a steam. The calculated silence of the Tagore family and the absence of data seem to indicate that the three years following his disappointing return sans education were one during something so powerful had happened as to warrant a blackout. All we know is that in 1883, one fine day the Maharishi summoned Tagore to see him in Shimla
. No one knows what happened but a few days later Rabi was married to a hastily procured bride, a child of one of their estate hands. An illiterate, uncultured 10 year old who was dispatched to a Loreto
convent immediately for education.
Two months following this hasty marriage Rabindra published his next collection of poems and songs under the title " Chabi O Gaan " . As in the past and as would be in the future, this book was also dedicated to Lady He. What Kadambari felt about his marriage is unclear. Some say that she herself was involved in the selection of Bhabatarini, hoping that a thin, unattractive girl would be rejected by Rabi but was taken aback by his acceptance and had spiralled into depression. Some say she was the one person in the Tagore Manor who was uninterested in seeing him get married or being of aid in the matter. But all the above are mere speculations and fade in the light of a poem that was included in Rabi's first book post marriage.
Rahur Prem.
Rahu, in Hindu mythology is the name of the demon who swallows the moon as eclipse through his shadow. Ponder, if you will the lyrics of this poem ....
"I am your companion from the beginning of time, for I am your own shadow.
In your laughter, in your tears, you shall sense my dark self hovering near you, now in front, now behind.
At the dead of night when you are lonely and dejected, you’ll be startled to find how near I am seated by you, gazing into your face
Wherever you turn, you will see me. My shadow will taper off to the sky but it will enshroud the whole world.
My miserable voice and sinister smile will resound in all directions because I am the hunger never appeased, the thirst never quenched.
I am always there, a dagger in your breast, a poison in your mind, a disease in your body.
Just as the night comes at the end of the day, I am behind you and that is your destiny".
("Rahu"s love).
Imagine, if you will, a woman trapped in a loveless, childless marriage, perhaps broken hearted at the marriage of her childhood lover. Imagine her inner turbulence caused by a dilemma of the highest moral order, her increasingly feeble attempts at propriety. Her self-denial and helplessness in fighting off the passion of her childhood playmate, friend and soul mate.
Then imagine, this woman reading the verse above.
For the first time in the history of poetry, a bard had compared the all-consuming obsessive love that blossoms between two souls with the consumption of the beautiful, virginal moon by the shadow of the eclipse, the demon Rahu. Here, unlike his earlier romantic works there was no talk of sentiments. Rahu's love is not the platonic love of friends or playmates.
Rahu's Love is the insatiable hunger of frustrated desire, pursuing the object of it's passion ,as dark as his own shadow self. The imagery that Rabindra used in this poem was not only crude and sordid, it was blatant to the point of mockery. Whether directed at his father and family or at Kadambari herself we will never know. But we have to be blind to not know that the poem was a counter assault in response to his forced marriage and separation from his beloved.
Through this poem Rabi the boy was asserting the end of his boyhood romanticism and tenderness that marked his poems. Gone was the shy boy whose poems spoke of platonic and universal love. Rahu's love, his declaration of his inner self was his war cry. Rahu's love, declares that it is the love that is all consuming, devoid of discipline and kindness towards the moon, the object of passion. He declares that he will hang about her, his dark love a knot that will never be untied, his ruthless desire to consume her again and again in his shadow will be an iron chain fastened to her feet. Whether she likes him or not, there is no escape for her, for his shadow is her fate, her companion and soul mate since the beginning of time.
Hekate, the moon goddess however would have the last say over the love of the Demon, she wouldn't be the prisoner of his desire. She would change her fate. She would end her inner conflict between love and family honour on her own terms, leaving Rahu, Bhanu Simha, Rabi and Ravindra, all composites of her soulmate in an agony worse than death.
Two months after the publication of Rahur Prem, Jorasanko manor was shaken to it's core when it's young, beautiful 25 year old daughter-in-law took her own life through an opium overdose and Rabindra's criticism of his family business as Death Trade became the greatest irony of his life.
She quickly became his first and only childhood playmate. And if you believe in coincidences it was at this point that Tagore's first poem was written. Nevertheless, his abstinence from schooling and determined avoidance of education remained unchanged. With death of his mother at 13, his playmate graduated to the responsibility of being little Rabi's caretaker. She would cook tasty dishes for him. Most of all her aplomb in handling this problem child is revealed by her one move that Rabi would recollect for years. She loved books, both prose and poetry and every time she procured a new one she would send for the maverick who hated school books to read one to her while she fanned herself.
Tagore recollects " No electric fans were available that time. While I was reading aloud, I was tickled by the soft swish of wind coming from my sister-in-law's fan.
The touch of the wind on my face had an extraordinary aroma".
One of his innumerable sketches of women include this moment, such was the effect on him, decades later.
Such was her expertise in handling him with affection as well as her subtle manipulation in keeping him in check. " Neither your looks nor your poetry impress me." was her disdainful retort if ever he seemed arrogant or precocious.
Rabi, after the death of his mother was now nurtured by the affection of this playmate and friend with whom he shared so many passions. As like him, Kadambari loved nature and birds, even turning the terrace into a beautiful garden. She was a voracious reader and she and Rabi spent many an hour nose deep in literature, poetry and music. She was the first to read his poems and dispelled his shyness in sharing his poetry. But as is the case with any two souls who share such levels of intimacy over the years, their relationship, as their adolescence progressed was evolving into an alchemical resonance.
Rabi now started calling her He, for Hekate, the primordial Graeco-Roman goddess of the Moon, the goddess who held dominion over all things feminine and yin. Even to the novice this nomenclature of his friend reveals the metamorphosis of a platonic equation - when one considers that Ravindra's own name means, literally, Sun-God !!!.
And Kadambari herself started calling him by the name Bhanu-Simha ( Sun-Lion). This was the name under which Tagore published his first book of poems in 1877 at the age of 16 rather than his own given name. And the dedication of the book , translated from Bengali reads ...
" For Lady He "
Was the metamorphosis of this erstwhile trouble maker who had escaped school after prestigious school rooted in his desire to please the one woman, the one soul who had cared for him and showered her nurturing and affection ? For if there was one thing Bhanu knew that pleased Hekate, it was the Word, prose or poem, followed by song and music. In fact his first poem that he showed Kadambari, shyly, celebrated the love between Radha and Krishna and it was she who goaded him to explore and display his talent.
Platonic yet precariously perched on the line of propriety, morality and societal norms, their bond was starting to attract attention within the Jorasanko crowd. Those who had never really cared or paid attention to this immensely gifted child subject to bullying by servants, friendless, trapped in a palace, now became aware of him. Thanks to a child bride who had helped him blossom by being his playmate, friend, sister and mother, who was ignored all this while but now because of their chemistry was attracting attention and criticism. Rabi's escape from a prestigious European college and back into Kadambari's company was nothing but a prelude to an explosion waiting to happen.
If there is a Yin for every Yang, then for every Leonardo Da Vinci there is a Bernini. He was a man who could not only make stones sing, he made them scream, weep and rage. The story and moment he captured in marble would scorch the psyche of the observer with it's intact emotional range. Here is where mere paintings bite the dust. No kind of technique, no brush stroke, no genius can ever beat the genius of Bernini's story telling in stone. A Raja Ravi Verma fanatic, I humbly bow to Bernini and his old fashioned classical style.
Far from being a social deviant, he was an artist who was a deeply religious Catholic. That he was grounded so deeply in the light of his faith screams out more than anything when you behold the darkness he communicated through " The Rape of Proserpina ". The old familiar tale of a fair maiden being snatched by a brute echoes through the annals of history. Be it Sita, Helen of Troy, Draupadi or Proserpina. The theme, so powerfully loaded with base emotions has never exploded through art except with Ravi Verma's " Jatayu Vadham " and and Bernini's " Rape of Proserpina."
With his usual use of colours and bold approach Varma does poignantly display the raw power and lust through his painting. The look of animal-ism on Ravana's face as he kills the noble bird trying to save Sita who cowers in the shock, terror and despair of her violating abduction ... No doubt one can feel pity and disgust. But they are also rooted in the discomfort of being faced by so taboo a theme.
Were the story to play itself in front of us what would we really feel ?
Here is where stones beat canvases and Vatican's puritanical, golden boy slaps you in the face with his exploding realism. To know how you would really feel stare at his sculpture from all angles. Feel the violation of the girl's delicate, virginal skin with Pluto's fingers digging deep into them where he is holding her. See her mouth open in a silent scream, eyes dilated in terror and despair and tears, yes tears running down her cheeks in marble, even as Pluto's own face is suffused with the delight of victory. Bernini's chisel turns marble into a fluid,mellifluous garment wherein he weaves,unashamedly, the raven darkness that exists in our human world.
When stones sing.
