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.
Well, my plan to wake up for the 4 a.m. darshan of Ma Dakshina Kali didn't materialise. As it is with such places, I slept like an infant and at 5:30 a.m. forced myself to awake so I could be in time for the 6 a.m. darshan. Trudging sleepily down the guest house lobby, I ran into a family headed to the temple and ganged up with them. Being long time Bengali devotees of the temple they told me awe- inspiring stories of how the 2000 strong crowd I saw the day before was actually because of the heatwave. It would have been easily twice that being the weekend. Why, just last December they remember standing in line behind 25000 in the shivering winter morning. Was I grateful to have missed that one !
We purchased white gallons to fill with water from the Ganga and made our way to the ghats.
It was a moment of moments. Beginning last January I had been summoned by some mysterious force to every significant Ganga Ghat .Hrishikesh, Varanasi and now as it makes it's way to the ocean, at Dakshineshwar. That familiar sight of pre-morning rituals on the ghat, families bathing and praying, filling white gallons of the holy water to take home ... I hope to decode the design behind this someday. As I took the 3 customary dips in the freezing January winter at Varanasi, it was half-belief and half- curiosity at exploring this ancient ritual. Then in the even more freezing November waters at Hrishikesh it was perhaps 3 quarters belief and a quarter of doubt at this coincidence. Now as I took my 3 dips, the magic of Bengal worked it's way, coursing through my nerves, deleting all that is contrary to belief. Belief in the Source. There could be more that has happened, time will tell.
I made my way to each Siva Temple, representative of all the jyotirlings and poured the water I had collected on each and every one of them. Along with many others chanting, singing devotees, an experience like no other. Outside on the sprawling courtyard a group of devotees had gotten hold of drums and broke into an impromptu song and dance performance that was mesmerising to watch. Their intonations of ancient mantras through song was a first. And like the evening before I let go of all my inhibitions and joined this group of men and women, adults, dancing and prancing like children. I broke out of the group to stand behind line for a darshan of Kali.
If the persona of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa , his message of love, peace and harmony does not clear your misconceptions of the reality behind Kali's fear inducing exterior - nothing else will. As the cosmic principle of Time, Death and Destruction Kali offers the seeds of regeneration and rebirth. Like a mother, Time is the womb of the Source through which all things are born, Kali being Time is the mother who offers new life. And mothers, are always of love. Through her seer Ramakrishna and his protegee Vivekananda, Dakshina Kali unleashed a new age of awakening. Ramakrishna was followed by a dozen Bengali New Age Gurus who spread the message of Self and God Realisation throughout the world irrespective of religion, race and creed. From Tagore, Ram Mohun Roy to Paramahamsa Yogananda and Anandamayee Ma.
This is the gift of Dakshina Kali, Ramakrishna and Bengal to the citizens of the world.
A new beginning into the light.
I had on my hands girls rescued from the street, raised in a shelter home away from families and now at the threshold of adult life. My interaction with them raised an issue they possibly never thought about. A complete absence of any religious training or spiritual education whatsoever.
Us, we are lucky. We get to choose what to follow. If we feel the way of our faith supplemented by our upbringing suits us we can follow that. If not, we have a wide array of choices made possible by the educated milieu to which we belong. We can read books, join classes and study groups to explore spirituality and any spiritual figures who appeal to us. We can do all this because we can afford the money and the leisure. Our basic and advanced needs are met to leave space for spiritual exploration and networking.
What about a group of girls that has neither the upbringing nor the conveniences above. Who have neither explored nor experienced the raw positivity that saints, seers and poets of yore have left as our inheritance, who have never discussed with anyone any virtue, any goodness, any source of higher power ? This was a truth that exposed my ignorance of how much of a privilege we have in these matters. As with food, positivity that comes from a spiritual source is the sustenance of the mind and soul. We need it, imperfect,irrational or unreal as it's source and form may be. This need leads us to astounding synchronicities and connections.
To my batch, I tentatively told them to explore any appreciation, respect or attraction they harbour towards any Deity, saint or role model. Need not be of your faith. Fearlessly abandon the monotony of regimented sheltered approach and explore the concepts of love and power in any shape or form that appeals to you. I didn't add that once they take that first step, beginner's luck will come into play and their minds and lives will follow a surprisingly planned course of action that will lead to the blossoming of their inner selves.
Isn't the above how most of us end up on our paths ? Exploring an initial attraction we find ourselves firmly following the plan of the deity or belief figure if not a path that has been paved by them. For what seems like the nth time my own conniving Krishna is taking me on a retreat one of his homes. The birth place of the modern day Bhakti Movement or Renaissance in India. The Nadia District of Bengal. That I should be on way to place I knew neither existence nor the significance of until I had the above interchange with the girls speaks volumes. As you give, you receive.
And the Single, Female, Backpacker's journey continues.
It was one of those internet sponsored synchronicities. A lovely American couple, touchingly took in 20 girls who had left a defunct shelter home and would have ended up on the streets of Kolkata. They found them new homes. Their education and vocational training is being taken care of by this pair with the sentimentality of parents, friends and siblings to these girls. And long story short, after I connected with this wonderful lady and the usual round of pleasantries were exchanged I found myself conducting a workshop for her cherished bunch.
The three hours I spent with them will be cherished as the most rewarding ones by far, a connection of souls with these young women who come from such humble circumstances we can't even begin to imagine. Full of hopeful longings yet a tad unsure, they seemed to need a mirror wherein to beckon their selves. Having spent a portion of their life in shelter homes they seemingly wore it as a badge, their self-definitions were shaky.At the commencement of the workshop I asked them to shares their names and then describe themselves, their inner selves through a word, more if necessary.One squeaky little voice volunteered and bravely announced her name in so unsure a tone I didn't get it. I told her and the group that your names are your identities, wear them with pride, utter them with dignity and confidence and the world will do the same. It was evident that it was the first time, in their underprivileged lives, that anyone had ever suggested their names to be deserving of respect as any of us.
The next task, of picking their word was by far the toughest and revealed how fragile and muddled their self-image was, or perhaps this is what they share with many of us. A word or more that encapsulates our soul's essence. But to know that we must know us, the real us, free from outer influences, in it's state of being. Unsurprisingly, a series of unconvincing attempts followed. Having seen such dire circumstances and hardships many of them said they felt sad for the poor, needy and destitute. Well, right there I revealed that this is an error - thinking of themselves vis-a-vis others. Moreover someone who needs pity and compassion - in other words themselves. And one of them even introduced herself as the product of a poor background.
We are not where we come from. it is not what defines us or imprisons us by any means. I shared with the girls this truth, one that we all need to know because we knowingly or unknowingly flow through life defining ourselves as what has been or what is. We are in fact all the potential within us, the Self that whether or not expressed will always be one of light and power. It may be hidden by circumstances, by our own weaknesses and helplessness. But it lives.
Waiting for us to give it a name, a word that will set it free.
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.
" Please make sure the kids are 14 and above,S." I was planning with great enthusiasm my first batch of children at the project that conducts activity workshops with underprivileged children. Everything that I had to teach, share and impart needed an adolescent mind. That my one, clear belief. " Well, we do have children in that age group but can the younger ones come too ? ", the programme director thought we could unleash the kraken and stay alive .... duh ... How would I ever get a bunch of pre -teens or worse to be interested in such ....... elevated ideas as breath control, focus, mental visualisations and meditation. And meditation BTW.
Our first workshop planned with great gusto as first things always are. I was breathlessly marching into the room when S told me that our target group .. well .. hadn't turned up in as great a number as planned. " it's the heat wave " .. Damn Kolkata summers. Quick to read my disappointment S added that the younger batch was here in full strength, why not start with them. I gulped down my disappointment and entered the room. Only to have to mild cardiac emergency.
It was not a group of pre-teens. It was a group of teeny-really teeny-weenies. Who looked at best between 5 to 10. And 4 girls above 10. Quick to assuage my horror, S added that they aren't that young, it's the undernourishment. No, knowing that still didn't help. Visualising them in their underpants didn't help. Imagining they were older and bulkier didn't help. Their own unconditional acceptance of me and what I had to teach transformed me in a jiffy. That I was able to get such little children do pranayama with the joy of Sachin playing the field was a shock. They breezed through the class leading me to believe that the worse was yet to come. How on earth would I get them to sit through a guided meditation without cracking up ??
I realised children are much more tuned into their spirit with far lesser blocks in their psyche than us adults. I couldn't believe the absolute,unconditional sincerity with which they followed my instructions. Of course almost all of them opened one eye from time to time to peep around at which I promptly flicked my fingers in a shutter down motion. However two of the boys who seemed like they had mild ADHD needed a firmer hand. After the third time they peeped an eye open and glanced at me I made the motion of sticking my talons in my eyes. Worked like a charm XD.
And so it was that a group of pre-teens humbled and freed me from my preconceptions and misgivings that age is more than a number.
"A Little Child Shall Lead Them". Isaiah 11:1-10.
