Google has a ‘rare photograph’ captioned ‘Two legends Rabindranath and Satyajit Ray!’, which shows Rabindranath Tagore seated at a desk and conversing with a small child standing at his elbow. When I asked Ray’s son, filmmaker Sandip Ray about the picture, he laughed. “No,” he said, “that must have been someone else. Father didn’t meet Tagore until he was in his early 20s, when he joined Kala Bhavana (Santiniketan) after graduating from Presidency College (Kolkata). And, by then, Tagore was busy touring for funds and other activities. So he probably saw him only a couple of times... But even that made an enormous impact on him.”

For Tagore’s birth centenary, Ray made a Films Division’s documentary on the Nobel laureate, and the same year he made the film Teen Kanya , based on three stories by Tagore. While both the documentary and Teen Kanya have been seen and appreciated by many, another audio-biography made by him has been overlooked for some strange reason. It was released in 2000 as part of a book and CD collection jointly produced by All India Radio (AIR) and Visva-Bharati University.

Even Sukanta Chaudhuri, professor emeritus in Jadavpur University’s department of English and founding director of the School of Cultural Texts and Records, who coordinated Bichitra, an online Tagore variorum, admitted he hadn’t known of its existence. On June 16, he introduced the audio-documentary to a select audience at an event organised by the Indo-British Scholars’ Association (IBSA) at the British Council Library, Kolkata. An IBSA member, Suman Chakraborty was sharing the rare audio-documentary from his family collection. It was a resurrection of sorts.

As the opening song of awakening and hope, ‘Ananda-dhwani jagao gagane’, sung by Santiniketan students, faded, one expected Ray’s baritone to take over the narrative. Instead, what we have are voices upon voices, sounds and music — all linked by Ray’s narrative — that touched nearly every aspect of the great man’s life. From his first book, Kabi Kahini , at age 13, to his first great poetic inspiration when the “ancient mist” lifted and he was aware of “inner radiance”, “the awakening of the waterfall” — the voices somehow make the experience first-hand.

And the gamut of recordings is astounding. From the late 19th century, when an 18-year-old Tagore was sent to study in England, we hear him entertaining his sister-in-law Jnanadanandini (wife of Satyendranath Tagore) and her children with a song, his voice hilariously adapted to the sonic limitations of one of the earliest phonographs. Other voices include EM Forster, DH Lawrence, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Leonard Knight Elmhirst, CF Andrews... in one place, the great actress Sybil Thorndike recites, “My songs are like water plants...”

Significantly, Ray used none of these audio recordings in his visual documentary. His genius is apparent in how he used the different strengths of the two mediums to present two different experiences of Tagore’s life. So the audio has descriptions of a seated Tagore who “didn’t speak much”, and when he did “the voice was gentle,” his presence had a “quietness and dignity”... There were many who were “overawed” and “couldn’t utter a word in his presence”.

Ray points out that the adulation for Tagore did not necessarily mean adulation for his work, as the multitudes that greeted him on his tours were not all conversant with all his writings. Like Einstein (whose work was also not generally understood) “he belonged to that rare category” of men whose face had “an inner radiation that flashes far beyond their direct actions or their works”.

“It would have been enough,” says Ray, “if Tagore did nothing else in life other than try to bridge the gulf between East and West, to place humanity on a broader base...” But beyond poet, novelist, dramatist, short story writer, painter, composer, educationist and social reformer, he was also a caring husband and father. His son Rathindranath describes how he nursed his wife day and night and, “when conveyance was not available”, walked beside the dandi carrying his sick daughter Rani from one health resort to another. Then there is Tagore singing, reading, and reciting. Chaudhuri said, “Here Tagore was reading from his Jibonsmriti ; I didn’t know he had translated it into English!”

Clearly the product of extensive research and meticulous planning, the audio-biography, like the documentary, ends in a celebration of hope. But there’s no mistaking Tagore’s anguish as he delivers his last speech — on the crisis of civilisation — on his 80th birthday, much like a Shakespearean hero ranting against the times.

The Satyajit Ray Society now plans a compilation of Ray’s work for AIR. “There were several interviews, speeches on his own composition and those of others entitled ‘On Music I Live By’ or ‘What Beethoven Means To Me’ and ‘What Mozart Means To Me’. We hope to work things out soon,” said son Sandip.

Sebanti Sarkaris a freelance writer based in Kolkata

Published on June 30, 2017