WRT: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/27140

thanks arnab for the articles. rabindranath, from the time he started
receiving accolades for his insurmountable genius, has been the target of
continual mud slinging on his name. on one side, a group of people would
try to prove he was super-human [he may have been, in his genius and ahead
of time thinkings--but not in the sense these people try to portray him,
as being above any human fallibilities], on the other hand there has been an
organized attempt through ages, with different people taking lead, to
smear his name with a vengeance that borders on personal grudge--i don't know
why[proving his vastness???]. in any other place in the world, where a
particular language-based community has been blessed by a genius even of
lesser capabilities, the people have welcomed it as a boon from heaven and
tried to advertise the fact to the world, instead of trying to bring down
the person's status in the eyes of the people. not bengalis. we are, sad
to say, unique in our personal egos, and in our miniscule divisivenesses.
rabindranath was a human being. please! he was first and foremost a
human being. accepting this, we have to acknowledge, accept and admit of the
vast, awe-inspiring genius that dazzles our eyes--as a poet, as a writer,as a
philosopher--and yes, as a littérateur who tried to help his society in many
ways, which he did not have to do to get any prizes, awards and name, that were
coming his way anyway. the things he tried required a lot of courage, a lot of
enterprising efforts and most of all a lot of conviction in his mind--to spend
his money [unlike popular demeaning attempt to portray him as a typical zamindar
who could spend his money at random and at whims dictated, he had to sell his
wife's jewelry to build santiniketan and throughout the whole process money was
his main worry], his time, his efforts that required a lot of patience and
fights with disappointments and heartbreaks and so on and so forth. he had to
have a vision that he believed in and was committed to. this by itself is a
rare quality in any individual.

the latest muds slung at him are--he was not for women's cause, rather was
just the opposite. examples are being taken out from his life and from
excerpts from his vast writings without context at the wills of the
contenders, the opposite examples conveniently ignored.

i have been working for women's cause for the last almost 14 years, and
have been trained as an advocate for oppressed women more than three times for
it. when i was getting the trainings, and when i read writings of famous
feminists and activists, i was amazed at the similarities of thoughts that were
imparted in some of rabindranath's writings such as strir patro[please don't say
it is the only example and has been cited many times--it is not the only
example, and just because it has been cited before does not make it uncitable
anymore--i have heard this argument before so put this in], jogajog--even
chitrangada--there are many more examples.

i was amazed to think that he was writing these during the late 1900's and early
2000 era, and nobody coached him for this--these were coming from his mind
uncoached, untrained and unprovoked by any other sources! if a man of that era,
who was a social man, and had to do many typical 'social' things to stay in that
society--even giving dowry for his daughters, taking multiple demands from bad
sons in law for the sake of the daughters, marrying a 12 year old as the society
demanded and so on and so forth--i have to give him the nomination for a totally
ahead of times sensitive thinker, who could feel the pains
and sufferings of women as an oppressed group in the society--and spoke
against it! what else can i expect from a littérateur! and why do we have to
bring in charges against him on the contrary because he did some typical things
that society demanded and could not go above it [just to remind you, he did
marry his son to a widow, which was ground-breaking for the society of that
time--here he had the upperhand as a groom's father, and he did not think twice
about it--very few upholders of the society of that time could even think of
doing that].

as a human being who primarily was a poet and a philosopher, he possessed
a sensitive mind and was sensitive to a lot of societal oppressions.
sometimes he could do something about them, sometimes he could not,
because he was a human being. as a father of three daughters, as the youngest
son of a pretty bossy father he could not be 'radical' many times. he tried to
express his pain through writings and thoughts that were so ahead of times that
only now they are being openly thought out in the western worlds [in jogajog he
spoke about marital rape, which, to many of our country men is still a man's
right!].

some argue that he has written some articles that speak of women in a
'derogatory' manner, such women should be griholokkhi and so on...again,
he was a human being, and in his vast writings many of which may have been
written as lectures he had to give, or requests he had to write in a
hurry, it is no surprise to me. i am not discounting their importance, but
these articles do not discount the ones which are fiery examples of his
jugantokari chinta on women's issues.

i can go on by giving more and more examples and arguing endlessly, but
it is high time we need to stop this pendulum of 'character
assassination'/deification attempts on rabindranath and consider him as a human
being at the same time accept him for the vast personality that he was. if we
can do that, it will only enhance our collective 'ego' rather than deplete it.
instead of going back and doing the age-old thing of trying to smear
rabindranath [and by doing that proving his greatness even more] let us move
forward. let the modern writers show how naribadi they are--some of them are
disappointing me immensely!

indira chakravorty