WRT: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/27135
and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/27126

Jaffor bhai

I strongly disagree with you. Yes, there are very important issues
in social, political, international arena, especially while we are
awaiting another deadly monstrous hurricane in the Gulf coast. But,
in MM, we discuss lot of issues which has socio-political-economic
implications. Rabindarnath is a huge topic, our Bengali thinking
process about literature, social values, spirituality and of course
women is so much influenced and shaped by this that we can not just
treat him as a poet only. He is so important that we should not only
judge him with his novels or poetry or music, he is much bigger than
that. He had very distinct way of thinking about philosophy,
religion, spirituality, politics, social issues, women etc. His
pabondho's are very important for us to know about his values and
thoughts; we should do a comparative analysis of his work at his
time. I think it is perfectly alright to analyze the philosophy and
thoughts of a person who has this much influence on a nations mind
building. Someone mentioned that we should ignore his `loghu'
probondho; I do not understand how they are `loghu' and why they
should not be discussed. A writer creates many characters in his
novels; it is hard to judge him from that unless he shows a
consistent trend. So if we really want to know him, we have to read
his probondho and see how he was thinking and what he was suggesting
at that time. I think it is very important that we discuss this kind
of issues time to time, especially where we have such a big stake on
sensitive issues like women's right. I am hoping (have my fingers
crossed) that women's lib is not a `faltu' or `bogaus'issue to you!

To Raman Shah

You have asked for opinion from women about Rabindranath. I started
reading his golpo, uponyash and probondha's and other work when I was a teenager
and I
read quite a bit about socio-political history of India as well.
After I realized how he felt about women's lib in India comparing to
some others during his time it became very difficult for me to think
very highly of him on women's issues. Hoping to write an artcile on
his views about women in Bangla soon.

Bonna