Translation and Performance of Poetry and Songs

‘Songs,’ Rabindranath Tagore wrote, ‘are entirely the play of creation. As the rainbow appears, like the magic formation of rain and sun, a built-up archway of two whimsical temperaments in the sky, an exquisite moment proceeds on its triumphal journey through this archway. In an instant the play is over, the moment passes by waving its coloured garment: there is nothing more. Song-poems are nothing but this temperamental play of colour. If the poet of the rainbow were accosted and asked, “What is one to make out from all this?” the reply one would meet with would be “Nothing!” “Then?” “It pleases me!”–the pleasure of the pure form, to every challenge, to creation, this is the last answer.’

For long considered untranslatable, Tagore’s songs express most profoundly his romantic and religious perceptions. Sugata Bose aims to convey the artistic value of Tagore’s songs beyond the limits of his province. The first part, ‘Oceanic Songs’, introduces the lyrics and tunes of the songs to a foreign audience through a narrative of Tagore’s travels during which he communicated with the wider world. Since Tagore wrote only forty of his nearly 2500 songs on his journeys abroad, the second part presents a selection of ‘songs in five genres’. This book endeavours to reach Tagore’s songs to people beyond the borders of India, transcending the barriers of language on the wings of music.

Published by Random House in India in 2012.