Poets and Readers

When I was a child, I was surrounded by those who talked of national poets. Pushkin was a big name. Nirala and Dinkar were big names. So were Wordsworth, Milton and Yeats. But nobody ever quite crossed the mark which was set by Tagore. Tagore was the man. He did things that nobody had foreseen. His literature was vast. His works alone meant more than all of Hindi literature combined - his literature so great that even the English swore by it.

Yet there were very few who had read what he wrote. The exhortations to walk alone were sung on TV and his poems on national pride were engraved or sung as anthems. They imparted a sense of comfort and continuity when I read them transcribed, engraved on marble in a script I could read. But that mythical and feminine country of his pride, was a lot less mythical than those who swore by his name. In their minds and speech, he was of an order so tall that it precluded most of us from reading him. Understanding him was nearly impossible.

When I grew up, the hypocrisy had given in and soon died along with communism. We cried for the sad end of a comrade in a battle for the poor. The poets were no more relevant in the new world. Dinkar-Nirala, Yeats-Keats became things for the feeble-minded - unproductive lovers of literature who couldn't feed themselves. The biographies of CEOs made more sense now. Everyone wanted to be them. Unread by most, Tagore's name licked the dust of time. Those other poets not as great as him slowly passed out of memory as well.

Where are the poets now? Who writes and who reads? Are we up for revival again or can we descend into chaos much worse than ours? For Tagore to live or relive, I wish we could just read like he did. Reading any poetry could do perhaps - of any language or any race. Let's never claim anyone's greatness without reading him.