Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Reading Tagore

I am reading Tagore's letters, "Glimpses of Bengal -1885 to 1895." They are not really letters but more like diary entries. I suspect this is because in those days letters meant writings, as in Arts and Letters.

Since Tagore's work has hopped over the copyright hindrances, I can quote him in large chunks without looking over my shoulder.

There is an entry that applies to our present day dilemma of building flimsy seaside towns and high-rises. This piece is so poetically written and is so true of where I live in Florida.

"Bandora by the Sea, October 1885

The unsheltered sea heaves and heaves and blanches into foam. It sets me thinking of some tied-up monster straining at its bonds, in front of whose gaping jaws we build our homes on the shore and watch it lashing its tail.

What immense strength, with waves swelling like the muscles of a giant!

From the beginning of creation there has been this feud between land and water: the dry earth slowly and silently adding to its domain and spreading a broader and broader lap for its children; the ocean receding step by step, heaving and sobbing and beating its breast in despair.

Remember the sea was once sole monarch, utterly free. Land rose from its womb, usurped its throne, and ever since the maddened old creature, with hoary crest of foam, wails and laments continually, like King Lear exposed to the fury of the elements."

The above description proves that Tagore is not only the giant in poetry and spirituality, but he is also a giant with the written word.