An excerpt - "In certain years in Calcutta, birds strange to the city used to come and build in our banyan tree. They would be off again almost before I had learnt to recognize the dance of their wings, but they brought with them a strange lovely music from their distant jungle homes. So, in the course of our life's journey, some angel from a strange and unexpected quarter may cross our path, speaking of the language of our own soul, and enlarging the boundaries of the heart's possessions. She comes unbidden, and when at last we call for her she is no longer there. But as she goes, she leaves on the drab web of our lives a border of embroidered flowers, and our night and day are for ever enriched."
Tagore's five short stories in this anthology are folkloric, sometimes sad or humorous, somewhat other worldly, and always entertaining. They expose the hues of Bengal better than paintings with their brilliant characterizations and finite details of place and time. Here's a sampling from The Raj Seal: "An old story came to his mind. An ass was pulling a temple car along the sacred way, and the passers-by, prostrating themselves in the dust before it were offering their pranams. 'They are all worshipping me,' the foolish ass thought. 'There's only one small difference between that ass and me,' the elder brother told himself. 'I have at last realized that it is not my person the British sahibs respect, but the jacket weighing on my shoulders.'"
Tagore's play The Post Office is included in its entirety. It's very childlike and simplistic in structure, yet it is poignantly profound with its message that death is serene; "...that great ocean of truth to which all life returns".
The Nobel Prize for literature was awarded to him in 1913. Part of the tribute was for Tagore's poetry, particularly Gitanjali; however, there is too small of a sample (four stanzas) to truly appreciate it. My favorite from the anthology was Flute Music, an autobiographical poem.
Tagore the philosopher is evident in his essays and letters. In his letters he takes on the persona to whom the letter is addressed. The debate with Einstein "On the Nature of Reality" leaves the reader uncertain as to who was more convincing. A rebuke to Gandhi reads like the good counsel of a loving older brother. (It was Tagore who gave Gandhi the honorific title, Mahatma.)
The three excerpts from his novel The Home and the World have induced me to order the book, which is still in print. When Hermann Hesse reviewed the German translation, he praised it for its "purity and grandeur".
Now, I could only hope for more of his writings to become translated and accessible.