Page 55 - English Class 08

Bengali, not because it was easier, but because it brought me closer to my home, my people

and the ways I was used to.
Although I may have been too young to read then with full understanding. I devoured works

of distinguished Bengali authors such as Bankim Chatterjee whose novels taught me some of
India’s history in a colourful entertaining way. These and the plays of DL Roy were far better,
I thought, than any history class in school. Through Roy’s plays I learned of happenings in
the Muslim and other periods, and acquired a very fanciful and romantic view of history. My

favourite stories were those of Sarat Chandra and I must have read every-one fifteen or
twenty times. His books made me very much aware of being not only an Indian, but a
Bengali and they showed me my Bengal the people and the villages, the warmth, the old
traditions and every aspect of these people to whom I felt so close. Events of our past and

affairs of the present that I never could have been aware of otherwise in Paris were revealed
to me through all my readings.

So, while I was in Paris, a very strong national even regional-feeling was developing in me, as
so often happens when one is away from his homeland. I poured over all V day’s books with
pictures of the cave and temple art, volumes and volumes of them and I absorbed all the
stories that explained each illustration. I really fell in love with India and its past and so it

was easy and most natural for me to take up music and especially dance in the beginning
based on our ancient tales.

I was hungry for anything in Bengali and I grabbed all the magazines and pictorial reviews
that came from home. Weekly and monthly I consumed and even subscribed to some of our
children’s magazines. I absorbed all our traditions and ways of thinking from these books
and periodicals and they created my whole world.

When I was thirteen or fourteen, I began to read Tagore – his essays, poems, plays and short
stories. Men of them went over my head at first, but I enjoyed them nevertheless. Some of

his thematic poems, based on Jat aka stories moved me even to tears and the beauty of all
he wrote, deeply penetrated my spirit. When our troupe came to India on tour for the first
time, to Bolpur, near Calcutta, which is a large centre established by Tagore himself. Tagore
was there, sitting in a huge chair like a king or like a majestic lion, with those piercing, clear

eyes. We all went up and did the pranam before him and gave his blessing to everyone.
When I went up before him, I remember he said one
feudal lords : rich land owners
thing to me: ‘Be great like your father and your
during the middle ages
brother’ and when he put his hand on my head, a
magical thrill went all through me. I have never seen a man living in such beauty. Tagore’s
family, extremely cultured, literate and handsome people, were like feudal lords , almost like

royalty. And he gave everything away to his institution. It was to be a general college as he

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