3 Review(s)

Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to political and personal topics. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced), and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalims, and contemplation. Tagore was perhaps the only literature who penned anthems of two countries: India and Bangladesh: Jana Gana Mana and Amar Shonar Bangla. Tagore's last four years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for an extended period. This was followed three years later, in late 1940, by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. The poetry Tagore wrote in these years is among his finest, and is distinctive for its preoccupation with death. After extended suggering, Tagore died on 7 August 1941 (22 Shravan 1348) in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion in which he was raised; his death anniversary in mourned across the Bengali-speaking world. Via translations, Tagore influened Hispanic literature: Chileans Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral, Mexican writer Octavio Paz, and Spaniards Jose Ortega y Gasset, Zenobia Camprubi, and Juan Ramon Jimenez. Between 1914 and 1922, the Jimenez-Camprubi spouses translated twenty-two of Tagore's books from English into Spanish and extensively revised and adapted such works as Tagore's The Crescent Moon. In this time, Jimenez developed “naked poetry” (Spanish: “poesia desnuda”) a landmark innovation. Ortegy y Gasset worte that “Tagore's wide appeal [may stem from the fact that] he speaks of longings for perfection that we all have...Tagore awakens a dormant sense of childish wonder, and he saturates the air with all kinds of enchanting promises for the reader, who...pays little attention to the deeper import of Oriental mysticism”. Tagore's works circulated in free editions around 1920 alongside those of Dante Alighieri, Miguel de Cervantes, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Plato, and Leo Tolstoy. About the Author Born in 1956 in Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka, where the colorful Yakshagana opera holds sway, Parameshwar Hedge was drawn into music at a very young age. He stated learning Hindustani music when he was barely ten. Very soon, under the guidance of Sri S. M. Bhat and Sri Chandrashekhar Puranika Math, his interest in music grew into a passion. It was in 1976 that Parmeshwar Hegde went to Dharwad to seek advanced training under Pt. Basavaraj Rajguru. The maestro took an immense liking for the young vocalist. Over a decade and a half, he lovingly taught Parameshwar Hegde the best compositions from his amazingly vast repertoire. An 'A' grade artist on All India Radio, Parameshwar Hegde has been featured in several natinal broadcasts. He has appeared on television also & is much sought after as a concert artiste. Now a resident of Bangalore, he is a major attraction at prestigious music festicals all over India and had also traveled on concert tours abroad, to the U.S.A. Canada, United Kingdom and the Gulf countries. Without doubt, Parameshwar Hegde is a new star in the framament of Indian classical music. Touched by the genious of Rajguru and illuminated by warm inner light all its own, his music brings joy to his admiring listeners.