Songs of Tagore

This book has emerged from the author's attempts to translate songs of Rabindranath Tagore for non-Bengali listeners and members of singing groups that the author has directed, and for participants in international seminars and workshops where songs have been exchanged as a cultural dialiogue between nationalities in-between intellectual exchanges. An introductory chapter of the author's `personal journey' with his translations. Thereafter the author discusses the place of song in Tagore's philosophy; as a pathway and communication as the poet saw it between the human and the Divine; Tagore's own conception of aesthetic singing, major thought trands in Tagore's songs expressing as they do the poet's own awareness of life; and the relation between words and melody in Tagore's masterly works as a composer. The book contains translations of some 66 songs of Tagore under majore themes. A chapter has been devoted to discussing and presentiong the poet's profound sense of identijty with mature as expressed in his songs on nature and its individual seasons. The book also presents selections of paintings of a group of artists who have joined in a companion project to do paintings on songs of their choice from those presented in this book and have presented them in an exhibition at Dhaka in August 1999.