The scion of an illustrious and wealthy Bengali family, Rabindranath Tagore was a poet and writer par excellence and one of the first modernists of his time. A cultural icon of his native Bengal, he wrote in a more colloquial form of the Bengali language, giving its literature a contemporary voice. His writing was meditative and contemplative and explored topical themes such as Indian nationalism and religious zeal. In Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World), for example, the hero Nikhil criticises the excesses committed by nationalists in the early 20th century. Another novel, Gora, is a study of the Indian identity and personal freedom in the context of a family relationship and a love triangle. Ghare-Baire was made into a film by renowned Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray.
The gifted Tagore, who was also a visual artist, composer, playwright and painter, became India’s and Asia’s first Nobel Laureate when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, for Gitanjali (Song Offerings), a collection of poems that he had translated into English. He was knighted by the British Crown in 1915 but returned the honour a few years later in protest against British policies in India.
Tagore wrote in all the literary genres but was best known for his poetry, notably Manasi (The Ideal One), a collection of some of his best poems and social and political satire; Sonar Tari (The Golden Boat); Gitimalya (Wreath of Songs) and Balaka (The Flight of Cranes). Besides novels and short stories, Tagore also wrote musical dramas, dance dramas, essays, travel diaries, two autobiographies and songs for which he composed the music himself. At the age of almost 70, Tagore took up painting and produced some highly acclaimed works, making a name for himself in this creative field too.
Indian National Anthem Composed By Tagore
India’s national anthem, Jana Gana Mana, was one of the many songs composed by Rabindranath Tagore. It was originally written in Bengali and was first sung on 27 December 1911 at the Calcutta meeting of the Indian National Congress party. The Hindi version of the song was adopted by the Constituent Assembly as the national anthem of India on 24 January 1950, two days before India was declared a republic.
The Indian literary tradition shifted from the subjects of gods and kings in ancient and medieval times to explore real-life issues such as social reform, caste and class tensions, conflicts, poverty, corruption and family themes, including the plight of widows, in the early 20th century. Munshi Premchand, born Dhanpat Rai Srivastava, was one of the harbingers of this genre, pioneering fiction with a social purpose. He departed from the mythical and escapist literature prevalent at the time to write about the realities of the common man in rural India.
Writing in simple prose in Hindi and Urdu, Premchand composed stories from his own experiences, without the frills of popular literature. His last novel, Godaan (The Gift of a Cow), is considered the best of his extensive body of writing that includes 250 short stories, plays and more than a dozen novels. In Godaan, Hori, a poor peasant, desperately longs for a cow, which he believes will make him rich in his village. He does eventually get a cow but pays for it with his life.
Premchand’s other noteworthy works include Gaban (Embezzlement), Sevasadan (House of Service) and Nirmala among the novels, and Sadgati (Salvation) and Shatranj ke Khiladi (The Chess Players) among the short stories. Gaban, Shatranj ke Khiladi and Sevasadan have been made into feature films, while Sadgati has been produced for television.
It was in 1981 that India-born Salman Rushdie won the highly coveted Booker Prize for Midnight’s Children, his portrayal of India after it gained independence in 1947. Since then two other Indian writers have claimed the prize, Arundhati Roy in 1997 for The God of Small Things and Kiran Desai for The Inheritance of Loss in 2006. The three belong to an elite group of Indian writers who have earned international acclaim for their part-autobiographical, part-fictional novels that present India and Indians through the prism of their unique experiences.
Rushdie’s Booker Prize-winning novel relates the story of Saleem Sinai, who was born at midnight on 15 August 1947, at the exact time when India broke free from British colonial rule. (Rushdie himself was born in Mumbai in June 1947.) Written in what has been called magic realism because of the way it merges the supernatural with the realistic, Rushdie attempts, through the unfolding of Saleem Sinai’s life, to trace the developments in the tumultous Indian subcontinent after its partition and his own childhood years spent in Mumbai. The novel was also awarded the Booker of Bookers Prize in 1993 and made it to Time magazine’s prestigious list of the 100 best English-language novels since 1923. Other books by Rushdie include Shame, the highly controversial The Satanic Verses and The Moor’s Last Sigh. In subsequent works, Rushdie has explored Indian, Pakistani and Western themes, but Midnight’s Children is considered his best work so far.
Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things was her first book and is the only novel she has written. Set in the 1960s in a small town in Kerala, The God of Small Things relates the story of fraternal twins Rahel and Estha, and their family, from the perspective of seven-year-old Rahel. The two live with their mother, Ammu, their grandmother, uncle and grandaunt. The family owns a pickle factory and comes into conflict with the Communists over it. A pivotal event for the children is the tragic drowning of their visiting half-English cousin, Sophie Mol. The twins are separated and Rahel returns to the village at the age of 31 to find a decaying house and a fragmented family. This politically charged novel reveals interesting nuances of life in the Syrian Christian community in Kerala. It delves into the destructive aspects of the caste system as portrayed by Ammu’s affair with a man from a lower caste.
Since winning the Booker Prize in 1997, Roy has turned activist and written about political issues close to her heart. Her subsequent works include The Algebra of Infinite Justice, a collection of essays, and The Greater Common Good, dealing with concerns such as the Narmada Dam project and India’s nuclear weapons.
Kiran Desai’s Booker Prize-winning The Inheritance of Loss is the writer’s second novel, written while she was studying creative writing at Columbia University. Her first novel, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, was critically acclaimed and received the Betty Trask Award for authors from Commonwealth countries. Kiran Desai is the daughter of Anita Desai, a distinguished author herself, who has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times but has never won it.
The Inheritance of Loss, described as ‘a radiant, funny and moving family saga’ by the Booker Prize judges, is set in the foothills of Mount Kanchenjunga in Kalimpong, India. It relates the story of a cranky old judge who wants nothing more than to be left alone to live in peace. But the arrival of his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, and her budding romance with her tutor shatters this desire. The story is complicated by the threat of an insurgency in neighbouring Nepal. The judge is forced to revisit his past, to try to make some sense of the present.