8/17/2019 Arts Gaze by Lubna Marium_09MAY2016

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Arts Gaze by Lubna Marium

#freeTagore

'Pochishe Boishakh', the birth anniversary of Bengal's very own PoetLaureate, brings with it a blitz of performances base on !agore'sliterature an, also brings on, an onslaught of iscussions anebates about the relationship between the te"ts, it's performancean it's ownership# $ith !agore this iscussion is inunate analmost overcome with %uestions of 'purity' an 'preservation'#

Let me, right in the beginning, clearly state that & am all fore"ploring newer ways of unerstaning !agore's literary works, withthe goal of peeling away layers of suggestiveness, inference aneven, at times, concealment# &n &nian Poetics this uni%ue ability of

genuine literature is known as 'vyanana' ( the capacity to hie thecore essence of the te"t beneath its more munane literal sense#

 !agore himself has stresse, many a time, that the language of artnees to be more inicative than escriptive, such as in thefollowing passage from )Kabbo: Sposhto ebong Awsposhto’ * In poetry it is often seen language does not explicitly express the spirit of the emotions, rather through suggestion it directs us towards it.Here unexpressed symbolism supersedes language. houghaccuracy is generally necessary, at times li!e these we ha"e noneed for lucidity.

&t is, therefore, %uite obvious that a te"t may have severalinterpretations, given the e"periential sphere of each reaer#

An, then comes the %uestion of 'ownership'# &nian poeticsrecognizes the fact that literature is a triumvirate e"perienceinvolving the creator, the actor an the 'sahriaya' or connoisseur of art# Abhinavagupta, the +th century philosopher, mystic anaesthetician from -ashmir, goes so far as to state that all of artbelongs e%ually to the creator an the relisher# .nce in the public

omain, a work of art ( literature, painting, music ( shares ownershipwith the connoisseur#

.n May /, 0+1 Banglaesh 2hilpakala Acaemy release two shortfeature 3lms base on !agore's writings, mae uner its subsiy# !he 3rst was !okon !hakur's '4aputtur' base on selections ofaolescent 3ctions from !agore's anthology '2he'5 while the seconwas 2umona 2ii%ue's 'Maho' base on a poem, of the samename, in !agore's anthology '6horar 6hobi'#

 !he 2hilpakala Acaemy nees to be congratulate for this

eneavor an for allowing the irectors the freeom to interpret !agore, as they chose# .n that count, itself, both were enoyable,

8/17/2019 Arts Gaze by Lubna Marium_09MAY2016

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 !okon's being more abstract an imaginative, while 2umona took amore literal roa through marvelous cinematography epicting theboy, Maho, an his aore og Botu# &, though, was left wantingfor a more poetic interpretation of the last verse, translate roughlyas*

#And so he $ourneyed homeland, where home itself was no more,%other had died, &ather too, shac!les all undone,hey embar!ed on the $ourney with hope in their hearts.'ould displaced roots (nd, again, the soil they had left behind7'8Maho, !agore9 !he poeticism of the 'uproote' coul, maybe, have been aressemore#

& suppose maturity will bring a eeper unerstaning of the'vyanana' behin both the short writings# :onetheless, theseproects nee to continue#

& woul like to conclue by saying that, as Bengalis we cannot enythat we have not one enough to take !agore;s literature to theworl# $hereas stalwarts like 2hakespeare an &bsen have beenaopte, aapte an performe worlwie, !agore continues to be,more or less, imprisone within the con3nes of the Bengali speakingcommunity# :one will isagree that the universal message of hiswritings nees to be isseminate far an wie# But, is thatpossible without letting him loose from our emotional apron strings7

& for one woul like to see !agore set free from all coes ofpuritanism an convention, for all to imagine him, to perform him, torelish him as they want#

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