Kaviguru Rabindranath Tagore

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Your shadow fell across my mother and father.
I listened to the Song Offerings’ best parts
learned by heart by my loving father,
heard my mother speak of Paresh Babu
as one of her ideal characters from books.
I read Wreck but was blown away by Gora
for teaching me how to invert a tale,
subversion before the word became common;
agreed for that you deserved the Nobel.
Heard of the man from Kabul,
felt sad when the Homecoming did not take place.
I wanted to be Upagupta,  love Chandalika and Kadambari
did not like the essays that showed intolerance.
I keep on multiplying my reading of you.
I loved Shanthi Nikethan so have not gone there.
Arya Samaj and Brahmo Samaj
impressed the Mar Thomites
(my mother was one before she wed)
who believe in ecumenism and wider ecumenism
and impressed even us C.S.I.
I taught your anjalis, archanas and Yeats’s introduction
so many times that I lost count –
my students blown away by ‘my’ insights.
Some shadows seem to grow longer as time goes by.
I no longer know if you are a curse or a blessing.
I only know your shadow now covers
– your songs, plays, paintings and all –
the entire horizon
while others who think they love you threaten
to blot out my cheerful, pure blue sky
for daring to think your lesson to me was
that I can be as great a writer as you
even if, unlike you, being born in a dull time
I cannot be as epic, colossal or epochal.
Happy birthday, Gurudev;
not to the you they all bow down to,
the one they think none can equal or surpass,
stunting all growth with that narrow view;
but to the one my mother and father
inspired me with, to take up the pen, among others:
The one they loved and passed on to me
in the same mode as you
in a clear, lyrical, simple and purely Tagorean way.

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About terrestrian@gmail.com

Dr A.V. Koshy is presently working as Assistant Professor in Dept. of English, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Jazan University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He has authored or co-authored seven or eight books of poetry, theory and criticism. He is an editor and anthologist. He is also a distinguished teacher of the English language and literature and a critic, with a Ph.D in modern poetry, specifically Samuel Beckett's poems in English. He was a Pushcart Prize nominee for poetry in 2012 and his book Art of Poetry was selected as Best Reads 2012 by Butterfly and the Bee. He has been editor's pick on Camel Saloon thrice and poet of the month thrice in Destiny Poets UK besides often having his poems appear in the highly selected category. Has other international awards, diplomas and certificates to his credit too.

20 thoughts on “Kaviguru Rabindranath Tagore”

  5. Louis Kasatkin

    Destiny Poets’ International Community of Poets ( ICOP ) are pleased to announce that for May 2013 , the following works have been chosen in the categories of Poem of the Month and Highly Commended . ** Poem of the Month **…” Kaviguru Rabindranath Tagore ” by Ampat Koshy……..* Highly Commended (12 ) (tabulated alphabetically) *…” Changelings ” by Gina McKnight…” Divine Drops ” by Soumya Mohanty Vilekar…” Drowning the Dialogues ” by Sangeeta Suneja…” For Jim ” by Rashmi Malapur…” Gardenias ” by Brett Kelly…” Lingering Echo ” by Elizabeth Castillo…” My choice ” by Jan Christian Sorensen…” My Utopian Child ” by Nalini Srivastava…” Pangs of Creativity ” by Tapeshwar Prasad…” The Watcher ” by Fathima Manal…” Without an ‘if’ ” by Iulia Gherghei…” Yellow Flowers ” by Rahul Aithal…

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