Saturday, March 17, 2012

Bichitra and Rabindranath (contd - 15)

Rabindranath was not going  well from the very beginning of 1918. He came to Calcutta on 15th jan, 1918 but joined in the discussion of Sahitya Sabha of Bichitra. He read a topic from his writings .
In his absence in abroad, Sahitya Sabha of Bichitra was taking place as usual. On 27th Feb,1918, Satyendranath Dutta
(Rabindranath Tagore with eminent Bengali writers
Sitting - from right - Satyendranath Dutta, Jatindramohan Bagchi, Karunanidhan Bandopadhay.
Standing - from right - Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhya, Manilal Gangopadhya,
Dwijendra Narayan Bagchi, Charuchandra Bandopadhya )
read an essay on "Banglar Chanda" ( Prosody of Bengali Literature). this article was published in Bharati titled, "Chanda Saraswati" in Baisakh, 1325 (1918). Probably on reading this article, Rabindranath engaged himself in this this topic and wrote a long essay on this subject which he read it in Bichitra on 20th Mar,1918. This essay was published in Sabuj Patra in Chaitra issue (p 675-703) titled "Chanda" and "Chander Artha" (p 295-312) . Sukumar Basu was one who attended the discussion. He wrote;
" Rabindranath read the attractive essay with many nice examples, I was present there. The most interesting point on that day was, at the end of the discussion, Sukumar Roy put a question, " Is there any rhythm in Prose ?". At this everyone present in the discussion ridiculed by smiling. The poet remained silent for a while and then replied if you leave aside the ordinary prose, there is rhythm in impassioned prose" .
After being published the article in Sabuj Patra Rabindranath collected a copy and send it to Anderson in Cambridge on 14th April. Anderson translated the essay in English and sent it to The Court Poet Brijesh who too was involved in the debate about Rhythm.
For information, Probodh Chandra Sen in his book "Pathya Parichay" discussed the subject citing many examples.
Rabindranath also participated in a discussion of Bichitra on 6th April, on the subject, " Similarity of the Problems of Ireland and India.