Sunday, March 25, 2012

Ranu Adhikari and Rabindranath (contd-3)


Rabindranath, too, replied in a long letter to Ranu Adhikari on 14th July, 1918, " I was full of sorrow when I read the letter written by you from the departing  train. Don't think me that I could not feel your sufferings. When your car was going away on  Wednesday and  I was sitting silently in the corner  of the  roof of my house in the evening , your  sufferings echoed  in me. I was wishing  you in my mind  that the divine sunshine be fallen on your tears-full-soft heart so that the lustre of beauty spreads throughout your life from one end to the other as the rainbow spreads over the rainy sky ." He added, " He, whom I have sacrificed myself , informs me  by  sending you as his messenger  to come to me  and the love and affection I have shown to you are nothing but the gesture shown, time to time, that He has accepted me. This is  my gift and with this I  work with double the inspiration I have, my tiredness subsides and my mind becomes illuminated.      
Formerly, Rabindranath wrote letters to Ranu as his girl pen-friend.whom he did not see- in those letters, he expressed his affection  and it was full of wit and fun -- he signed those letters as " Your  well-wisher, Sree Rabindranath Thakur". But after being acquainted personally, his letter was mixed with tune of sobriety , wit and fun and also wish for welfare and   attempt for charactreisation. And he changed the style of signature,  he replaced it to  , " Yours Rabidada" and then  changed to "Bhanudada " . 
Ranu in her first letter addressed him as " Dear Rabi Babu". Rabindranath objected to it by saying, " Whar do you want ? I hope you want that I donot address you by Sreemati Ranu -- but if you write me letters addressing  me as "Dear Rabi Babu", I shall not leave you scot free and address you as " Sreemati Ranu Devi". I shall not complain if you call me "Rabidada".
Ranu wrote in reply to this letter addressing him as "My Dear Rabidada",  explaining;
" Do you know, why I have written you "MY". The previous letter you have written to me ended with " Tomar Rabidada". Thus you became 'mine' that's why I have written "My". She also explained the use of the word "Dear", 
" When I first wrote you letter, you were "dear' to me but, might be, you were "Rabi Bau". Still I loved   you. Now, I love you much more than I do earlier. I wrote you 'dear' not as a courtesey word like English people. I used the word 'dear' as it is used in Bengali. I don't write 'dear' to any body else. You write dear many times in your poetry, is it a fault if I write 'dear'. It was unknown to me that 'dear' (priyo) is a courtesy woird used in letter-writing in Bengali. I write you 'dear', because your 'dear' to me. As you call your god 'dear', I use it in that style."
Rabindranath was vanquished by the inclusive evidence.