The river is a recurrent element in Rabindranath Tagore’s works. His literary genius was undoubtedly illuminated while staying by the bank of the Padma River at Silaidaha, Kushtia, where he was sent by his father to supervise their zamindari estates.
The Nobel laureate penned many of his significant works while sailing on the Padma river on houseboats, ‘Padma’ and ‘Chopola’ overseeing his family estates in Silaidaha, Shahzadpur and Patisar of East Bengal.
The boat, along with the Kuthibari in Silaidaha in Bangladesh’s Kusthia district, forms inalienable parts of Tagore’s creative persona.
Tagore had stayed at Silaidaha intermittently for a decade from 1890 when he used the boat regularly. Some of his best compositions, including Sonar Tari and the English translation of Gitanjali took place at that time.
The house boat was built by craftsmen from Dhaka and was ordered by the poet’s grandfather Dwarkanath Tagore. It had a dining room and a bedroom.
River, as a symbol of life, becomes a prominent theme in his creative writings.
Whilst living at Silaidaha, Tagore wrote ‘Sonar Tori’, ‘Chitra’, ‘Choitali’, ‘ Konika, ‘ Khinika’, ‘Kolpona’, ‘Kotha’, ‘Noibadya’, ‘Chitrangada’, ‘Malinee’, ‘Chinnapatrabali’ _ in each of these poems the presence of river is significant.
In Silaidaha, where Tagore passed his most creative days, the Padma influenced his mind immensely. In the letters of ‘Chinapatrabali’, the writer often mentioned the magical influence of the Padma, which seemed to engulf his whole entity.
He confesses: “I love the Padma River.…While rowing in a boat on the Padma, it becomes a living personality to me.”
Romantic poets imbue personality into inanimate things; Tagore did it fascinatingly. The whole of nature was enlivened in his poetic works, and the river was the most prominent among his natural things.
A collection of letters were written in the 1890s, by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, as he travelled across Bengal to manage his family’s far-flung agricultural estates. Travelling in his houseboat, up and down the Padma River and its many tributaries, Tagore vividly captures the breathtaking imagery of the Bengali countryside and the reticent grace of the day-to-day village life. Sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant, the settings in these letters formed the backdrop of many of his poems and plays (e.g. The Post Office). The letters, many of which were addressed to his niece Indira Devi, make for a lighthearted and captivating reading. Tagore is sure to charm you with his wondrous story telling and powerful imagination.