Reba Som’s The Singer and his Song is not just another book written in English on Tagore. Apart from his own translations of the Geetanjali (Song Offerings) that won him the Nobel Prize in 1913, Tagore’s songs have been translated and his life sudied in detail by many eminent scholars and critics. Som’s book is significantly tangential and that is its distinction.
It is a three-in-one book. Firstly, it is a well-researched, anecdotal biography that tracks Tagore’s experiments with North and South Indian classical music, indigenous folk music as well as Western classical and popular music. She also tracks Tagore’s emotional history: the many tragic deaths in the family, the search for a divine, unifying cosmic energy beyond the narrow boundaries of nationalism, the dream of transnationalism, all of which were felicitously fused in the making of his songs.
Secondly, the book includes Som’s skilful translations of sixty of Tagore’s 2,200 songs together with the original Bangla in romanised script. Thirdly, the book contains many photographs and paintings of Tagore as well as an audio CD of 45 songs, that includes, along with renditions of Rabindrasangeet by well-known exponents, a selection of Tagore songs sung competently by the author herself. Nevertheless, it seems that familiarity with the Bengali language is a precondition for a complete appreciation of Rabindrasangeet. If the intense and enthralling songs are sung in their English translations, will they be able to produce or reproduce the same effect? This limited edition is a collectible.
