aarush-paul / speech

Speech on Rabindra Jayanti

“She is our own, the darling of our hearts, Santiniketan. In the shadows of her trees, we meet in the freedom of her open sky. Our dreams are rocked in her arms. Her face is a fresh wonder of love every time we see her, for she is our own, the darling of our hearts.” – Rabindranath Tagore. My name is Aarush Paul and today I will be speaking a few words on the ideology of Rabindranath Tagore and how santiniketan influenced him. The ideology of Rabindra Nath Tagore is mainly based upon the idealistic attitudes of his ancient forefathers. A century has been lapsed after the arrival of the great poet-the various aspects of his genius have been explored by multitudes of scholars of the East and West. But what type of thinker he really was an idealist or a realist-is a matter of controversy among the critics until now. Through a thorough study of his works, it seems to me that he was as idealistic as his Indian forefathers were his ideology based upon the spiritual revival of humanism, but he believed that it can be attained through scientific power and resources. His idealism was ornamented with realistic outlook-realistic ideas are found to be peeping into his works at different places. His mindset and his type of writing has been greatly influenced by the open environment at santiniketan. He thinks openly, and his writing is more devoted towards and science and less concentrated on artificially created things. Like in his song, “আকাশভরা সূর্য তারা”, he speaks about the waves in the seas, the sweet aroma of flowers, and how he finds himself among these creations of nature.