Gurudev Ke Saath

Author(s): Gurdial Mallikji, Pratap J Tolia, Sumitra P Toliya
Publisher: Vardhaman Bharati International Foundation

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2. THE ARTIST AND SEEKINGS OF 'AMRIT' - THE IMMORTAL
(INFINITE)
-- GLIMPSES OF A STUDY OF GITANJALI --
(A Significant Talk of Gurdial Mallikji arranged by the Editor on 9th October, 1959 under the auspices of The Hindi Department, Osmania University, Hyderabad, guided and headed by Veteran Scholar Dr, Ramniranjan Pandeya, delivered in the pious presence of Music Maestro NADANANDA BAPURAOJI, "The Tagore of South India" and ailing late Krantikar Kirtikumar Toliya, at the Osmania University's landscape garden, Gandipet, Hyderabad, A.P., amongst Teachers, Students, Artists, Writers and elderly people. Worth-seeing are the photographs of these all seated below the Trees in the "Santiniketan Style of Study-Sittings" and also of above Three Great Masters from whom Nadananda Bapuraoji estatically playing the SITAR and Mallikji is listening to it aptly as if he was listening to his own Gurudev Tagore!)
"Gurudev Tagore's Birth Centenary will be celebrated in 1961, not only in India, but also in other countries of the world. About it, an INNER VOICE told me once when I was in Himachal Pradesh, that, 'WHENEVR THE OPPORTUNITY IS AVAILABLE, THOUGHTS ACQUIRED ABOUT GITANJALI', TESTED ON THE TEST OF EXPERIMENTS, SHOULD BE HUMBLY PRESENTED AMONGST FIVETEN-FIFTEEN STUDIOUS SEEKERS IN FORTH COMING TWO YEARS'.
"Side by Side, the said INNER VOICE also said further that, "PERHAPS YOU MAY NOT BE EXISTING IN THIS BODY AFTER 1961!"
Obeying that Inner Voice's intuitive inspiration, only thereafter, I have been telling on GITANJALI at some places. Today also I shall try to place before you some poems of The Gitanjali. I am expressing my thoughts based on what I myself have understood about these poems. But it is difficult to know about the feelings of Gurudev's heart that what he meant to say and convey through them.
It is said in Gujarati that 'The Poet reaches there where the Sun cannot reach'. The sun destroys the outward darkness when it rises in the morning. But it also cannot reach unto the inner heart of man. We do not know, What was the meaning which might have prevailed in his mind, when he wrote the Poems of the GITANJALI? He himself only used to say that the meaning of several of his Poems and Songs was not being understood by his own self! The reason is: There was someone else within, who was guiding him to write from inside. We get sometimes a Glimpse of this matter of the Poet from his life, talk and letters. At times Gurudev used to forget this also that a particular poem was written by he himself only. When some student went to him to understand a poem from him, he used to ask, 'This is very beautiful. Who wrote it?'
"It is yours only!" answer was being received. And Gurudev used to ask down, 'When did I write it?' When poet Robert Browning was once asked the meaning of one of his poems, he replied ------
"When I had written this poem many years back from today, there were only two persons understanding it - One God and the other the Poet (1). Now the Poet has forgotten its meaning. Go unto God if you want to understand it".
We have the intention within us to listen, understand, and derive joy from poetry, Art, Beauty. We try to understand poetry on basis of it. But this is a matter above intelligence. We have to understand the meaning of Poetry, the soul of Poetry, in the school of life, in the school of deeper experience ('Anubhooti').
Now I shall tell something about the poems of the GITANJALI.
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