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103 the equality of status of man and woman in the sphere of social rights and responsibilities or not. In Tagore's answers, Dilip Kumar traced out :
"...the deep suggestiveness and impressive originality of the poet's outlook which delighted his audience through the exquisite spontaneity of his utterance and the appositeness of his similies,
never once failing to hit the target">3
Responding to inodern woman's clamour for equality of status with man, at the cost of being called old-fashioned, Tagore opined:
"...I do not think that woman stands to gain in the long run by rushing out into the open as a fellow-scrambler of her mate for the same laurels. For her soul cannot find any real satisfaction if she goes out of her way to grab things that do not beautify life. She must preside over her world which is beauty."56
According to Rabindranath, woman can have her proper place in society by being true to her nature—her swadharma. There is a fundamental difference, Tagore thinks, between man and woman. He says:
"...if woman had been but an exact counterpart of man, with exactly the same role to play, life, as we know it, would have ceased to exist long ago. Fortunately, woman is not man's replica but his fellow-pilgrim in their joint journey through life-and
that is why the march still continues the lila, the play."57
But this does not mean that woman is capable of creation only on the inferior planes. He further states:
“...she is as indispensable to man's mental creation as man is to her physical. It is only because on the mental plane she works unseen, behind the screen, that we do not visualise her contribution at this stage. But that is only because we are not
sufficiently imaginative and discerning."58
The author sent a copy of this discourse of Tagore on Man and Woman to Havelock Ellie in 1927, and Ellie wrote back:
“It gives me joy to find that Tagore says clearly, at almost every point, what I have said, or tried to say clearly in my book, Man and Woman. On the whole, I could hardly desire to see a more beautiful presentation in a short space of a conception which corresponds to my own than the one Tagore has put into this conversation, with a skill in speech beyond me."99
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