Lover of Light Among Luminaries Dilip Kumar Roy

Author(s): Amruta Paresh Patel
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 96

SKETCHES
Dilip Roy, in the end, says:
"The most precious of his gifts to me was his personality radiant. with a tinge of sadness even as the dying fire in a sunset cloud."20
His appearance. Dilip Roy felt, was disappointing in the beginning. but later on one might remain spell-bound when one could notice an ascetic aura of mysticism around him. Rolland remained impressive because of his faith in mankind and faith in something higher than mankind..
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(B) Evaluation:
Here the discussion between Romain Rolland and Dilip Roy ranges from art and music to literature. Rolland, who attempted to answer the queries of his inquisitive interviewer, Dilip Roy, was an efficient critic of the Western music and literature. This apart, as it is observed, his interests were varied and he had. high hopes for international community. So his outlook, in this discussion appears to be global and knowledge. very vast. Hence, his judgements on art, music and literature can be considered scholarly, and authentic. Rolland, realized in his own way the synthesis of the West with the East. Today people all over world have become receptive to alien influences. They enrich thus themselves by such openness. Many aspects of the Eastern art and culture have become famous in the West. Similarly, Western culture has become a part and parcel of the Eastern one.
Their discusion on music, at times, remains very technical. Often, Roy tried to explain various Ragas of the songs he had sung to Rolland. For example, once, after singing a Bengali song written by his father, Roy said: "...it was in the scale of what is known technically as Yaman in our Raga-music, corresponding to the ancient Lydian mode of Greeks".21 He also showed him how a composer could improvise while keeping himself within the bounds determined by the Raga.
What is striking here is a remarkable resemblance between the painter and the portrait. A clear comparative view of both emerges from Dilip Roy's treatment of Rolland. Both of them, for instance, had a deep love of music. They were highly concerned with the mission of artists and functions of art. They had humanitarian concerns also. Both Rolland and Roy were seekers of truth and were very much interested in spirituality. Besides, all through their lives, they echoed Vivekananda's credo: "Wherever greatness in any shape or form has flowered I must bow my head in reverence", 22 Not only that they revered many great people of the past as well as of their own times. but they also wrote. biographies. In their biographies, both of them leaned towards the merits of their renowned subjects and often failed to criticize their drawbacks..