In a presentation at LSG – Lusophone Society of Goa in Panjim, Goa, the spanish Prof. Paz Rodrigues considered the Goan Telo de Mascarenhas as one of the most important Portuguese-speaking Tagoreans of the world, comparable to any other Tagorean of other nationalities and languages. Especially because he, as a fluent speaker of Bengali (Bangla), carried out beautiful translations of Tagorean works into the Portuguese language: “The Home and the World (Ghore Baire)”, “Boat wreck (Noukadubi)”, “The four voices (Choturongo)”, and an anthology of tales with the general title “The key to the enigma and other tales”.
PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCE OF TAGORE IN GOA (AND REST OF THE LUSOPHONE WORLD)
by Prof. José PAZ RODRIGUES (University of Vigo-Galiza-Spain)*
Presentation made at the LSG – Lusophone Society of Goa in Panjim, Goa, India on February 4, 2013
Galician-Portuguese is my mother tongue, and so it was with great pleasure, because I’m also a Tagorean, that I researched the way that Robindronath Tagore, in all his multiple facets, was received in the countries that have my language as official. Which we all know as the Lusophone or Portuguese-speaking world. This study, which is not comprehensive, because there is still a lot to research, is the result of my research carried out in the last few months. I found real wonders on this subject and I discovered Tagorean themes of the utmost interest, particularly in Goa andBrazil. The Portuguese language, known as Portuguese, is an inflected Romance language, daughter of Latin, originated in the Galizan-Portuguese spoken in theKingdomofGalizaand the North of Portugal. This language is the oldest of the Latin languages of theIberian Peninsula, which started to be used in documents written around the 9th century. In the 15th century it achieved a very rich literature. The Portuguese with their discoveries took it around the world, hence its presence in countries of all continents. Being official in some ten countries and fairly spoken in other territories, such as the Indian Goa, Daman andDiu, and the Chinese Macau. It is the eighth most spoken language in the planet, and the third amongst the Western languages, after English and Spanish. Some 273 million people use it daily in the different countries that make up what is called the Portuguese-speaking world. In which it is official in two great emerging countries, such as Brazilin Latin America and Angola in Africa. It is also official in many international bodies, like the European Union, Mercosul, Unesco and the OUA. In 1996 the CPLP was created (Commonwealth of Portuguese-speaking countries or Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa), which unites the countries where Portuguese is the official language with the aim of increasing the cultural cooperation and exchange amongst the member countries and to unify and spread the Portuguese language in the four continents where it is spoken and used daily.
In this study I analyse how the great figure of Robindronath Tagore, the “Leonardo da Vinci of the 20th century”, was received in five Portuguese-speaking countries: Galiza, Goa, Portugal, Brazil and Angola. Where there were numerous translations of his works, after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Where he was much appreciated by countless writers and many poets and educators. Also examining the reception he had in newspapers and journals and the tributes organized around his figure to commemorate especially the centenary of his birth in 1961 and in subsequent years. In Brazilhis most important works are still published in new editions, achieving great success. To a lesser extent also in Portugal.
Goa :
On 17th February 1510, Afonso de Albuquerque, commanding a Portuguese fleet composed of 21 ships and some one thousand and six hundred men, conquered for the Portuguese Crown the Indian territory of Goa. On 18th December 1961 the Indian army invaded the territory, without the few Portuguese forces then defending it being able to do anything. Becoming Goa, with the capital in Panjim, a new State of the Indian Union, federated with the others which make up the Republic of India. For 451 years, this beautiful land, bathed by the Arabian Sea, belonged to Portugal, as a colony, and in the last years under the name of Overseas Portuguese Province. Today it is doubtless the Indian territory which is the richest, best organized and structured of all, with an enormous wealth from tourism. The older people still keep alive there the Portuguese language and there are countless vestiges related to the Portuguese-speaking culture. Because the territory of Goa is situated in the Indian subcontinent and very near the city of Bombay (today officially called Mumbai), for the Goan writers and intellectuals the figure of Tagore was already well known there from the beginning of the 20th century, and even more since he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. These are subjects often echoed in the Goan media. Translated into Portuguese by José F. Ferreira Martins, in 1914, the work Chitra (Chitrangoda)was published in Nova Goa, being the first book by Robindronath published in Portuguese on Indian land. Many Goans trained in the universities of the metropolis, particularly in the most famous ofCoimbra, were great Tagoreans, they admired his work and thought, and wrote many interesting articles and books on this figure. Following I present important data on the relationship between Tagore andGoa and prominent Goans, the result of my research carried out there and in my travels carried out from Santiniketon to this territory in the last two years.
The Presentation at the State Library in Panjim, Goa
1.-Telo de Mascarenhas (1899-1979), important Tagorean translator:
Apart from the very important Goan Tagoreans, like Adeodato Barreto, Propércia Correia and Froilano de Melo, about whom I’ll speak later, I consider, for many reasons, Telo de Mascarenhas, born in Mormugão-Goa, as one of the most important Portuguese-speaking Tagoreans of the world, comparable to any other Tagorean of other nationalities and languages of the world. Especially since, as he was a fluent speaker of Bengali (Bangla), he carried out beautiful translations into Portuguese of Tagorean works: The Home and the World (Ghore Baire), Boat wreck (Noukadubi), The four voices (Choturongo) is an anthology of tales with the general title The key to the enigma and other tales. In 1943 he published in Oporto an interesting study entitled Rabindranath Tagore e a sua mensagem espiritual (Rabindranath Tagore and his spiritual message). In the same year he published the translation into Portuguese of Gandhi’s book História da minha vida (The story of my life). He was a great admirer and student of Indian culture, which led him to publish monographs on the Hindu woman, Goa and his country, the Ramayana and several anthologies of Indian tales. In 1920 he went to Portugal where, at Coimbra University, he graduated in Law. For some time he worked as notary and, together with Adeodato Barreto and José Paulo Teles, he created in Coimbra the newspaper Índia Nova and the Instituto Indiano at the university, so that they might receive support from Tagore himself. In Goan newspapers, like O Heraldo and Ressurge Goa!, established by him, he wrote on various occasions about the figure of Robindronath, dedicating to him one or two poems and translating others by the Bengali poet into Portuguese. In 1984 the Indian Government devoted a monograph to him in the series “Builders of Modern India”, written by Shashikar Kelekar and published by the Publications Division-Ministry of Information and Broadcasting-Government of India. Which shows the recognition by the Republic of India of the writer, journalist, poet, translator and great Tagorean Mascarenhas. Due to his love of Goa, India and her culture, the work and thought of Tagore and the support he always had for the Indian cause of the Goan territory, against Portuguese colonization, a reason why he himself was several years in jail in Lisbon. Nevertheless, we must point out that he always deeply loved and defended the Portuguese language. It is enough to read many of his poems and novels and his articles in several Goan papers. At the time, and in the name of the Comissão Organizadora do Instituto Indiano da Universidade de Coimbra (Organizing Committee of the Indian Institute of Coimbra University), he wrote to Tagore to get his support for the body and the remittance of Tagorean books. The letter of response by Robindronath is published in Portuguese translation in the newspaper Índia Nova of 7th May 1928. In it the Bengali is happy with the creation of the Instituto and encourages its promoters, also mentioning the remittance of several of his books for its library.
2.-Other important Tagoreans:
In our recent research carried out in the latest visits to Goa and, particularly, the new library in the capital Panjim, to the Instituto Vasco da Gama (today under the name Menezes Bragança), and to the towns of Margão and Mapuçá, we found very important documents on other prominent Tagoreans and on the presence of the figure of Tagore in the Goan press, in bulletins, magazines and newspapers. Besides Telo de Mascarenhas, the following were Tagoreans:
a) Adeodato Barreto (1905-1937):
Professor, notary, journalist and poet, his full name being Júlio Francisco António Adeodato Barreto, he was born at Margão. In 1923 he went to Coimbra, in whose university he studied for the courses of Law, Letters and Philosophy Sciences. Preoccupied by education, he also took a diploma at the TeacherTraining School, and for a while practiced as a teacher at several educational institutions, even creating the Universidade Livre (Free University) of Coimbra. The social and pedagogical work he displayed in the countryside of the city by the Mondego river, in favour of the children, the people and the workers, deserves a profound study, as he was exemplar and model, following principles of the movement of the Escola Nova (New School) and the Tagorean educational ideas. Unfortunately he died very young, without being able to further develop his wonderful work. Nevertheless, he wrote deeply on many and varied subjects and, together with Telo de Mascarenhas and José Paulo Teles, as we said earlier, with the support of several professors of the Faculty of Letters, he established the Instituto Indiano de Coimbra and, in 1928 the newspaper Índia Nova, to promote the oriental civilization and humanism, where also some Tagorean poems and studies on his figure were published. By Barreto we have an ample study on Hindu civilization (Autodomínio. Tolerância. Humanismo. Síntese), which was published as a book by the magazine Seara Nova of Lisbon in 1936. As it has to be, he dedicates ample spaces to the figures of Tagore and Gandhi. It is surprising that even today the translation he did from French into Portuguese has not been published of the biography of Mahatma Gandhi, published in 1925 in Paris by the also Tagorean Romain Rolland, who with great pleasure on his part authorized it to be translated. And even more, also unpublished is a descriptive and critical study that Barreto wrote in 1929-30 with the title Ideias pedagógicas de Tagore, about Tagorean pedagogy, followed by an essay for the application to Portuguese schools of his fundamental principles. Lastly, I don’t want to leave out that from Rego d´Água Street, number 3, of Coimbra, on the 27th of March 1931, Barreto sent a very interesting and long handwritten letter to Robindronath in which, among other things, he asks authorization to carry out translations of Tagorean works into the Portuguese language. From Santiniketon, on 18th April of the same year, in Tagore’s name, his private secretary Onil Kumar Chondro responds. I have copies of both letters, from those which are scanned in the museum-library-archive of Robindro-Bhovon in Visva-Bharoti-Santiniketon (Bengal).
b) Propércia Correia Afonso de Figueiredo (1882-1944):
Professor and lecturer, she was born in Benaulim-Salsete. She was a brilliant student at the TeacherTraining Schoolin Goa, a teacher at a primary school and then, due to her merits, a professor in this TeacherTraining Schooluntil her death. Several times she replaced the director of the School and the inspector of primary education. Eventually she became a member of the Council of Education and of the Council of the Overseas Province of Goa. In her lifetime she gave numerous and interesting lectures. She was an effective member of the Instituto Vasco da Gama in Panjim, writing assiduously for this institution’s Bulletin. In 1933 she published a very interesting study of more than two hundred pages about A mulher na Índia Portuguesa (Women in Portuguese India). Her pedagogical studies on children and language, playing as a school for life, folklore in the life of the child, kindergartens, the education of girls, the ethics of teachers, education for solidarity, family education and social education, besides being very innovating, reveal how great a teacher she was and the profound knowledge she had of the great European figures of pedagogy and psychology. That is why her wide-ranging work “Rabindranath Tagore. O educador!”, published in 1942 in number 51 of the Boletim do Instituto Vasco da Gama, is a true marvel in which she shows the deep knowledge she had of Tagore and his educational model. In it she analyses the deep vocation Robindronath had as an educator, the Tagorean educational ideas on the psychology of the child, the child’s soul, the importance of the role of the mother, the mother tongue, the educational value of the arts, the social education of the people, the teacher in the Tagorean conception and the value of teaching to achieve great ideals. She also analyses the Tagorean educational institutions of the Abode of Peace-Santiniketon and the international university of Visva-Bharoti (Sabedoria Universal), its activities and didactic-educational models. Taking as the basis for her study the biography of Robindronath by the Portuguese Bento de Jesus Caraça, published by Seara Nova in Lisboa in 1939, she analyses the meaning of the Bengali words “Robi” and “Kobi” (Sun and Poet) and comments especially on several beautiful Tagorean poems in the book A lua nova (The crescent moon/Sissu), as “the last contract”, “the school of flowers”, “the flower of champaca” and “the astronomer”. As it had to be, another of the books she comments on is the Gitanjali (Oferenda lírica/Song Offerings).
c) Froilano de Melo (1887-1955):
His full name being Indalêcio Froilano Pascoal de Melo, he was a doctor of international renown, an extraordinary parasitologist, epidemiologist and great orator. He was born in Benaulim-Salsete and died in Brazil. He was a prominent professor of the Medical School in Goa, the most important in Asia at the time. From 1922 onwards he was also a professor at the Faculty of Medicine in Oporto. He participated as lecturer in numerous medical congresses taking place in many places of the world. He was a great researcher and published a plethora of works on themes related to his scientific and medical specialities. Written in 1944 and published later by the newspaper O Comércio do Porto, he has a very interesting monograph entitled O cântico da vida na poesia tagoreana (The canticle of life in Tagore’s poetry). A theme which was before his lecture delivered on 4th February 1946 at the premises of the Liga Portuguesa de Profilaxe Social. In a very relevant manner, with great sensibility, revealing his appreciation of Tagore’s poetry, he analyses step by step, taking as his basis the most important Tagorean poetical books: Gitanjali (Song Offerings), The Gardener (O Jardineiro), Lover´s Gift (Regalo de amante), Fruit Gathering (A Colheita), The Crescent Moon (A lua nova) and, among others, Stray Birds (Pássaros perdidos), Tagore’s poetry of the first childhood, the delicious whisperings of the second childhood, the lesson of the adolescent, the delicate shyness of feminine love, the veiled idyll between two, the ethics of maturity and the song of death. This interesting book closes with a very documented glossary of traditional terms of Indian culture employed in the study.
d) Amâncio Gracias (1872-1950):
His full name being João Baptista Amâncio Gracias, he was born in Loutulim, council of Salcete-Goa. He was an illustrious historian and polygraph. He wrote a plethora of articles in numerous Goan regular publications. He also lived in Mozambique, Angola and Cape Verde. He was a secretary of the Imprensa Nacional de Goa, collaborator of the magazine O Século of Lisbon and correspondent of the Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, the Instituto de Coimbra and the Instituto Vasco da Gama of Panjim, and for many years a member of the Comissão Permanente de Arqueologia de Goa. Amongst his many interesting articles on the most varied themes, historical and bibliographical, ethnographic and archaeological, I wish to point out that entitled “Tagore, político e poeta”. Published also as an offprint, in the Boletim do Instituto Vasco da Gama, number 51, of 1941 (Bastorá-Goa, Tipografia Rangel), in it he analyses two prominent facets of Tagore, the socio-political and poetical. Amongst other interesting Tagorean aspects, he comments on Robindronath belonging to the Brahmo-Samaj, created by the Raja Rammohun Roy at the beginning of the 20th century. Also, in a wide sense, on Tagore’s great courage when he renounced the title of “Sir” awarded by the British, after the famous killings of innocent Indians in 1919 in the city of Amritsar. Amongst the Tagorean books of his utmost interest in the article he comments especially on the works Nationalism (Nacionalismo), Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Creative Unity (Unidade Criadora), The Religion of Man (A Religião do Homem), and amongst the poetical the Canções vespertinas e matutinas, besides Kori o Komol (Hard and Tender). Also enormously interesting is the analysis he makes of Tagore’s school at Santiniketon, of the internationaluniversity ofVisva-Bharoti, and that, by his own merits, as the great teacher of teachers that he was, Tagore is known inIndia as “Gurudev”, an appellation used exclusively for Robindronath.
e) Renato de Sá (1908-1981):
Born in Panjim-Goa, he was a pharmacist, man of letters and journalist. He studied at the famous MedicalSchoolin Goa. He collaborated in numerous newspapers and journals, both Goan and Portuguese, on literary and biographical subjects, chronicles and reportage. Amongst them the Diário de Lisboa, O Primeiro de Janeiro of Oporto and O Globo of Rio de Janeiro. His great love for everything that meant the Portuguese culture and language led him, in 1964, to found the Centro de Cultura Latinain the town of Panjim. Four years later, in 1968, he founded an interesting yearly journal with the beautiful title of A Harpa Goesa, in which Tagorean texts had their place, as well as statements about his figure. Fourteen numbers were published. The last one, of December 1981, is a monograph dedicated to the memory of Renato de Sá, who on 24th September 1934 sent a handwritten letter to Tagore from Nova Goa, answered on the 30th of the same month by Robindronath’s secretary in Santiniketon. A new handwritten letter, dated the 21st December 1938, was sent to Tagore by de Sá, in which he talks of the great figure of Gandhi. Dated the 2nd January 1939, Tagore sent R. de Sá an autographed photograph. At Robindro-Bhovon there are scanned copies of these letters, of which I have photocopies.
f) Mariano José de Saldanha (1878-1975):
A professor and a doctor, he was born at Ucassaim, council of Bardez-Goa. He studied at the Medical School in Goa and, later, finished his studies at the Escola Colonial de Lisboa and took a degree in Sanskrit at the Faculdade de Letras in the same Portuguese capital. He was a teacher of the marata and Sanskrit languages at the Liceu de Nova Goa from 1915 to 1929, and from that year onwards, until 1948, he was a prominent professor of Sanskrit at the Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa. For two years he also taught concani, besides Sanskrit, at the Escola Superior Colonial, there being for a while deputy director of the Instituto de Línguas Africanas e Orientais. He was also a member of the Instituto Vasco da Gama of Panjim. He wrote a plethora of articles and brief treatises, on very curious and varied themes, especially related to languages, Indian culture and cultural subjects of Goa. He paid a visit at the time to the Tagorean school in Santiniketon, which surprised him pleasantly. In 1943, the magazine of the Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa, in its volume X, with various and interesting illustrations and plates, he published the study by Saldanha entitled “O Poeta duma Universidade e a Universidade de um Poeta ou Rabindranath Tagore e a sua obra literária e pedagógica”. In 24 pages, also published as an offprint, the author analyses not only the interesting literary work of Tagore, but also his great educational work of the new school at Santiniketon, with its open-air classrooms, and of the international university of Visva-Bharoti, commenting on the theoretical and practical principles of the Tagorean educational institutions. This very interesting study was before a lecture delivered by Saldanha on 29th May 1943 at the Faculdade de Letras of Lisbon University. Illustrated with slides and preceded by an invocation in Sanskrit by Sudhindro M. Tagore, followed by the Bengali (Bangla) song “A lira do universo”, lyrics and music by R. Tagore, sung by the girls in the Sanskrit course, accompanied by the organ of the hall. This was the first time that both Indian languages were heard in Portugal, the ancient Sanskrit and Bangla, sung in the 65th anniversary of the foundation of the chair of Sanskrit which had been inaugurated at the same higher education centre by the late learned professor Guilherme de Vasconcelos Abreu.
g) Minor Tagoreans:
In Goa, being inserted in Hindustani territory, there were other minor Tagoreans, if we compare them to those reviewed earlier, but also deserving of being cited in our study. In the first place, have the professor Ramachondra Naique, who had pronounced a conference about Robindronath titled «O Gurudeva de Santiniketana», published in the newspaper Heraldo in three shares in the 13, 16 and 18 september, 1941. Secondly, we have Padre Altino Ribeiro Santana (1915-1973), born in Pavorim do Socoro and who died in Mozambique, who under the title “O ideal religioso de Tagore” published an interesting statement of 5 pages in the Boletim Eclesiástico da Arquidiocese de Goa, nº 02, Vol. A01, in the year 1942. Another priest called Carmo da Silva, in the same Boletim quoted, nº 09 and Vol. A05, of 1947, published another beautiful statement of three pages under the title “A mensagem de Tagore”. Basílio Joaquim Francisco Furtado, at the Xaverian Printing Press, in 1965, published a biography of Tagore of 53 pages. For his part, Sitarama Quercar published another one in February 1915 in the magazine Luz do Oriente. Also another biography written by Damodar B. Bounsuló, was published in 1950 in the magazine of the Liceu Nacional Afonso de Albuquerque. Under the title “R. Tagore: Gitanjali uma visual experiência”, Eugéne d´Vaz brought out a study in the Inland Book of Chennai, in 2005. Áureo de Quadros, in 1996, published in Panjim his translation of Gitanjali into Portuguese. José F. Ferreira Martins, on whom we commented above that he translated into Portuguese the work Chitra in 1914, also published in Goa, the following year of 1915, Poemas em prosa by Tagore. And José da Conceição Souza wrote about the religious ideas of Tagore. There was always a great interest in comparing the Christian ideas with the religious ideas of Robindronath. Especially in a territory likeGoa, in which the Christian religion was of the majority.
Because of its interest, I don’t want to omit that, in the northern Goan town called Mapuçá, there was, with the name of “Tagore Academic Association”, an institution dedicated to Robindronath. I learnt this important fact at Robindro-Bhovon in Santiniketon, when finding scanned copies of two letters sent to Tagore by the secretary of that academic association, Caxinath Sar Dessay, dated the 3rd of November and 7th December 1937. On 22nd November of the same year, Tagore’s secretary answered the first from Santiniketon. We have photocopies of them and consider that it is very important to continue in the future to investigate the work by this Tagorean academy inGoa.
3.-Tagore in the press in Goa :
In the latest visit I made to Goa I counted on the inestimable collaboration, for my research on Tagore, of the librarian at Goa’s Library in Panjim, Mª de Lourdes Bravo da Costa Rodrigues, profoundly Lusophone, whom I already met in earlier visits. Of the historian and writer from Panjim Percival Noronha, who lives in the Fontainhas quarter and whom I also met before. And of the three whom I met now, the professor from Mapuçá Suresh Amonkar, the professor and writer from Aldona-Bardez Maria Aurora Couto, and the official analyst from Curtorim-Salcete Rafael Viegas, son of the great journalist and librarian Álvaro Viegas (1894-1946). I’m very grateful to all, and especially to Viegas, because he gave me copies of interesting documents on articles and texts dedicated to Tagore in the Goan newspapers O Académico and O Ultramar. Of this last one, Viegas’ own father was secretary of the editorial office.
Besides the articles and statements on Tagore published in the Goan newspapers Heraldo, O Heraldo, Ressurge Goa!, Diário da noite and in the Bulletins of the Instituto Vasco da Gama and the Eclesiástico of the Archdiocese of Goa, which I commented earlier when referring to their authors, I wish to point out, for its interest, those that appeared in O Académico and O Ultramar, after Robindronath’s death. O Académico was a bimonthly magazine, the organ and property of the União Académica of Nova Goa. In number 4, of May 1941, it published an editorial, with a photo included, dedicated to Tagore, in which his figure is exalted. Number 6, of September 1941, is a monographic number of 50 pages in homage to Robindronath. Besides the editorial, in twenty brilliant articles, it analyses the figure and work by Tagore, his multiple facets as writer, educator, philosopher, thinker, poet, his Bengali land, its life and institutions, his ideals and his work and social thought. Ruy Sant´Elmo, Lúcio de Miranda, Pedro Correia, Berta de Menezes, Soares de Rebelo, Joaquim da Silva, Augusto Cabral, Caxinata Damodar, Áureo de A. Quadros, António Furtado, Xencora B. Camotim, Datá Caxinata and Jorge de Ataíde Lobo, amongst others, write in it. We must point out the article entitled “Tagore e os portugueses”, on page 31, in which there are short statements on Tagore and his work by prominent writers like Júlio Dantas, Agostinho de Campos, E. Tudela de Castro, Augusto de Casimiro, Ferreira de Castro and Bento de Jesus Caraça, this last one being for me the greatest Portuguese Tagorean.
O Ultramar was a weekly of the town of Margão, founded in 1859, which became biweekly in 1905, and with number 5.499 ceased publication in September 1941. A little before closing, dated 25th August 1941, a few days after Tagore’s death, it dedicated a monographic number in homage to Robindronath. Also, precisely number 5.497 reviews the tribute that the Municipality of Margão gave to the Bengali bard, chronicling the events that took place and the people who took part in them, recovering the texts of different speeches, which were very beautiful and to the point. The district judge and president of the event, Dr. Siurama Bolvonta Rau delivered a speech about the great personality of Robindronath. Dr. António Colaço, who was born in Aldona-Bardez in 1889 and died in Margão in 1983, was an important doctor, and as a journalist collaborated assiduously with the Heraldo and A Vida de Margão. He admired Tagore and also the Tagorean Froilano de Melo, about whom in 1955 he published a monograph. That is why the text of his intervention on Tagore, in the tribute we comment on, is very beautiful. Likewise that of the other person taking part, professor Eduardo da Silva. In number 5.498, of 22nd September of the same year, the penultimate published before closing down, an article by the editorial office, under the title “A sua lição”, again Tagore is the subject.
Reproduced in O Heraldo de Goa of 14th February 2011, there is an article entitled “Os dramas de Tagore”, written 1961 by Paraxurama Quensori. In it he talks of the profundity, sentimentalism, lyricism and symbolism of Tagore’s theatre. Also of his difficulty to be played. Besides pointing out the importance that theatre has in Bengal, he focuses especially in the analysis of the beautiful play Roktokorobi (Red Oleanders) by Tagore. In which Robindronath “presents a living portrait of the crisis of contemporary civilization in the world and deals with the terrible dilemma of modern man in the claws of an acquisitive and materialist society”.
We mustn’t forget either the texts which appear published periodically on the life and work of Tagore in the Goan newspaper O Bharat.
Basic bibliography about R. Tagore and Goa:
BARRETO, Adeodato: Ideias pedagógicas de Tagore. Goa, 1929-30. Unpublished.
ID.: Civilização hindu. Lisboa: Seara Nova, 1935. About R. Tagore: Pp. 240-247.
BRAGANÇA, Berta M.: Adeodato Barreto (1905-1937). Bastorá-Goa: Tip. Rangel. Sepª Bol. Inst. Menezes Bragança nº 96, 1971.
CORREIA AFONSO DE FIGUEIREDO, Propércia: “Rabindranath Tagore-O Educador!”. Bastorá-Goa: Boletim do Instituto Vasco da Gama nº 51, year 1941, Pp. 27-52.
DA COSTA, Aleixo Manuel: Dicionário de Literatura Goesa (3 volumes). Macau-Lisboa: Instituto Cultural de Macau-Fundação Oriente, 1997.
DA SILVA, Padre Carmo: “A mensagem de Tagore”. Goa: Boletim Eclesiástico da Arquidiocese nº 9, 1947, Pp. 287-289.
FURTADO, Basílio J. F.: Rabindranath Tagore. Goa: Xaverian Print Press, 1965.
GRACIAS, J. B. Amâncio: “Tagore, político e poeta”. Bastorá-Goa: Boletim do Instituto Vasco da Gama nº 51, year 1941, Pp. 1-26. (Also published as offprint by the same Bulletin).
KELEKAR, Shashikar: Telo de Mascarenhas. N. Delhi: Publications Division ofIndia, 1984.
MASCARENHAS, Telo de: Rabindranath Tagore e a sua mensagem espiritual. Porto: Ed. Oriente, 1943.
ID.: When the Mango-Trees Blossomed. Quasi-Memoirs. Bombay: Orient Longman, 1976.
MELO, I. Froilano P. de: O Cântico da vida na poesia tagoreana. Porto: O Comércio, 1946.
ID.: A mulher hindu. Bastorá-Goa: Jaime Rangel, 1927.
RIBEIRO SANTANA, Altino: “O ideal religioso de Tagore”. Goa: Boletim Eclesiástico da Arquidiocese nº 2, 1942, Pp. 73-78.
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* Professor José Paz Rodrigues, is considered an world specialist in Tagore. He has one of the world biggest library about Tagore, with more than 30.000 books in several languages. He is doing research work on Tagore since 1966 and his Ph D Thesis at the Open University of Madrid (Spain) was titled “Tagore, a pioneer of New Education”
