The songs/ poems were originally composed in Bengali, Rabindranath’s mother tongue. With a large corpus of literature to his credit, Rabindranath never really had the time to translate any of his works. In March 1912, due to bad health, his scheduled trip to England got cancelled. Because of this sudden development, Rabindranath could devote time to translating his poems while recuperating in then East Bengal. After recovery, he sailed to England in May 1912 and handed over the manuscript of Geetanjali translations or his ‘exercise book’ to William Rothenstein (English painter, printmaker and writer), who was instrumental in popularizing the book in the west and getting it published. Many people were vying for his ‘exercise book’, a goldmine of poetry.
In a letter to his translator Ajitkumar Chakravarty, Rabindranath says:
“The notebook in which I had been doing the translations of Gitanjali has filled up and is brimming over. It is more than a hundred now. Yeats is roaming around with them day and night…. Rothenstein craved the notebook as a gift for me. Therefore, I have not been able to retain the document of my English compositions for you.”Rabindranath Tagore
Eventually, the English translation of Geetanjali was published in 1912. It took the west by storm and was translated into many languages. In his foreword to the book WB Yeats says:
I have carried the manuscript of these translations about with me for days reading it in railway trains, or on top of omnibuses and in restaurants, and I have often had to close it lest some stranger would see how much it moved me. These lyrics — which are in the original, my Indians tell me, full of subtlety of rhythm, of untranslatable delicacies of colour, of metrical invention — display in their thought a world I have dreamed of all my life long. The work of a supreme culture, they yet appear as much the growth of the common soul as the grass and the rushes. A tradition, where poetry and religion are the same thing, has passed through the centuries, gathering from learned and unlearned metaphor and emotion, and carried back again to the multitude thought of the scholar and of the noble.WB Yates
A year later, Rabindranath Tagore was awarded the Noble prize in literature for this momentous work; the first Nobel conferred upon an Indian.
When I think of Geetanjali; I think of honest utterances, love and longing for the divine, a brutal admission of one’s frailties, and a joyful acceptance of a power supreme. It has been pulling me like a magnet. Despite my limited capacity, I am daring to recite these poems. There would be no dearth of exquisite recordings in either English or Bengali, I am sure. Yet, I feel the pull to recite the songs of Geetanjali, as an offering to my beloved Guru, Om Swami. Geetanjali is one of his favourite books. Seek the blessings of Mother divine as I embark on this journey. I bow down to Gurudev Rabindranath. Your songs are giving me words and voice.
Song 1: Geetanjali
Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure.
This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again, and
fillest it ever with fresh life.
This little flute of a reed thou has carried
over hills and dales, and hast breathed through it
melodies eternally new.
At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart
loses its limits in joy and gives birth to
utterance ineffable.
The infinite gifts come to me only on these
very small hands of mine. Ages pass, and still thou
pourest, and still there is room to fill.
Geetanjali is a collection of poetry of sublime devotion towards the divine energy that pervades through this universe. Cultivating devotion is the most beautiful way to lead a meaningful and rich life. How do you identify the deity you connect to and then perform daily rituals that deepen your bond with them? The answer is the free and incredible Vedic Sadhana app, which makes the ancient rituals and practices followed by the sages of India available for you.