POETICS OF PLAYFULNESS

AFTER almost two years of writing a column on traditional games, I circle back to a basic question — Why play? How important is play? The more I research traditional games and the more I understand play, the more I realise how intrinsically interwoven it is with so much of our lives.

- VINITA SIDHARTHA [e-mail]

Commemorating the birthday of Rabindranath Tagore (May 7), I thought it would be interesting to understand his views on play through his lens. I draw inspiration from two of his works on the subject.

Tagore is perhaps best known across the world for Gitanjali — a collection of poems for which he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, for its English translation, Song Offerings, making him the first non-European and the first Asian and the only Indian to receive this honour.

When My Play was with Thee was originally published as Song 97 in the