Looking back at Tagore and Ray

This month marks the birth anniversaries of two of Bengal's greatest cultural icons with oddly intertwined legacies

- Somak Ghoshal

May is an auspicious month in the literary calendar of Bengal. Two of the greatest Bengalis who ever lived, both polymaths extraordinaire, were born this month. Rabindranath Tagore (born 7 May 1861), predated Satyajit Ray (born 2 May 1921) by 60 years but their legacies remain oddly intertwined, Tagore's writing enabling some of the best cinema Ray made in his career.

In 1940, a year before Tagore died, Ray went up to Visva-Bharati University, founded by the poet in Santiniketan, to study the fine arts. Initially unwilling to give up the pleasures of urban life in Calcutta (now Kolkata), Ray conceded to his mother's wish that he spend some time in Santiniketan. That he took the difficult decision to move to the rural serenity of Bolpur, in Birbhum district of Bengal, was a testimony to his immense respect for the poet. Years later, Ray would go on to make several iconic films inspired by Tagore's works, and one based on his life, at former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's insistence, to mark the birth centenary of the poet in 1961.

It is fitting, therefore, to have Broken Nest and Other Stories, a slim collection of Tagore's short fiction in Sharmistha Mohanty's translation, out this month from Westland, especially since the title story of the volume inspired one of Ray's most famous movies, Charulata (1964), known as The Lonely Wife in English.

The volume, which was first published in 2008, has been reprinted with a beautiful new cover, a foreword by acclaimed Bengali poet Joy Goswami, and an introduction by Mohanty.