Speaker 1: Happy Saturday, everybody. Before we get to today's classic. This week,
Speaker 1: we put out a playlist of some of our otter
Speaker 1: and mostly more upbeat episodes out of the archive. We
Speaker 1: called that playlist Offbeat History. With this ongoing coronavirus pandemic,
Speaker 1: we thought it might give folks who are practicing some
Speaker 1: social distancing or sheltering in place, or otherwise having some
Speaker 1: more time in relative isolation a little something extra to
Speaker 1: help pass the time. UH and several of our colleagues
Speaker 1: other shows in our I Heart Podcast family have done
Speaker 1: the same thing, and so we've launched a new feed
Speaker 1: for all of those. So it's all of those pandemic collections.
Speaker 1: It's called the best of Stuff, and you should be
Speaker 1: able to find it wherever you get your podcasts. And
Speaker 1: now we'll move on to today's Saturday Classic. It is
Speaker 1: World Poetry Day, so today we're sharing an episode from
Speaker 1: the archive that's on a poet, rebind Er, not Tagore,
Speaker 1: who was a Bengali poet and was the first Asian
Speaker 1: Nobel laureate. This episode originally came out on November and
Speaker 1: it is from previous hosts Sarah and Deablina, So enjoy.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of My Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm very happy to be joined
Speaker 1: by my new co host today. Yep, I'm Deblina Chokate
Speaker 1: boardy I will be joining Sarah and talking about history
Speaker 1: stuff with you. Yeah. Debilina is the homepage editor here
Speaker 1: at How Stuff Works. Um, so she basically programs the
Speaker 1: whole homepage every day. So if you've ever visited the site,
Speaker 1: you have seen Debilina's handiwork. Yes, and I hope you've
Speaker 1: clicked on lots of things, clicked lots of links. That's
Speaker 1: what we all want you to do. But um, Debilina,
Speaker 1: why don't you give us a little background on this
Speaker 1: topic and explain why you picked it today? Sure? Well,
Speaker 1: today's topic is a little bit maybe appropriately maybe inappropriately
Speaker 1: personal to myself. My parents are from India, there Bengali,
Speaker 1: and our topic today is Rabat Nath Tagore, who is
Speaker 1: a well known Bengali figure, probably best known for being
Speaker 1: the first Asian Nobel laureate. And it's the hundred and
Speaker 1: fiftieth anniversary of his birth. So it's been in the
Speaker 1: news a lot lately. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: going on to celebrate his birth this year, UM, including
Speaker 1: the Kolkata Film Festival, has showed movies that are based
Speaker 1: on his works. Um. People are performing his plays, school
Speaker 1: children are performing his songs and his dance dramas, and
Speaker 1: so it's a big to do. There's even a traveling train,
Speaker 1: which seems like probably the best part of the celebration
Speaker 1: in my opinion. The traveling train is indeed awesome. It
Speaker 1: is visiting cities throughout India until next May, and each
Speaker 1: car features kind of a different aspect and it's featuring
Speaker 1: mostly arts type of stuff. Like the other celebrations are
Speaker 1: like a museum on the move essentially exactly great. Um,
Speaker 1: but a lot of people don't really appreciate how just
Speaker 1: how much of an accomplished artist this guy was. How
Speaker 1: much of an accomplished poet he was. He was a singer,
Speaker 1: a philosopher, he was interested in politics, he was an educator,
Speaker 1: a reformer. Um, he wasn't a politician exactly, but I
Speaker 1: mean his influence there is pretty great too. He he
Speaker 1: just touched on so many different things. It's kind of,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's kind of inspiring. When you start
Speaker 1: looking at his life and also sort of makes you
Speaker 1: feel like not up to that, what have I done? Right?
Speaker 1: So his work in the political arena and his reformation
Speaker 1: efforts that you mentioned last, those are probably the things
Speaker 1: that are lesser known about him. Most people know about
Speaker 1: his arts, his involvement in the art scene in India,
Speaker 1: all his contributions, there's far songs, plays, dramas, everything goes.
Speaker 1: But I think that people don't know what he contributed
Speaker 1: as far as politics well, and he's not that well
Speaker 1: known in the West at all. So I mean, we
Speaker 1: have a lot to explore, even the things he's famous
Speaker 1: for in India. Definitely one of the things that he
Speaker 1: is famous for that will take a look at today
Speaker 1: he was knighted by the British government and some accused
Speaker 1: him of being a pro British elitist, and there's some
Speaker 1: controversy around that nighting to tring to talk about a
Speaker 1: little later we will, um. But really what we're gonna
Speaker 1: look at is just was he a nationalist or not? Um?
Speaker 1: Was this just a different approach to nationalism for him?
Speaker 1: His involvement in politics and um look at his renunciation
Speaker 1: of the of the knighthood and what surrounded that. So
Speaker 1: before we get into that, let's look at his beginnings.
Speaker 1: He was born May six, eighteen sixty one, in Calcutta
Speaker 1: into a well to do, well educated, very artistic, progressive family. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was really exposed to a lot as a kid too.
Speaker 1: I mean his family would have been reading Sanskrit and
Speaker 1: ancient Hindu text and Persian literature and known Islamic tradition.
Speaker 1: So imagine it this really melting pot in his home
Speaker 1: of learning and um, just a lot of intelligent discussion,
Speaker 1: I imagine, definitely. I think it was unique to any
Speaker 1: culture at the time. And let's talk about that time
Speaker 1: a little bit. It was during British rule in India
Speaker 1: when he was born, and his family, the two Gores,
Speaker 1: they were very active in the Bengal Renaissance, which was
Speaker 1: basically a movement that began in the mid eighteen sixties
Speaker 1: to protect national culture. It was really to preserve, um,
Speaker 1: the local culture, the arts, all the things that his
Speaker 1: family wanted to celebrate, the traditional heritage, and it was
Speaker 1: a response to Anglicization. So they would throw festivals every
Speaker 1: year that featured Angian songs and poems and dances, and
Speaker 1: you mentioned wrestling matches when we were talking about this earlier.
Speaker 1: I thought that was kind of a surprise thrown in there,
Speaker 1: but hey, it's a part of culture, right, balanced the
Speaker 1: arts with a little wrestling boards and aspect of culture.
Speaker 1: I like sports. So in addition to being an involved
Speaker 1: in this yearly cultural event to Gore's father, Deba's or
Speaker 1: not to Gore, he was very involved in something called
Speaker 1: the Brahmo somag. The Brahma Somaj was basically a movement
Speaker 1: within Hinduism which was established around or so, and it
Speaker 1: was an attempt to reform Hinduism. What I mean by
Speaker 1: that is that it incorporated some aspects of Christianity. It
Speaker 1: denounced things like polytheism and idol worship, and it also
Speaker 1: denounced the cast system. So through this they were trying
Speaker 1: to um enact some sort of social reform. But it
Speaker 1: never really became that widely popular. Um, yeah, I mean it,
Speaker 1: even though I guess it's still technically around today, it
Speaker 1: didn't really grow much past the twentieth century or the
Speaker 1: early twentieth century. Yeah, it's definitely recognized as a movement
Speaker 1: within Hinduism, um, but I don't think it reached maybe
Speaker 1: the heights that to Gore's father wanted it to the
Speaker 1: Brahmi Smudge movement. It did loose steam the twentieth century.
Speaker 1: But the important thing about that is that we can
Speaker 1: see into Gore's life is that it was combining these
Speaker 1: Eastern and Western ideals that will see kind of throughout
Speaker 1: his development and in his work and his philosophy. So
Speaker 1: it's the beginnings of that, I guess. Yeah. But I mean,
Speaker 1: if we're talking about his childhood intellectual life aside um,
Speaker 1: he was kind of lonely. He wasn't that close to
Speaker 1: his parents. This is according to his own memoirs. His
Speaker 1: dad was gone a lot, traveling on business and um.
Speaker 1: Some people have suggested that he just didn't really get
Speaker 1: much attention and love growing up and sort of felt
Speaker 1: neglected in that respect. Yeah, he did. He does give
Speaker 1: us accounts of traveling with his father and his adolescence,
Speaker 1: but from what we can tell, he wasn't really that
Speaker 1: close to anyone. Roby as he was sometimes called, wasn't
Speaker 1: really close to his folks. But that might have been
Speaker 1: a good thing because he was given a lot of freedom.
Speaker 1: Because of that, he was given a lot of space
Speaker 1: to develop creatively. And to write, and that's exactly what
Speaker 1: he did. Yeah, So he started writing at a very
Speaker 1: young age and kept on doing it over six decades.
Speaker 1: He ended up writing about two thousand, five hundred songs
Speaker 1: and twenty eight volumes of poetry, drama, opera, short stories, novels,
Speaker 1: essays and diaries, plus a bunch of letters. So this
Speaker 1: is what we meant at the beginning when we're saying
Speaker 1: this can make you feel a little inadequate. He lived
Speaker 1: a very long time, but he was writing for his
Speaker 1: entire life pretty much NonStop, definitely. In eight seventy seven
Speaker 1: he actually went to England to study for about a
Speaker 1: year at the University College of London, and while he
Speaker 1: was there he wrote some more too. He wrote some
Speaker 1: plays and he was introduced to the western style of
Speaker 1: music there, but it didn't really last. He ended up
Speaker 1: coming back after a year, and Um, the only thing
Speaker 1: that I could find on that is that he thought
Speaker 1: it was too cold. Legitimate complaints. It's legit. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've lived in cold places. It's tough. But that was
Speaker 1: definitely an influence in his life though, I think. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: so you know, he came back to India after just
Speaker 1: about a year of studies, but he kept on writing
Speaker 1: and he published his first book of poetry when he
Speaker 1: was only about seventeen, and then throughout the eighteen eighties
Speaker 1: he kept on putting out books, all leading up to Manasci,
Speaker 1: which was published in eighteen nine. And that's sort of
Speaker 1: one of his first works that is fairly well known,
Speaker 1: right yep. A lot of his well known poems and
Speaker 1: some of his well known political satire and commentary is
Speaker 1: in that book. Uh. And that satire did take kind
Speaker 1: of a critical tone towards towards his fellow Bengalis, and
Speaker 1: so we see kind of his starting of his evolution
Speaker 1: of his political views social views there. Yeah, because that
Speaker 1: tone starts to change too in the eighteen nineties because
Speaker 1: of his traveling and a few events that happened. Yep,
Speaker 1: as we mentioned earlier to Gore's family was pretty wealthy,
Speaker 1: so they had both a home in the city and
Speaker 1: they had some estates in East Bengal, which we know
Speaker 1: today is Bangladesh. So he went for a while in
Speaker 1: the eighteen nineties to manage his father's estates there and
Speaker 1: he stayed there for about a decade. But this area
Speaker 1: was pretty rural, pretty poverty stricken, and he was in
Speaker 1: close contact with the villagers while he was there, so
Speaker 1: it really gave him a new outlook, so to speak.
Speaker 1: He gained a lot of sympathy for the plight of
Speaker 1: the locals there, I think, and this began to inform
Speaker 1: his writing a lot, Yeah, and change his style a
Speaker 1: little too, even. Yeah, well, he started writing in a
Speaker 1: little bit of a new style at that time. He
Speaker 1: started experimenting a little bit more with free verse as
Speaker 1: opposed to earlier when he was I think when he
Speaker 1: was younger, he was mostly writing in traditional classical Indian forms. Um. Again,
Speaker 1: part of this whole Bengal Renaissance thing, the idea of
Speaker 1: preserving culture. It as he got more into the eighteen nineties,
Speaker 1: started being a little more flexible with his form. So
Speaker 1: that was one thing. But then also his subject matter
Speaker 1: I think started to explore more of what he had seen, um,
Speaker 1: some of more of the issues that he had seen
Speaker 1: in rural Bengal. And so this informed his work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I mean it wasn't just limited to his own
Speaker 1: experiences too. He started to be influenced by some world
Speaker 1: events that were going on, namely the Boer War in
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety nine and just a little I've tried to
Speaker 1: do a real podcast on the Bower War before and
Speaker 1: it didn't really work out. But to give you a
Speaker 1: basic rundown of it, it was a conflict between the
Speaker 1: two independent Dutch speaking Bauer republics of South Africa and
Speaker 1: the British Empire, and it was very bloody. At the end,
Speaker 1: the Boer Republics agreed to come under the sovereignty of
Speaker 1: the British Crown. So to Gore was already starting to
Speaker 1: get kind of interested in politics and political writing when
Speaker 1: this was going on, but the Boer Are really it
Speaker 1: got him more interested in it. It it made him
Speaker 1: look more into world politics, world events. Yep. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about two Gore's politics a little bit, just to
Speaker 1: give people an idea of what was going on in
Speaker 1: his mind and what point of view he was coming from.
Speaker 1: A lot of people, as we said before, especially anti
Speaker 1: colonial nationalists, they accused to Gore of being pro British
Speaker 1: and against the nationalist movement, and this wasn't kind of
Speaker 1: had some truth to it maybe, but wasn't exactly true.
Speaker 1: To Gore was against colonialism. Just put that out there.
Speaker 1: He wanted India to be an independent nation. But he
Speaker 1: didn't think that the confrontation and non cooperation UM tactics
Speaker 1: that were used by some of his contemporaries Gandhi obviously
Speaker 1: a very famous one, Mahandas Gandhi, who was actually his
Speaker 1: friend UM. So they differed in this way. He was
Speaker 1: one who who did use these tactics and and they
Speaker 1: disagree ead on on this, but they were still very
Speaker 1: good friends. He was actually the first to call Gandhi
Speaker 1: Mahatma which means great soul, which I just learned that
Speaker 1: in this podcast. So it wasn't it fun fact. But
Speaker 1: he certainly wasn't pro British. He wanted India to be
Speaker 1: its own country exactly. He just didn't think that a change,
Speaker 1: a straight change in political regime is all that they needed.
Speaker 1: His answer to the problem of India was education. He
Speaker 1: proposed that only through education could the their nation really
Speaker 1: affect true change. UM. Actually, as an example of this,
Speaker 1: UM I found a statement that he made in nineteen
Speaker 1: o nine which was actually a letter to an American
Speaker 1: lawyer who had written him talking about the problem of
Speaker 1: India and what was going on with colonialism. And it
Speaker 1: was from a lawyer named Myron H. Phelps and to
Speaker 1: Gore put it this way to him, he said, for us,
Speaker 1: there can be no question of blind revolution, but of
Speaker 1: steady and purposeful education. He said, that's basically what it
Speaker 1: would take to snap his people out of the quote
Speaker 1: trance that cold blooded repression had put them under. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: I mean some people see this as just a different
Speaker 1: approach to nationalism. It's it's not revolution, it's revolution through education. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He wanted his country not just to be independent, but
Speaker 1: to be independent and truly truly be independent in every
Speaker 1: aspect um, you know, not just be free from an
Speaker 1: oppressive government, but to be able to stand alone as
Speaker 1: a nation. And he thought education was the only way
Speaker 1: that they would be able to do that. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right, some people do just think that this is
Speaker 1: a different approach to nationalism um that he was taking.
Speaker 1: So a good thing to do, though, if you're interested
Speaker 1: in education is to start your own school, why not,
Speaker 1: which is exactly what he did. And he did just that.
Speaker 1: He founded an experimental school at Shanta Nikitan. It's a
Speaker 1: small town in West Bengal which means a bode of peace.
Speaker 1: And this wasn't his first experience with this town. His
Speaker 1: dad I had founded a oshroom there, so he founded
Speaker 1: a school there too. And his whole idea behind the
Speaker 1: school was pretty much goes along with his philosophy that
Speaker 1: he's had all along. You know. He felt that the
Speaker 1: East and West needed each other, and so he wanted
Speaker 1: to incorporate both types of thought into this school that
Speaker 1: he had. So what he did is he got both
Speaker 1: Indiana and Western scholars to teach there. And um, it
Speaker 1: was a different kind of environment than had outdoor classes.
Speaker 1: They had outdoor classes. That's pretty neat like the sound
Speaker 1: of that. Um, But just because he's running this school
Speaker 1: sounds like that would kind of keep you preoccupied. I
Speaker 1: don't think he's not writing. He's still writing prolifically. Um
Speaker 1: and unfortunately going through a few personal tragedies in the
Speaker 1: early nineteen hundreds. His wife died in nineteen o two. Incidentally,
Speaker 1: they had gotten married when she was only ten years
Speaker 1: old and he was twenty two. Um. And then after
Speaker 1: his wife died, he also lost his father and two
Speaker 1: of his children, all in this really short period of time. Yes,
Speaker 1: And it was the sadness resulting from these events that
Speaker 1: inspired several poems. Song poems as They're sometimes called, which
Speaker 1: he translated into English and published as a collection called
Speaker 1: Joy in nineteen twelve. And some have said that the
Speaker 1: fact that he did translate themselves is not necessarily a
Speaker 1: good thing. Yeah, I mean they still sold well. Apparently
Speaker 1: between March and November nineteen thirteen there were ten reprints. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, his his translations came under a lot of
Speaker 1: scrutiny later. If if you've ever come across him in
Speaker 1: a literature class or something and you're outside of India,
Speaker 1: it might be some sort of comparison to WB. Yates.
Speaker 1: And they were friends, if you could call it that,
Speaker 1: for about thirty seven years. That had a really long
Speaker 1: relationship with each other. And Yates is largely credited to
Speaker 1: exposing him to the West, you know, introducing him to
Speaker 1: the West and helping make him famous there. But they
Speaker 1: had kind of a tumultuous friendship to say the least. Yep,
Speaker 1: they actually met through William Rothenstein. He was an artist
Speaker 1: who hosted to Gore in London in around thirteen so
Speaker 1: around the time that he was publishing this translation and
Speaker 1: When to Go arrived. He gave Rothenstein an English translation
Speaker 1: of these poems and Rothenstein then sent them to Yates
Speaker 1: and some other some other people about town. Yates apparently
Speaker 1: loved them. He was really really into them. He apparently said, quote,
Speaker 1: I've carried the translations of these manuscripts about with me
Speaker 1: for days, reading it in railway trains or on top
Speaker 1: of omnibuses or in restaurants, and I've often had to
Speaker 1: close it less some strangers see how much it moved me. Um,
Speaker 1: but I don't know. Maybe we should talk about Yates later.
Speaker 1: Her opinion in a minute, Because this is the this
Speaker 1: is to Gore's rising star at this point. This is
Speaker 1: his fame starting to spread throughout the West as well
Speaker 1: as the East. So people finally got to know him
Speaker 1: through this. They finally got to know him through this
Speaker 1: English translation and through people kind of spreading the word
Speaker 1: about him, and it led I will not people spreading
Speaker 1: the word, but just his talent, I guess led to
Speaker 1: him winning the Noble Price for literature. As we mentioned,
Speaker 1: he was the first Asian to receive such an honor,
Speaker 1: and after that his fame kind of grew exponentially, fame
Speaker 1: outside of India, that is, he was knighted by King George,
Speaker 1: the fifth of Britain in nineteen fifteen, and he started
Speaker 1: traveling abroad a lot more. He wasn't in India as
Speaker 1: much as he used to be. He was doing lectures
Speaker 1: and readings. He went to Europe, North America, South America, Asia,
Speaker 1: East Asia, um, all over the place. So yeah, he
Speaker 1: was one of the most famous Indians in the world
Speaker 1: at this point, perhaps the most famous. But then, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: something really bad happened. On April thirteenth, nineteen nineteen, in
Speaker 1: a Star, which is located in the state of Punjab
Speaker 1: in India. British soldiers fired on an unarmed gathering of men,
Speaker 1: women and children who had come into the city to
Speaker 1: partake in a traditional Sikh festival. There was a peaceful
Speaker 1: nationalist demonstration going on that day, but many of the
Speaker 1: people who who were around, who were involved in the shooting,
Speaker 1: they weren't even really a part of the demonstration exactly.
Speaker 1: They were completely kind of innocent of whatever was going on.
Speaker 1: So a lot of lives were lost, and we don't
Speaker 1: know exactly how many. A lot of sources you look
Speaker 1: at and I think the official number reported by the
Speaker 1: British Raj was three seventy nine, but some people say
Speaker 1: that it could have been as many as a thousand
Speaker 1: or more well. And then the accounts of it in
Speaker 1: the British press were especially disturbed, and you know, they
Speaker 1: were treating it as though it had been a riot
Speaker 1: and the people who were killed had gotten themselves into
Speaker 1: trouble essentially, and people just had a very unfortunate reaction
Speaker 1: to to the whole thing that went down. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was weird. It was a big cover up um for
Speaker 1: obvious reasons. They didn't want people to know that this
Speaker 1: had gone down the way it had, because there was
Speaker 1: basically no reason for these people being killed, so they
Speaker 1: had to spin it. They had to spin it and uh.
Speaker 1: But then there were murmurings, of course, of what had
Speaker 1: really happened throughout India and too Core caught wind of this,
Speaker 1: and he was pretty disgusted by the entire situation and
Speaker 1: it kind of changed his outlook and it definitely changed
Speaker 1: the way he felt about being a British night. So
Speaker 1: he wrote a letter to Lord Chelmsford, who was the
Speaker 1: Viceroy of India at the time, and renounced his knighthood.
Speaker 1: And if you read his letter, it's interesting because it
Speaker 1: is so formal, so polite. It's very written in very
Speaker 1: precise English, but I don't know. He's clearly very very
Speaker 1: deeply disturbed by what's happened and can't reconcile being a
Speaker 1: night with supporting this definitely. Um, we have a little
Speaker 1: excerpt from the letter just to give you an idea
Speaker 1: of how incensed he was via the situation. He says,
Speaker 1: the very least I can do for my country to
Speaker 1: take all consequences upon myself in giving voice to the
Speaker 1: protest of millions of my countrymen surprised into dumb anguish
Speaker 1: of terror. The time has come when badges of honor
Speaker 1: make our shame glaring in their incongruous context of humiliation.
Speaker 1: And I, for my part, wish to stand shorn of
Speaker 1: all special distinctions by the side of those of my
Speaker 1: countrymen who, for their so called insignificance, are liable to
Speaker 1: suffer a degradation not fit for human beings. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: this was the end of this quote, total cooboration with
Speaker 1: the British, and it changed people's opinions of him too. Um,
Speaker 1: he wasn't the same guy anymore. And I mean we
Speaker 1: can talk about that maybe first in a literary sense
Speaker 1: with Yates, because people have suggested that this is part
Speaker 1: of the reason why Yates's opinion of Tore soured. According
Speaker 1: to Anna Jelna car To, Gore's resigning his knighthood just
Speaker 1: didn't match up correctly with the idea Yates had of
Speaker 1: him as this serene mystic from the east who certainly
Speaker 1: wouldn't get involved in politics, certainly wouldn't do anything as
Speaker 1: bold as renounced his knighthood. Um, it just didn't match
Speaker 1: up with Yates is to Gore. And of course, I
Speaker 1: mean we can assume there's some other reasons in here.
Speaker 1: Yates really didn't like to Gore's translations. As we mentioned earlier, Um,
Speaker 1: he was probably bound to be disappointed in this creation
Speaker 1: he had imagined for himself, because to Gore did write
Speaker 1: so much more than just romantic poetry. He wrote essays
Speaker 1: and plays and prose. But I mean we have to
Speaker 1: assume it did play a role. Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: think it did. But I think at the same time
Speaker 1: there had to be more to it. I mean, they
Speaker 1: knew each other, so he must have known that there
Speaker 1: was more to Gore than just this romantic literature and
Speaker 1: poetry that he wrote. Um, he did a lot of
Speaker 1: political writing, a lot of speaking, he was kind of
Speaker 1: a voice for for the way he movement. He had
Speaker 1: publicly promoted him though yep, I guess so that's true.
Speaker 1: But I guess it was bound to happen, since to
Speaker 1: Gore wrote other things anyway, so there was bound to
Speaker 1: be some kind of falling out between them at some point.
Speaker 1: But it changed. It changed what Yates thought of to Gore,
Speaker 1: at least in the you know, outwardly, and it changed
Speaker 1: I think what to Gore thought of his own views
Speaker 1: a little bit too. Definitely, he didn't really he didn't
Speaker 1: really change his views about the East and West needing
Speaker 1: each other. He still thought that. He still thought, you know,
Speaker 1: he wanted to see um kind of a universal land
Speaker 1: where people all cultures would come together and there weren't
Speaker 1: all these barriers between them. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I think he was very conflicted about the situation that happened,
Speaker 1: especially because he had English friends and so it made
Speaker 1: the situation kind of difficult for them, And he tried
Speaker 1: to express these feelings through his work after the fact. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and after this he kept on traveling, so he was
Speaker 1: still out and about in the world very much. So
Speaker 1: Um he said to have visited more than thirty countries
Speaker 1: on five continents of lecturing and having these extended conversations
Speaker 1: with people like Einstein on truth and beauty. They have
Speaker 1: this amazing debate and music. I mean stuff that you
Speaker 1: wouldn't even you know, think of Einstein talking about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but um, I mean to Gore's is all over the world.
Speaker 1: He meets Mussolini and it takes them a little while
Speaker 1: before he starts hearing reports about the fascism that's going
Speaker 1: on in Italy from some exiles and denounces Mussolini. But yeah,
Speaker 1: even and you know his his denunciations are still very
Speaker 1: polite and proper interesting to read them. Yep. He never
Speaker 1: loses his smooth talking never. Um. But so he this
Speaker 1: going around the world is partially to speak because he's
Speaker 1: asked and to to speak on behalf of the independence
Speaker 1: movement UM. But it's also to earn money for his school.
Speaker 1: He's still stumping for his cause, which is education, and
Speaker 1: he's still out there trying to keep the school, the
Speaker 1: six centric school that he started going UM and later
Speaker 1: this school in Shanthan ni Kitan it becomes a university
Speaker 1: called Visba Barathi University in nine UM and so he
Speaker 1: has some success with that, but it's sort of peters
Speaker 1: out as he. Um. Yeah, you were talking about able
Speaker 1: to support it. What it's like today kind of more
Speaker 1: of a place where you can learn about him than
Speaker 1: a university. I think it's more to study his philosophies
Speaker 1: and so forth than necessarily. But it does still exist. Yes,
Speaker 1: you can still visit it today. Actually, I think that
Speaker 1: India's recently nominated to be a World here UNESCO World
Speaker 1: Heritage Site. You've been there. I've been there. I went
Speaker 1: there when I was fourteen, Um, although I can't remember
Speaker 1: too much unfortunately, but I do remember it being very
Speaker 1: serene and um and uh liking it a lot. That's
Speaker 1: the rule of the podcast. You always have to mention
Speaker 1: the places have been too. It makes everybody think we're
Speaker 1: going all over the world seeing all this stuff. Oh dear,
Speaker 1: not really, guys, Um, But I don't know. Even with
Speaker 1: all of this traveling around the world and promoting his
Speaker 1: school and promoting his writings, he kind of kept his
Speaker 1: distance from the more confrontational side of the nationalist movement.
Speaker 1: He didn't get super involved in that. Even after this,
Speaker 1: renouncing his knighthood and all that, No, he still to
Speaker 1: his distance. Um. He was still part of it through
Speaker 1: his writings and through his talks that he gave Um
Speaker 1: and he was still friends with Gandhi of course, even
Speaker 1: though he didn't necessarily support a reaction that he did
Speaker 1: but Um, but he didn't get to to involved, and
Speaker 1: unfortunately he passed away about seven years before India actually
Speaker 1: achieved independence in ninety seven. But on the bright side,
Speaker 1: maybe Um India's national anthem John a Ghanamana is based
Speaker 1: on one of his song poems, and another of his songs,
Speaker 1: am are Shownar bang La is Bangladesh's national anthem. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's pretty impressive, I think. So he still gets
Speaker 1: to be a part of it. It's not easy to
Speaker 1: forget him at all. He's still a big part of
Speaker 1: the national culture. Every time they sing the national anthem
Speaker 1: or hear it, they'll think of him and Um and
Speaker 1: music art. Actually, an interesting fact about his art he
Speaker 1: didn't take up painting until he was about seventy years old,
Speaker 1: which I think is amazing. So he takes a painting
Speaker 1: at age seventy. Yet somehow he managed to create about
Speaker 1: two thousand paintings and drawings before he died around age eight.
Speaker 1: He was busy so that's incredible. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us today for this Saturday classic. If you
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