Mlio

Asian and African Studies XIV, 1 (2010), pp. 1–8

UDK: 930.85(5+6) COPYRIGHT ©: MALASHRI LAL

Tagore, Imaging the ‘Other’: Reflections on The Wife’s Letter & Kabuliwala

Malashri LAL∗

Abstract Rabindranath Tagore in his Nobel Prize Acceptance speech said poignantly, “The spirit of India has always proclaimed the ideal of unity…. It comprehends all, and it has been the highest aim of our spiritual exertion to be able to penetrate all things with one soul…to comprehend all things with sympathy and love.” This ideal of a humanitarian world found expression in Tagore’s work in many genres and, to a great measure, he experimented innovatively by entering the minds of people substantially different from himself. The essay looks into his portrayal of a married Bengali woman and an Afghan trader in two short stories. Keywords: Tagore, gender, race, women, marriage, child, Afghan, ‘other’

Rabindranath Tagore in his Nobel Prize Acceptance speech said poignantly, “The spirit of India has always proclaimed the ideal of unity…. It comprehends all, and it has been the highest aim of our spiritual exertion to be able to penetrate all things with one soul… to comprehend all things with sympathy and love.” (Das 1996: 965) This ideal of a humanitarian world found expression in Tagore’s work in many genres and, to a great measure, he experimented innovatively by entering the minds of people substantially different from himself. This article reflects upon Rabindranath’s construction of the ‘Other’ in the short stories The Wife’s Letter and Kabuliwala to show how he could overcome the barriers of gender and racial identity to empathize with ‘difference’. It shows that the ‘foreignizing’ impulse is built up by notions of stereotype whether that of a woman doing ‘wifely duties’ or a poor trader plying his ware. These dichotomies of the ‘I’ and the ‘Other’ raise suspicions and hostilities, unfounded on the facts of inner life.

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Malashri Lal, Prof. in the Department of...