Sri Aurobindo certainly made it, but outside Bengal

The Telegraph Sunday , December 23 , 2007 Front Page > Opinion
THE END OF ARCADIA - A visit to Santiniketan provokes some unsettling questions
The Thin Edge - Ruchir Joshi

To read or to listen to Tagore is to, ultimately, be immersed in optimism, in the unshakeable belief that deep joy is the birthright of every human being and an attainable one. So I try and change what I’m looking at and the way I am seeing things: the trees around the campus are still lovely in the winter light; there are couples scattered in the nooks and crannies of the crumbling buildings, like birds about to mate; the forest around the khoai ripples with natural sounds; cycling through a santhal village, I see a modern building made using traditional local materials, a ceramic shop with some very nice things, and for a moment I could be in Goa or Auroville.

As I head for the station a thought passes through my head: we cannot escape the great Bengalis, but can they escape us? Aurobindo certainly made it, but outside Bengal; now, what about Rabindranath?