AN UNUSUAL AND TIMELY TRIBUTE IN THE 150TH YEAR OF THE POET’S BIRTH ANNIVERSARY
Rabindranath Tagore’s profound meditations on life, nature, grace and brokenness in the Gitanjali won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Sing of Life is Priya Sarukkai Chabria’s virtuosic revisioning of this world classic. Limned with daring, intuition and poetic imagination, it rings true to Tagore’s search for spiritual splendour, and her own questing.
Chabria writes in the introduction to the work, ‘I believe a great poem is one that often serves as a draft or raft for someone else’s poem. Or that is how it should be: A spark or a shift in another’s consciousness.’ In this inspired linguistic experiment, she seeks to capture that spark and give it new life by chiselling Tagore’s prose-poetry into intense poems that invite us to re-engage with the Gitanjali. Contemplative and courageous, this is a reimagining of Tagore and his work for a new generation of readers.
