Gora (Modern Classics)

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Gora (Modern Classics) Page 53

by Tagore, Rabindranath


  Manu: father of the human race; the law-code of the Manusmriti is ascribed to him

  mashi: mother’s sister

  mesho: mother’s sister’s husband

  maya: in Hindu philosophy, the illusory material world

  mela: fair; exhibition

  mitbar: a young boy accompanying the bridegroom as his supposed substitute or double

  mora: low stool made of cane and bamboo

  Mutiny: the uprising of 1857, termed the ‘Sepoy Mutiny’ and ‘Sipahi Revolt’ by British and Indian historians respectively.

  nabina: young woman who follows modern ways

  namavali: a wrap with the deity’s name inscribed on it

  Nandokumar: Raja Nando Kumar, faujdar of Hooghli during the Palashi battle and diwan of Mir Jafar, was hanged for forgery in 1775 at the instigation of Warren Hastings

  Narada: a sage who fomented discord among gods and men

  Narayan: another name for Vishnu, or Krishna

  Narayani Sena: when Krishna (Narayan) asked the Kauravas in the Mahabharata to choose either him or his troops, the Narayani Sena, they chose the troops

  ojha: exorcist; one who cures snake bites and other fatal wounds by ritual means

  palki: palanquin

  panchayat: village council with five or more members

  Pandavas: the descendants of kind Pandu in the Mahabharata

  Parashar: ancient law-giver in the Hindu tradition

  pathshala: primary school

  patra: prospective bridegroom

  Phalgun: eleventh month of the Bengali calendar, from mid-February to mid-March

  pinri: low wooden seat

  pishi: father’s sister

  poite: sacred thread; ritual of wearing the sacred thread for the first time

  prachina: woman who follows traditional, old-fashioned modes

  Prajapati: god of marriage

  Prakriti: Nature; the female principle

  prasad: food blessed by a deity or spiritual guide

  puja: worship; prayer

  punya: the virtue that accrues from meritorious deeds

  Radha-Krishna: Krishna and his consort Radha are the subject of much romantic lore

  ragini: a musical mode in the Indian classical tradition

  Rahu: a demon beheaded for trying to drink nectar with the gods, believed to cause eclipses when he attempts to devour the sun and moon; considered a malign planet

  Rama: son of Dasharatha, hero of the Ramayana

  Ramaprasad: Ram Prasad Sen (1720–71), who composed devotional songs in praise of goddess Kali and other forms of Shakti

  Rig Veda: the first of the four Vedas, the ancient spiritual hymns that created the first stage of Hindu mythology

  rowshan-chowki: orchestra of shehnai and other instruments

  sab lal ho jayega: Hindi phrase meaning ‘everything will turn red’. Gora is alluding to British rule in India, for British troops wore red uniforms and the territories under their direct control were coloured red in contemporary maps of India

  Sagara: The 60,000 sons of King Sagara were cursed by sage Kapila, and saved only when Bhagirath brought the river Ganga down from Vishnu’s feet onto this earth

  saji: round, high-rimmed wicker-basket

  sal: tree valued for its timber

  samhita: ancient Hindu law-book

  sandesh: sweet made of cottage cheese

  sanyasi: ascetic

  segun: teak

  sej: oil lamp with a glass shade

  shakti mantra: the occult worship of goddesses Kali-Durga-Shakti as embodiments of divine energy

  shalgram: sacred stone supposed to represent Vishnu, worshipped by the Vaishnavas

  sharat: early autumn, the months Bhadra and Ashwin in the Bengali calendar

  shastra: Hindu scriptures

  Shiva: third god of the Hindu triad

  shivalinga: phallic image worshipped as Shiva

  shubhodrishti: wedding ritual where bride and bridegroom first look at each other

  Shudra: fourth or lowest of the Hindu castes

  Sirajuddaula: Nawab of Bengal, defeated by the British at the Battle of Palashi in 1757

  Sita: daughter of Janak and wife of Rama in the Ramayana

  Sravan: fourth month of the Bengali calendar, mid-July to mid-August

  stotra: hymn of praise

  supari: betel nut

  swadesh: one’s own land

  swadeshi: of one’s own country; phase of Indian National Movement favouring indigeneous elements and boycott of foreign goods

  taan: combination of notes in a classical melody

  taktaposh: a plain rectangular bedstead

  tandava: a frenzied dance of destruction

  tehsildar: officer in charge of revenue collection in a demarcated area called a tehsil

  Tantrik: follower of the doctrine of the Tantras of Shaktas

  thakur: a Hindu deity; an idol; a Brahman; a Brahman cook

  thala: a metal dish

  tilak: a Hindu sectarian mark on the forehead, usually of sandal paste or sacred clay

  togor: a small white flower

  tol: village school for teaching Sanskrit

  Triveni: sacred confluence of rivers Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati at Allahabad

  tussar: coarse silk made from silkworm cocoons

  vaishnava: follower of Sri Chaitanya; member of a modern Hindu sect devoted to the deity Vishnu

  Vedanta: monistic school of Hindu philosophy that became popular after the Vedic period; their teachings are summarized in the treatise called the first Brahmasutra

  veena: musical instrument, usually with seven strings

  yajna: sacrificial rite

  References

  Anisuzzaman. Personal interview. Dhaka: August 23, 2008.

  Bagchi, Jashodhara. ‘Representing Nationalism: Ideology of Motherhood in Colonial Bengal’. Economic and Political Weekly 25.42-43 (Oct. 20-27, 1990): WS 65-71.

  Basu, Buddhadev. Rabindranath: Kathasahitya (Bengali). Kolkata: New Age Publishers, 1955.

  Bhattacharya, Malini. ‘Gora and The Home and the World: The Long Quest for Modernity’. Datta, ed. 127-142.

  Bhattacharya, Ramkrishna. ‘Rabindranath Tagore and the Politicization of the Bangla novel’. Tagore and Modernity. Ed. Krishna Sen and Tapati Gupta. Kolkata: Dasgupta and Co., 2006. 136-148.

  Bhattacharyya, Sutapa. Shey Nahi Nahi: Rabindra-Sahitye Narimukti Bhavana (Bengali). Kolkata: Subarnarekha, 2004.

  Chakrabarti, Shirshendu. ‘Universalist Paradigms of Nation and Narration.’ The Book Review XXII. 1-2 (Jan.-Feb. 1998). 70-71.

  Chakrabarty, Dipesh. ‘Witness to Suffering: Domestic Cruelty and the Birth of the Modern Subject in Bengal.’ Questions of Modernity, ed. Timothy Mitchell. 49-86.

  Chatterjee, Partha. ‘Two Poets and Death: On Civil and Political Society in the Non-Christian World.’ Questions of Modernity, ed. Timothy Mitchell. 35-48.

  Chaudhuri, Nirad C. Thy Hand, Great Anarch!. London: Chatto and Windus, 1987.

  Das, Sisir Kumar. ‘The Narratives of Suffering: Caste and the Underprivileged.’ Translating Caste. Edited by Tapan Basu. New Delhi: Katha, 2002. 150-180.

  Datta, P.K., ed. Rabindranath Tagore’s The Home and the World: A Critical Companion. Delhi: Permanent Black, 2003.

  Dutta, Krishna and Andrew Robinson, eds. Rabindranath Tagore: The Myriad-Minded Man. 1995. New Delhi: Rupa, 2000.

  ____. Selected Letters of Rabindranath Tagore. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

  Hogan, Patrick Colm. ‘Gora, Jane Austen and the Slaves of Indigo.’ Rabindranath Tagore: Universality and Tradition. Edited by Patrick Colm Hogan and Lalita Pandit. Cranbury: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2003. 175-198.

  Kabir, Humayun. ‘Tagore was No Obscurantist’. Calcutta Municipal Gazette, 1961. Tagore Birth Centenary Number. 122-5.

  Majumdar, Archana. Rabindra-Upanyas-Parikrama (Bengali). Kolkata: Orient Book Company, 1970.

  Mehta, Jaya. ‘Some Imaginary ‘Real’ Thin
g: Racial Purity, the Mutiny, and the Nation in Tagore’s Gora and Kipling’s Kim.’ Rabindranath Tagore: Universality and Tradition. Edited by Patrick Colm Hogan and Lalita Pandit. Cranbury: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2003. 199-212.

  Mitchell, Timothy, ed. Questions of Modernity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000.

  Mukherjee, Meenakshi. ‘Introduction’. Gora. Translated by Sujit Mukherjee. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1997. Rpt. 2001. ix-xxiv.

  Murshid, Ghulam. Rabindrabishwe Purbabanga: Purbabange Rabindracharcha (Bengali). Dhaka: Bangla Academy, 1981.

  Nandy, Ashis. The Illegitimacy of Nationalism: Rabindranath Tagore and the Politics of the Self. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994.

  Nair, Rukmini Bhaya. Lying on the Postcolonial Couch: The Idea of Indifference. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002.

  O’Connell, Kathleen M. Rabindranath Tagore: The Poet as Educator. Kolkata: Visva-Bharati, 2002.

  Pal, Prasantakumar. Rabijibani (Bengali). Vols. 5 & 6. Kolkata: Ananda Publishers, 1990, 1993.

  Pandit, Lalita. ‘Caste, Race, and Nation: History and Dialectic in Rabindranath Tagore’s Gora.’ In Literary India: Comparative Studies in Aesthetics, Colonialism and Culture. Ed. Patrick Colm Hogan and Lalita Pandit. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995. 207-33.

  Ray, Debes. ‘Gora: Chirakaler Samakal’ (Bengali). Desh Year 66: 6 (23 Jan. 1999). 25-31.

  Said, Edward. Representations of the Intellectual: The 1993 Reith Lectures. New York: Pantheon Books, 1994.

  Sarkar, Sumit. The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal 1903-1908. New Delhi: People’s Publishing House, 1973.

  ____. ‘Ghare Baire in its Times’. 2003. Datta, ed. 143-173.

  Sarkar, Tanika. Hindu Wife, Hindu Nation: Community, Religion and Cultural Nationalism. New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001.

  Sen, Amartya. ‘Introduction’. Boyhood Days by Rabindranath Tagore. Translated by Radha Chakravarty. Penguin India/Puffin Classics, New Delhi: 2007. ix-xxiii.

  Sen, Priyaranjan. Western Influence in Bengali Literature. 1947.

  Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. ‘The Burden of English.’ Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament: Perspectives on South Asia. Edited by Carol A. Breckenridge and Peter van der Vier. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1993. 135-57.

  Sprinker, Michael. ‘Homeboys: Nationalism, Colonialism, and Gender in The Home and the World.’ Reading the Shape of the World: Towards an International Cultural Studies. Ed. Henry Schwartz and Richard Dienst. Politics and Culture 4 (1996).

  Rept. in Datta, ed. 107-126. Thompson, E.P. Alien Homage: Edward Thompson and Rabindranath Tagore. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1993.

  Trivedi, Harish. Colonial Transactions: English Literature and India. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993.

  Woolf, Leonard. ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’. Nation and Athenaeum (9 Feb. 1924). 669.

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  First published by Penguin Books India 2009

  Translation copyright © Radha Chakravarty 2009

  Cover illustration by Rabindranath Tagore

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  ISBN: 978-01-4306-583-8

  This digital edition published in 2012.

  e-ISBN: 978-81-8475-728-6

  INTRODUCTION

  1 Banaphul, Rabindra-Smriti 72-4, cited in Majumdar 298, translated by Anisuzzaman (personal interview). See also Tagore’s letter. ‘[genesis of] Gora’ to W.W. Pearson, 1922, ‘Letters to W.W. Pearson’, Visva-Bharati Quarterly (Aug.-Oct. 1943), 179, cited in Dutta and Robinson 1995, 154 and E. P. Thompson, Alen Homage 147.

  2 Tagore, Gitanjali, verse 108, Rabindra Rachanabali 2 (Santiniketan: Govt. of West Bengal, 1961), trans. Sisir Kumar Das (Das 151).

  3 See Pal 1993, 149.

  4 Tagore to Pearson, 1922, Visva-Bharati Quarterly 9:2 [Aug.-Oct. 1943] 178-9, cited in Dutta and Robinson 2005, 310.

 

 

 


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