Tagore insisted in his essays that in songs the words and the music could not be separated. He also indicated that at best his song-lyrics could be translated into prose that had a whiff of music in them. Ananda Coomoraswamy, a translator of Tagore’s song-lyrics into English, introducing his work in 1912, made this observation about his renderings: ‘The translations convey only a shadow of the original poetry; they give only the meaning, that in the songs themselves is inseparable from their music.’ Most of the swaralipis (notations) , if not all, of Tagore ‘s songs were done by other people. Like many other composers, Tagore used to forget his composition/tunes very quickly. So, to preserve the composition, several people helped him to learn the song and make the notation of the same. However, Tagore was strict about the rendition and did not permit singers to improvise which was the backbone of classical singing of the time.

Why then bother with translating the “uncatchable loveliness” of the song-lyrics into other languages, if so much is lost? One answer is that Tagore knew that the songs were his ‘best work’; as he once said in a letter to Edward Thompson, ‘I often feel that, if all my poetry is forgotten, my songs will live with my countrymen, and have a permanent place’(Das Gupta, 2003); he believed they would be his most important ‘legacy’. Anyone wanting to perpetuate his contributions and honour his memory by preserving his work for posterity, internationally or nationally, therefore, can do no better than translate them as well as the best works in other genres, despite the intrinsic difficulties and ultimately impossible nature of the task.

As Tagore himself said in another context in his Bengali essay, ‘Sangeeter Mukti’, it may be necessary ‘to liberate what is being walled in and free all confined forces of the world—whether in music, or literature, or thought, or the nation, or society’. Moreover, and as Tagore had claimed in an exchange with Dilipkumar Roy, ‘the essence of a song is universal, even if its dress is local and national’ (Alam, 2021). Why should translators then not attempt translating his songs for the world at large even if their loveliness is uncatchable in the last analysis? He himself had led the way!

Indeed, on a few occasions, Tagore even acknowledged that translating song-lyrics was worth the effort, necessary and even inevitable. After listening to the singer Rattan Devi—the stage name of the singer Alice Ethel Richardson who would eventually marry Ananda Coomeraswamy and became Ratan Devi Coomeraswamy, and who had recorded Indian music and performed Indian songs in concerts in England and America—Tagore observed, ‘Sometimes the meaning of a poem is better understood in a translation, not necessarily because it is more beautiful than the original, but as in the new setting the poem has to undergo a trial; it shines more brilliantly if it comes out triumphant.’

One feels that more than any other genre in which Tagore wrote, the song-lyrics reflect the length and breadth of his interests. His lyrical side, devotional nature and mystical moments, moments of happiness and grief, patriotism, love of nature and of his fellow human beings, thoughts about life and death, vison for the future of his people as well as ruminations on his own fate, eco-critical consciousness, and sensitivity to the seasons of Bengal and its flora and fauna all come out vibrantly as well as musically in his songs. His flair for writing dance dramas, musicals and lyrical plays, his ability to produce songs for ceremonial and other occasions all lead to the song-lyrics. But above all, they are so compelling! This is why translators, and of course singers and directors have been attracted to the songs and felt driven to work with them.

One of the finest poets from India with his footsteps across borders and cultures, Tagore generates enormous interest among scholars for his vast and varied oeuvre translated in multifarious ways. Taking Radha Chakravarty’s observation that ‘translating Tagore today can be interventionist, transformative, and even utopian’ sets the tone.

Culture, in this context, plays an important part in literary translation. Susan Bassnett (2007), one of the best-known scholars of Translation Studies in the contemporary world, postulates that ‘Translation is about language, but translation is also about culture, for the two are inseparable’. Translation is not only a transition from one language to another, but it is the transfer of cultures as well. We cannot separate language and culture from one another.

To do justice to a literary text during translation, a translator must remember both source language and target language cultures and cultural nuances because literary translation focuses not only on words but also on cultures. Nowadays, translation is also considered creative work as Peter Bush asserts ‘. . . learning to translate is about writing creatively and imaginatively, about being sensitive readers and writers’ (Bush and Malmkjær, 1998). There is no denying that translators now enjoy the status of creative writers as they also create something new while translating a text. They develop the content of a source text in the target language text—the source text is not completely relegated in translation, but something new certainly emerges in good translation.

This would be the raison de terre of finding this new work of translation of Tagore’s Rabindra sangeet by Smt. Indrani Halder. This anthology comprises English translation of 250 relatively popular songs. It is always a heroic task to render in another language the nuances of the mood expressed through the notes specified for their rendition. As the English translation goes, they are crisp and well versed to convey the associative meaning. But the choice of raga, taal, meend or gamak that accompanies the original format of singing are beyond reproduction. Whenever the original composition is sung, these set a different environment which makes the listener get to the inner meaning beyond the lyrical expression. Most of Tagore songs have stood the test of time as they touch our heart with the subtle use of Bengali cultural idiom. In particular, when the lyrics mention the riverine or other natural setting one can easily close one’s eyes and feel the gentle breeze blowing which in an English translation would be hard to achieve. Nonetheless, the essential transfer of the context has been achieved, but this may not have conveyed the same import that resides in the local cultural platform of Bengal that would resonate in others with their own subtle and edifying sensitivity. As noted earlier, this work of love is both an exciting and passion filled task that takes the reader beyond the confines of words to the soulful.