# Supplements

Joys of childhood

SNS | January 31, 2016 10:50 pm

There is a gulf of difference between reading Tagore writing about his own childhood and listening to Soumitra Chatterjee reading from the original text.

The veteran actor&’s reading brings a thrill only because he is capable of adding his tonal variations to the narrative recorded, by the poet&’s own confession, in simple language.

That is the style that appeals to the young. In one of the passages, Tagore recalls that he was often asked to write for children.

What he did in The three-disc album called Chhelebela is quite different from the poems and prose narratives that the actor has been presenting over the past half century.

Here he needed to visualise the mood of the writer swinging between nostalgia and the sheer joys of childhood.

Bhavna has been coming up with several new ideas that have stirred academic minds. This well researched exploration of Tagore the boy should appeal to senior scholars and young students in equal measure.