India’s Nobel Prize winning poet, Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) said that his songs would live long after all his other works were forgotten. It has proven to be true, as today, even in the land of his birth, Tagore’s songs are better known than the rest of his literary output. His poetical works include about two thousand five hundred songs (both the lyrics and music), an endless variety of outstanding and innovative poems, plays in verse and half a dozen musical ballets. His other literary works include three volumes of world class short stories, many novels, plays in prose, numerous essays, memoir and personal letters, which were in effect, belles letters. Tagore wrote his songs and poems exclusively in his mother tongue, Bengali, and most of them in rhyme. Even more than sixty years after the poet’s death only a fraction of his songs and poems have been translated into English. More importantly, with the exception of a recent translation of his book, the Gitanjali, all other translations have so far been in prose. In this book 102 of his most popular songs from all categories have been translated in the same end rhyme as in the original Bengali. Songs can not be translated from one language to another as songs; songs are specific to a people and its culture. These translations are to be enjoyed as lyrical poems. They all sing. The language is simple, the images are familiar but the thoughts are deep, and touch all sensitive hearts. That was Rabindranath’s genius.
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