Sesher Kobita: The Last Poem

In Sesher Kobita, Rabindranath Tagore knocks away social and familial props just to set a young man and a woman talking to one another. Tagore maps the emotional evolution through a series of scintillating conversations between the two protagonists – Amit Rai and Labanyalata. Sesher Kobita has many layers: it is an unusual love story on the surface, but the deeper one moves into the story, one realizes that Tagore is subtly slipping in other elements as well. Is love important in marriage? Does marriage leave space, physical and mental, for both the partners? And then there is Tagore’s awareness of the Bengali language itself, with which he plays elaborate language games. The startlingly contemporaneous engagement with issues of romantic love and the responsibilities and everydayness of marriage is gripping: there may be nods of agreement, or skeptical headshakes, but to avoid reflection on the questions Tagore raises, is impossible.