Dino Daan by Rabindranath Tagore

Dino Daan by Rabindranath Tagore 

Hello Friends!

                            Today I'm going to write about the blog to the response of the task assigned by Heena ma'am. as a part of our syllabus we are studying Rabindranath Tagore's poetry and today in this blog I am going to answer the questions assigned by ma'am as a task.

About Poet :- 

      Rabindranath Tagore Bengali Rabīndranāth Ṭhākur, (born May 7, 1861,calcutta [now Kolkata], India—died August 7, 1941, Calcutta), Bengali poet, short-story writer, song composer, playwright, essayist, and painter who introduced new prose and verse forms and the use of colloquial language into Bengali literature, thereby freeing it from traditional models based on classical Sanskrit. He was highly influential in introducing Indian culture to the West and vice versa, and he is generally regarded as the outstanding creative artist of early 20th-century India. In 1913 he became the first non-European to receive the Nobel prize for literature.

Poem :- 

A translation of Tagore’s poem ‘Deeno Daan’ (’Destitute Donation’)

Said the royal attendant, “Despite entreaties, king,

The finest hermit, best among men, refuses shelter

In your temple of gold, he is singing to god

Beneath a tree by the road. The devout surround him

In numbers large, their overflowing tears of joy

Rinse the dust off the earth. The temple, though,

Is all but deserted; just as bees abandon

The gilded honeypot when maddened by the fragrance

Of the flower to swiftly spread their wings

And fly to the petals unfurling in the bush

To quench their eager thirst, so too are people,

Sparing not a glance for the palace of gold,

Thronging to where a flower in a devout heart

Spreads heaven’s incense. On the bejewelled platform

The god sits alone in the empty temple.”

At this,

The fretful king dismounted from his throne to go

Where the hermit sat beneath the tree. Bowing, he said,

“My lord, why have you forsaken god’s mighty abode,

The royal construction of gold that pierces the sky,

To sing paeans to the divine here on the streets?’

“There is no god in that temple,” said the hermit.

Furious,

The king said, “No god! You speak like a godless man,

Hermit. A bejewelled idol on a bejewelled throne,

You say it’s empty?”

“Not empty, it holds royal arrogance,

You have consecrated yourself, not the god of the world.”

Frowning, said the king, “You say the temple I made

With twenty lakh gold coins, reaching to the sky,

That I dedicated to the deity after due rituals,

This impeccable edifice – it has no room for god!”

Said the tranquil hermit, “The year when the fires

Raged and rendered twenty thousand subjects

Homeless, destitute; when they came to your door

With futile pleas for help, and sheltered in the woods,

In caves, in the shade of trees, in dilapidated temples,

When you constructed your gold-encrusted building

With twenty lakh gold coins for a deity, god said,

‘My eternal home is lit with countless lamps

In the blue, infinite sky; its everlasting foundations

Are truth, peace, compassion, love. This feeble miser

Who could not give homes to his homeless subjects

Expects to give me one!’ At that moment god left

To join the poor in their shelter beneath the trees.

As hollow as the froth and foam in the deep wide ocean

Is your temple, just as bereft beneath the universe,

A bubble of gold and pride.”

Flaring up in rage

The king said, “You false deceiver, leave my kingdom

This instant.”

Serenely the hermit said to him,

“You have exiled the one who loves the devout.

Now send the devout into the same exile, king.”

Translated from the Bengali by Arunava Sinha.

Questions/Answers :- 

1) The poem is written before 120 years (approx.). Can you find any resemblance between the poem and the pandemic time?

- Yes, I find that the poem is relevant to pandemic time also. Because in the corona pandemic time there are infinite people died because of corona and some of them died because of no space in hospitals. In India and some other countries people spent lots of money in other unnecessary things and also believe in religion rather than humanity. When corona spread in India everywhere during that time many people were died because some important things they can't effort and during that time everything was closed. People were stayed their home, even all the companies, factories, theaters, and temples were closed that time. Same situation we can see in the poem that sage told to king that...

• “I found it extremely meaningful and topical. I saw the poem being shared by more and more people on social media. There are many non-Bengalis on my friend list. I thought they should also know the essence of the poem. I translated it in English and shared a second post in the afternoon."

In this conversation of Sage and king we also find same situation relevance of Ram Mandir. When our Prime Minister Narendrabhai Modi laid down the first bricks of the much-contested Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. In the same manners of people are dying because of corona. Many hospitals have no bed, no Oxygen cylinders also because of lack of doctors. At that time some people were busy with making that temple. 

2) Why do you think the King is angry on the Sage?

- King is angry with the sage because sage was speaking about the reality of the society that there was no humanity in their hearts and also talk about temple that, 

At this,

The fretful king dismounted from his throne to go

Where the hermit sat beneath the tree. Bowing, he said,

“My lord, why have you forsaken god’s mighty abode,

The royal construction of gold that pierces the sky,

To sing paeans to the divine here on the streets?’

“There is no god in that temple,” said the hermit.

In this response sage tell king that God is not there in the temple, God has gone away with poor people. There were no need of temples if you don't help people. So because of this reason king became angry. 

 3) Why do you think the Sage denies to enter in the temple?

- The sage denied to enter in the temple because he believes that God is not living in the gold temples. He thinks that God is living with the pure and holy people. Who don't have enough food for survive. In front of them temples is useless and also God will choose the tree for live there because the poor people take rest under the tree. 

4) Can there be any connection between the text of the poem and the verdict of Ayoydhya Ram Mandir? 

- Yes, we can find the connection between Ram Mandir Nirman and this poem. In the poem, a sage reminds the king that he turned away from helping the suffering people even he built temple at a cost of 2 million gold coins. 

Same situation is that when PM bricks  the stone in Ram Mandir Ayodhya that time we can see the poem came out in Media. As we know that people in India are very religious.

 They spent kota of money to build temples and in front of that many people died because lack of things for survive. 

THANK YOU...