My Reminiscences
Here is the genesis of one of the twentieth century's most luminous minds, rendered in prose that itself feels like poetry. Rabindranath Tagore invites readers into the workshop of his becoming, not through systematic memoir but through the hazier, more luminous stuff of memory reimagined. He recalls his childhood in the sprawling Tagore household at Jorasanko, where the walls hummed with intellectual energy and artistic ambition, where his brothers and sisters were already becoming the figures who would shape Bengal's cultural renaissance. We see the young Tagore navigating his first schooling, observing the elaborate rituals of family life, discovering the natural world with that particular intensity that would later flower into some of the most transcendent nature poetry in any language. But this is not mere autobiography. Tagore explicitly frames his project as artistic reclamation rather than historical record: memory, he suggests, is a canvas where experience becomes something richer than mere fact. The result is a book less about what happened than about how a poet learns to see, and why those early visions never quite leave the blood.
Editions
X-Ray
“If someone smells a flower and says he does not understand, the reply to him is: there is nothing to understand, it is only a scent. If he persists, saying: that I know, but what does it all mean? Then one has either to change the subject, or make it more abstruse by saying that the scent is the shape which the universal joy takes in the flower.””
— Rabindranath Tagore
“So in the streets of Calcutta I sometimes imagine myself a foreigner, and only then do I discover how much is to be seen, which is lost so long as its full value in attention is not paid. It is the hunger to really see which drives people to travel to strange places.””
— Rabindranath Tagore
“The song being great in its own wealth, why should it wait upon the words? Rather does it begin where mere words fail. Its power lies in the region of the inexpressible; it tells us what the words cannot.””
— Rabindranath Tagore
“When material is in profusion, the mind gets lazy and leaves everything to it, forgetting that for a successful feast of joy its internal equipment counts for more than the external. This is the chief lesson which his infant state has to teach to man. There his possessions are few and trivial, yet he needs no more for his happiness. The world of play is spoilt for the unfortunate youngster who is burdened with an unlimited quantity of playthings.””
— Rabindranath Tagore
“Life's memories are not life's history, but the original work of an unseen artist””
— Rabindranath Tagore
“অমৃত জিনিসটা রসের মধ্যে নাই, রসবোধের মধ্যেই আছে।””
— Rabindranath Tagore
“Mitte üksnes poeesias, vaid ka üldse kogu kunstis peab kunstniku meel saavutama teatud eemalehoidmisastme - ainujuhtimine tuleb anda loojale inimese sees. Kui ainestik saab loomingust võitu on tagajärjeks sündmuse pelk koopia, mitte aga selle peegeldamine läbi kunstniku meele.””
— Rabindranath Tagore
Link to this book
Add a free, dofollow link to Lex on your blog, forum, syllabus, or reading list.
<a href="https://lex-books.com/book/my-reminiscences-8ed857a2-387d-4fd5-a2dd-e311d124318e"><img src="https://lex-books.com/badges/read-on-lex.svg" alt="Read My Reminiscences by Rabindranath Tagore free on Lex" width="160" height="40"></a>[](https://lex-books.com/book/my-reminiscences-8ed857a2-387d-4fd5-a2dd-e311d124318e)[url=https://lex-books.com/book/my-reminiscences-8ed857a2-387d-4fd5-a2dd-e311d124318e][img]https://lex-books.com/badges/read-on-lex.svg[/img][/url]Read My Reminiscences by Rabindranath Tagore free on Lex: https://lex-books.com/book/my-reminiscences-8ed857a2-387d-4fd5-a2dd-e311d124318eCite this book
Reading this edition for a paper or guide? Copy a citation.
Tagore, Rabindranath. My Reminiscences. Lex, lex-books.com/book/my-reminiscences-8ed857a2-387d-4fd5-a2dd-e311d124318e.Tagore, R. (n.d.). My Reminiscences. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/my-reminiscences-8ed857a2-387d-4fd5-a2dd-e311d124318eTagore, Rabindranath. My Reminiscences. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/my-reminiscences-8ed857a2-387d-4fd5-a2dd-e311d124318e.
