Through these letters written over a decade, an eloquent Tagore observes nature with its minute details making him ponder over deeper meanings of life and universe. Reflections on random thoughts and incidents shed light on the philosophical side of the bard, then an aimless wanderer in his late twenties, as he captures the little joys of village life and life itself cruising through the undivided Bengal countryside in the family barge. What may come across as mundane to most of us moved him deeply. Written at a time when he was more of a reluctant zamindar and an obscure man of letters, he touches upon his inner contradictions of a rootless existence as against being rooted to a place.
One thing stood out for me in these letters. His patriotic zeal and the desire to see his countrymen free from the colonial yoke which he poignantly summarises with the example of an earthen pot as against a metal one.
It is a memoir of sorts.
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