Rabindranath Tagore at the age of 35 (approximately). His autograph in Bengali script is at the bottom of the photograph. "Within a few days of this incident a few of our friends were returning from Dhaka in a steamer. A boat sank in Padma after it was hit by the steamer. The three passengers of the boat fell in the water. Another boat was moving close to the ship. All the people called the boatman loudly and appealed to him for rescue. He ignored and left. There was no danger. He was near. There was no way a rescue operation would have been difficult. I remember another day. There was a big storm at night. The following morning the wind weakened, but the river had waves. My boat was anchored on the bank of Gorai river. Suddenly it appeared that the body of a woman was floating in the middle of the river. Her hair was spread over water. Nothing else was visible. I called the people on the bank and said, "Please take my small life-boat and rescue her. Perhaps she is still alive." Nobody came forward. I said, "I will give a reward of five rupees to whoever goes." Then a few people floated my boat and rescued her. She gradually regained consciousness. If there were no hope of reward, nobody would have gone. Another day I was coming across a large lake on a boat. To gain an advantage fishermen set up large posts where a lake meets a river. This makes the path of water-flow narrow and leads to high velocity of water. I had seen many loaded boats in danger at places like this. While going along this narrow path my boat got stuck in a very dangerous place during an attempt to maneuver around a post. Only about ten feet away some people were fishing. We called them for help, but they did not even look at us. The boatman declared a reward. They pretended to be deaf in order to get a higher amount. After the amount of reward reached a high value then the obstacle to their hearing was suddenly completely gone. But we were suffering because of the result of their actions. There is no need to tell a reader from our country that if the boat had belonged to a magistrate, then a test of their hearing would have produced a different result. When a store in Bolpur market caught fire, you remember that four foreigners, Afgans, came forward to help you put out the fire. The people of the neighborhood did not respond to your calls. The people whom you approached for pitchers, remember they declined as they were afraid that their pitchers would be tainted. There is no need to prove with more examples the unwillingness for sacrifice that we see around us. Because whatever we say with our mouth, at least in our mind we all admit this weakness of our character." Translated from Bengali. This is a part of an article written in 1912 before a trip to England and addressed to his students in Santiniketan to state the objectives of the trip. Previous  Next  List  Home