Nivedita Mukerjee
Education consultancy for parents and schools
You are not alone with your little one during #Lockdown. Lean-in.
“Mummy I don’t like this (online) class. I can’t share this rubber (eraser) with my friend”. How can parents and teachers help this little one in her personal, social and emotional development when physical classrooms are closed?
Preschools are normally alive with the sounds of little children singing Good Morning and Hello songs… the playground abuzz with children on slides and see-saws, squealing with joy as they go on the swings and merry go rounds…Teachers with their little ones in tow going about their days with hugs and high fives… all of this has come to a screeching halt. The toys remain in their boxes. The educational aids on the shelves. The display boards have a film of dust and the artworks are curling up and fading.
Within days of the #lockdown, the internet exploded with resources and tips for creative ways of learning. The middle school and senior school teachers took to online learning and teaching. The primary school took to working on quiz and worksheets online. But, what about the preschool? The resources available online are not quite meant for early years of ages up to 8. What should a parent do? How can preschool teachers be the friend and guide to the parents to help sustain the learning and development of their young children?
Here are my 3 top considerations for teachers and parents as they lean-in on each other:
- What content is relevant now that is developmentally appropriate and student centred?
- How can the early childhood teachers and parents of young children let go of their BC (Before Corona) notions of how our children learn, and embrace the radically changed situation to re-skill and foray bravely into this new world presented to us DC (During Corona) and AC (After Corona)?
- How can both parents and teachers be sensitive to each other, those who are trying to work from and at home and teach their child/student while supporting their child’s learning and emotional needs?
Here are some of the things I know that teachers and parents have started doing:
- The teachers are trying to offer story time, song time, circle time via online classes for short duration of 10 to 15 minutes which the parent and child both can join in. It has been a relief for the parent within her/his work from home schedule when someone else they trust can takeover their child’s attention.
- The teachers are mostly trying to chat about the usual class routines that children are familiar with in starting their school day – like the weather, the day of the week, month of the year and calling out names of each child, registering them into their online class and acknowledging their presence. The yoga and/or the music and movement teacher is dropping in online for 10 minutes for them to move and stretch.
- Some of the teachers are using their classroom photos as a side window or a backdrop to convey to the children the comfort of the thought that the school and their classroom along with their teacher is still there.
- Preschool kits are being made by the teachers containing activity materials from stationery to play-dough, blocks and puzzles that are age appropriate, sanitising them and sending out in #COVID19 suited packaging that the parents can use at home.
- Preschool teachers and parents are subscribing and investing in educational aids that could come home to them so that learning remains hands on and experiential – to the extent possible.
- Teachers and parents are connecting online for short durations, one on one or grade wise, to share the concerns and finding solutions and sharing verified and vetted resources that are developmentally appropriate. Teachers are sharing the learning objectives and outcomes along with possible methods that a parent can execute at home.
- A teacher has brought out her Christmas decoration and another has brought out her Dasara dolls to show parents how to create a dramatic set for their child. One teacher has set up a classroom with stuffed toys giving them names of her students while conducting her online sessions.
- Teachers are helping parents to set out role plays centres at their homes with material available to develop the communication and imagination skills that are key for cognitive development during the early years.
- Teachers are sharing their skill of craft and art with parents via recorded video lessons that the child and/or parent can watch to learn and then share what they have created back to their classmates and teacher.
- Teachers have set up one on one chat rooms with parents to counsel them on their parenting concerns.
- Teachers are calling in children in smaller numbers onto the online platform to meet with the children and parents to communicate, teach and learn how best to approach the next session.
- The preschools are instructing publishers to send workbooks, activity materials directly to the teachers and parents to teach and use from their homes.
Learning has shifted out of our preschool buildings. Schools and teachers have not done this before! everyone is learning at the pace of crisis. Educators, especially preschool teachers are trying to figure out how to create normalcy during the time of a global reset.
Parents need to enrol their child in preschools to lean-in on the teacher and institutional expertise and the teacher has to trust and support the parent to extend learning to their child. School leadership would need to train the teachers as well as provision for educational aids for both teachers and parents.
Do share your thoughts, suggestions, photos of what you have done for your preschooler with me and the readers as your replies. Please feel free to share this post and subscribe with your email, it is free. I will continue to share the learnings from teachers, parents and my own experiences of this all new world of education.
#lockdown is time to be WITH and not VERSUS the teachers
Teachers are now the one big constant in the lives of our children. We need to rally around the teaching community even more than earlier. Much like how the society needs to be with the health workers – the school leaders, management and parents need to be with their teachers. Now and through the year as it is looking at lockdowns, staggered re-opening, online classrooms, e-assessments and students growing up in a world that has shifted within a few weeks for them to an entirely new paradigm.
Here are my top 3 suggestions to support teachers:
1. Walk away from policies and mandates: Give time and choice to your teachers to discover the online platform they are most comfortable to work on. Adopt a few until such time each of them gets used to what they would like to work on and teach with. If it means that the school will use several different platforms for transacting the learning for some time or for all the time, so be it. It is similar to teachers having their own preferred style of conducting learning in classrooms. It not only depends on their subject but also on their personality type and the age group and dynamics of their students. Not every online learning platform is suitable to everyone and perhaps not the designated learning management system that has been picked up by the school management. Keep that platform for uploading administrative details and assessments as per school mandate but not for conducting lessons online.
The readiness of each teacher and the adoption of an e-learning platform will have a learning curve. Now is not the time to force that. Neither is it the time to adhere to the policies of submitting lesson plan by a particular day of the week in a particular format or finishing a particular module within certain number of hours. When given a choice to the teachers to figure what works best for their subject or for them and their students without the additional stress of a mandate or a policy, they will be able to deal with their own re-skilling and learning better. Trust them.
2. Support and encourage as a routine: If you are using a conferencing or meeting tool that you think would work for your child’s teacher, please volunteer as a parent to handhold the teachers into the platform. Let them try it out and figure if they are comfortable using it. Trouble shoot for them. Curate a list of platforms that might be useful for them to try. Curate videos or any other resource that they can use for their lessons. Go over your child’s curriculum for the year and discuss with the teacher how you can offer your assistance. Be with your child if you may while s/he is taking an online lesson but do not hover to critique the ways.
Teacher is new to this method, new to managing class dynamics online, new to getting cues from the children whether they have the attention of each student during the class or for that matter how much the learning is happening without the physical cues s/he was used to.
Administrators and school leadership have to bear in mind to schedule meetings one on one and/or in a group to offer support and encourage each member in their tryst to learn and figuring out. They are fixing their plane while flying it! It comes with its own anxieties. While at it, do remember to take time and take care of yourselves. You do not know exactly how to lead either in these times. You are also a learner.
3. Communicate with grace: I can’t emphasise enough how much acting with grace is important at this time than any other. Each one of us is anxious with the uncertainties. Each one is grappling with our own fallibilities. Some of us are succeeding better than some other given our own individual unique physical, emotional, financial and family circumstances. Some days are better than the others, some days are worse. It was so in 2019 also but is accentuated in 2020 and is not looking to go away in a hurry. Keep your grace in communications with teachers. They will surprise you with their commitment.
What are the LMS platforms you have tried out? What has worked for you? What would you suggest to your colleagues, peers, fellow parents? Please share with me and the readers. Please subscribe with your email for getting articles in your mail.
Screen time! seriously? In BC era perhaps but it is DC era now…
New era new rules. So the eras that are relevant for our students and/or children are BC, DC and then hopefully soon AC … Before Corona, During Corona and After Corona. These are the eras that I think should be considered to define the new rules for screen time. The expectations and negotiations with the Gen. Z (born between 1998 and 2012 – of the ages 7 to 22 in 2019) will have to consider DC carefully, with a new filter. How can the regular recommendations of WHO or of the various paediatric associations for the screen time, where time is the key measure, be possibly relevant in DC?
The key factors for considering screen time During Corona would not be ‘how much’ time but the following instead:
- What is the content that is being consumed :
- A violent game v/s content that is age appropriate, interactive, educational and/or a strategy game.
- Is the content making your child learn, think critically and problem solve, socially interact?
- Try out the content yourself and look at the reviews and recommendations for authenticity of what is being claimed by the content site.
- Who is the screen time being spent with :
- Is the time on screen spent along with you – a parent and/or teacher?
- With their grandparents co-watching something or playing a game with their peers/siblings that is age appropriate?
- Who is your child’s screen buddy at a given time?
- What can you/your child discuss while viewing a content or playing?
- Hw can you manage screen time as co-viewing for younger children?
- Can you create a set up where you can spend screen time that is more of co-engaging with your older children?
- Definitely check out the apps, games and sites that your children are spending time with to know more and make sure that they are quality experiences for your child/student.
Go ahead, learn from them and with them. Long hours of screen time alone is not appropriate at any age whether child or Adult.
When my much grown up son told me on a recent call that he is enjoying computer games while working from home and is finding it relaxing to do so after many years… it rung a bell. It is DC. This is not the time to count the amount of time spent with screen. It is how you spend it and who you spend it with. Theatres, Operas, Safaris, Museums, Games, Puzzles, stories, movies… from the best in the world is out there, and mostly free or very nominal subscriptions. Let us co-view with the younger ones, co-engage with the older ones and wade through the DC times staying safe with screen time indoors.
What have you played recently with your child? Which sites would you recommend for your students? Educational and/or recreational. Please share them with me and fellow readers and subscribe to my blog post here with your email to receive an update when I publish a new one. It is free 🙂
The 3 Cs and 2 Rs for school leadership during #Lockdown. Plan afresh, prepare anew
With the imminent extension of lockdown and schools remaining closed for a longer period, school leaders, staff, students, parents are grappling with uncertainty, confusion, expectations from themselves, helpless ness, anger and hope in various degrees at various times depending on what is up close and what needs to be mitigated on personal front. All this amidst the uncertainty of funding, paying overheads, admissions, school fees, new recruitments, maintenance of infrastructure and supporting the school community through this unnerving time.
Today is precious and tomorrow, whenever that is, schools will reopen. A deluge of worksheets, lesson plans, activity plans can be overwhelming to create by the teachers as well as for parents who needs to implement them . As a school advisor and mentor to the leadership teams across India, I am experiencing the varied challenges schools are facing. The school leadership is sorting them with their teams on an ongoing basis.
Here are my 3Cs and 2Rs for the school leadership to consider:
Communicate : If you were not communicating much earlier as a school leader, start now. If you were, increase the frequency even more. Communicate with your teaching staff, with your administrative staff, with your support staff, with your students, your parents, your board members, consultants, advisors and also your vendors. All who constitute your school community. Translate written communication into languages that they understand and are familiar with. Send short voice and/or video messages whenever possible. Communicate to inform, to support, to manage, to reflect, to share personal stories, to connect.
Contextualise : Think about the groups and individuals and structure, contextualise and customise your interaction as well as materials you are sharing with each member/group in the school community. For students it could be their interest areas and what is connected with the curriculum; for staff it could be about their professional development as well as about their family; for parents it could be about their tryst and tribulations as parents, about their child, about the transactions they have with their school from fee to books, uniform, transport as well as about how they can contribute their skills from cooking to counselling to the school community from their home; Any crisis management support that school and/or anyone within the school community might require and who can they reach out to. As school leaders, it is not only about your school board or students that you have to think about but everyone who is your connection with the student and the board.
Check-in : Make a routine to meet with your staff one on one/in groups so as to check-in with each one of them regularly, individually and in small groups. Do figure out how the school premises can be looked into to ensure maintenance and safety during the lock down period. What about the security, plumbing, electrician, gardener and other facility staff who may or may not be under your direct supervision. Where are they, how are they, can they do an inspection of the premises and also, if they need any support from the management.
Reflect : This is a good time to brainstorm with your advisory board (not necessarily the statutory board) of the school to review, reflect and grow. As a school leader, list out some of the key challenges you are facing personally and professionally that you may not be able to share with your team. Share it with the advisory board and brainstorm a way forward. Enlist a professional advisor or a coach, a mentor or a thought partner, a sounding board even to reflect and grow yourself and your school.
Relaunch : When you reopen the school after lockdown, it would be possibly like opening a new term altogether. Plan and prepare for how you would welcome your school community. How would you create a new bridge of understanding of the changed realities. Some of them would have suffered loss of loved ones, some of their jobs, some of strained relationships, some emotional breakdowns and some changed for a better self even. How would you create groups to collaborate, groups to support each other? What would be your starting strategy – jump in the session as if nothing happened or taking cognisance and acknowledging what each one has gone through in their own ways and bring them on the same page? How would you redefine your organisation’s goals and your leadership in this changed reality?
As school leaders, you will have to lead by showing exceptional grit and resilience, by communicating with empathy and clarity. Good time to think about it and chip away everyday preparing for leading your school community through it all now and thereafter. It is spring time isn’t it? plan afresh. Prepare anew.
How will you do it? Please share your thoughts in this blog post for me and fellow readers to read and learn.
#Janata Curfew – a panacea for #Covid19? well almost!
Why is this a brilliant actionable idea in India? Here are my top 3 reasons.
- It is a Sunday when most people would like to go out with families or call family and friends over for meals, prayers and celebrations. This will be effectively stopped. Most of our households comprise of 3 generations. Our seniors live with us. Children and young adults can be asymptomatic and bring it to their parents and grand parents. We do not have possibility of isolating the generations within our houses nor do we have adequate hospital infrastructure to ensure recovery for the fragile and infected. There would be an effective break in the chain of spread if people at home – 12 hours of curfew followed by 12 hours of night. (According to the latest studies, the virus remains viable anywhere from 4 hours on copper, to upto 24 hours on surfaces like cardboard, and a little while longer on clothing, plastic and steel).
- The two words – Janata (people) and Curfew are widely understood by people of all strata. Social distancing, may not convey it as directly and with as much severity. Stay home and do not come outside is very well communicated by Janata Curfew. If and when announced in the near future, it would be clearly understood by one and all.
- The other two words very effectively used as apt foreshadowing of the possible measures to be taken in the near future are – Sankalp (determination) and Sanyam (self control). These are culturally appropriate words, always professed by the wise in India irrespective of the religious sect we belong to. It puts the onus of our own well-being on ourselves.
A developing nation with its weaknesses and the largest democracy with its strengths – this is our India. For the 1.4 billion Indians, the Corona threat is real. Extent of impact to economy, health, psychology, society is unknown and the extent of prepared ness is questionable in the very least.
In the wake of all that, the call by Indian Prime minister Narendra Modi in his widely televised address to nation for Janata Curfew on Sunday 22nd March is a master stroke.
I have been following and advocating social distancing with my colleagues, friends, family and neighbours. I will follow the Janata Curfew and urge you to follow the same. India as a nation is being watched by the world. By the developed economies as well as by neighbours like China. Will we be able to deal with a looming threat to the healthcare, economy and life of our citizens? Are we strong and smart enough as a nation? Can we take care of ourselves kindly and responsibly?
Self isolate and stay safe.
Please subscribe to my blogs with just your email. It is easy and free 🙂
Top 5 tips to stockpile sensibly, self quarantine and stay safe
Social distancing and self quarantine during the times of COVID-19 is one of the best and as yet proven precaution to stop the spread of the virus. It is best that you stay home decidedly, not just to prevent from getting infected but also in the off chance that you/your family member could infect others.
Order online or on call, pay online so that you do not have to handle your card/cash and ask the delivery person to drop the material at the door step so that you can collect it after sometime and disinfect it. If possible keep a sanitiser outside the door so that the delivery person can sanitise their hands on the go.
Here is a list of items that would help with social distancing. Just to be clear, this is not because there would be a run on the stores but more so that you do not have to go to the stores for your own and the safety of others.
- Stocking grocery.
- Stocking first aid.
- Stocking over the counter medicines.
- Stocking on hygiene materials.
- Stocking on entertainment.
1. First on the list – Grocery. Here’s what you can consider stocking:
– Rice; Atta (flour) of grains you like wheat, rice, millets, soya chunks and soya flour; quinoa, oats, cornmeal (for polenta), broken wheat(for dalia/khichdi), vermicelli – sooji, noodles, beaten rice (poha), puffed rice (mur-mura), boxed cereals.
– Lentils and beans of various kinds – dried/canned depending on what you use regularly.
– Canned fish, frozen shrimps, sausages, chorizos, eggs.
– Ghee(rarified butter), oils, butter, nut butters, cheese.
– Onion, garlic, potatoes (store in cool, dark place), tomato/tomato puree.
-Vegetables like cauliflower, carrots, beans, lemons that stay fresh in fridge for a long time.
– Fruits – freeze fruits like Bananas, Sapotas to make smoothies, add some chocolate and/or maple syrup for additional taste.
– Frozen peas and corn are great addition to soups, pastas, rice/quinoa pilaf, curries.
-Sliced bread – can be frozen to last a long time.
– Sauces, pickles, preserves, olives, dates to add a bit of tang and taste to any dish; Salt, pepper, sugar and spices that you regularly use.
2. Next, review and replenish your first aid kit.
This is a good time to review your first aid kit and see if you have solutions/ointments/band aids/crepe bandage/sprays for sprains, cut, burn, stings and bites. For you would want to treat them at home and not go to the neighbourhood clinic. While at it, check if you have your/your family’s supply of regular medication. Go through your and your family’s prescription medicines to see if you have them all for an additional few weeks. Order on phone/online and procure them if you don’t have them by scanning and sending your prescription to the pharmacy.
3. Stock some over the counter medicines for fever, flu, constipation and stomach upsets.
Check your medicine cabinet and procure things like thermometer, antiseptic gargles, cold/cough tablets, pain medications, paracetamols, oral rehydration sachets, fibre/isabgol for maintaining regular bowel movements etc.
4. Keep additional hygiene materials from soaps to tissues.
If you are at home, you need not run for sanitisers or masks. You can just stock some good amount of soap near all wash areas. Toilet tissue and tissues to wipe surfaces and sneeze into will come in handy. Flush/bin them don’t keep for reuse on your table/in your pocket :). If you have children/elders on diapers, stock up for a couple of weeks in the very least. Same goes for feminine hygiene products. Shops will have them but you do not want to be running out every so often to buy as you need. Anticipate the requirement and keep at home for effective self quarantine.
5. Last but not the least, shore up your entertainment.
Pay your netflix/amazon/apple TV/Hot star/Cable – binge watch without guilt. Take out your board games – have fun. You can even play group scrabble or chess online with your friends during the day time as everyone would be home. That list of books/articles that you have bookmarked – good time to read now. Craft work? Cooking? great time to try. Spring time is good to do some gardening whether in your yard or balcony – order seeds online and try growing some greens. List out your aunts, uncles, friends – video call and chat with them, great time to catch up as chances are that every one is home and looking to chat. Learn a dance, a song, a language online… you get the drift. Make the most of this time to slow down and live a little 🙂
Learn yoga, meditate, groom yourself, give each other massages, cook and clean together, hug and hangout with your family at home and enjoy your quarantine.
As they say, “Your grandparents were called to war. You are asked to sit on a couch. You can do this!”
If you like what you read here, please subscribe with your email id for an update whenever there is a new post. It is free 🙂
Holiday Learning Pack by Scholastic – A review
” If you eat me today, what will you do for the rest of your life? Spare me and I will bring you three scrumptious books every day.”
“A three-course meal every day? For the rest of my life? I will never have to hunt for food?” Bookasura was incredulous.
Written by Arundhati Venkatesh and illustrated by Priya Kuriyan, Bookasura is part of the summer reading kit put together by Scholastic this year. So is Amy and Louis by Libby Gleeson and Freya Blackwood. Both of these award winning books come along with the all time favourites like Panchatantra Ki Kahaniya and books from the series of The Magic School Bus. Don’t miss the 7 minute stories for 7 year olds in the stack. There are clever little lessons in this fiction, not to mention clean, simple language by the authors. The magical powers that the magical characters have in these stories convey meaningful messages quite effortlessly.
What I liked about the kit is that the books have illustrations that trigger imaginations and the accompanying worksheets facilitate learning and higher order thinking for the young readers. I tried a few myself as an educator and a parent – reading aloud, writing, drawing – found them to be fun and engaging. The reading journal takes the idea further, guiding gently towards making more sense of the fiction and non-fiction readings, introducing various literary devices age appropriately, in just the right amount of depth.
I checked out the Grade 4 book of literacy and numeracy and found it integrating literacy and Environmental Sciences fairly seamlessly. Numeracy pages though were still on their own. Presented in a fun way of number games and designing board games with some suggestions of reading and integration with literacy, these could have been more higher order thinking and application based I think. So multiplication still is to be worked out with just numbers and not word problems.
The adding of a small back pack and a box of lovely bi-color pencils kept me wanting for some art and craft work books from the pack with perhaps introduction to some artists and their styles to see and try out. I would have loved that especially, if I were to create my own illustrated journal at the end of the summer to share my readings with my friends and family at school and home.
All in all, it is quite a well put together kit with enough excitement for the student and just right guidance for the parent to work with the child through the spring/summer break. Priced at about Rs. 1000/- from students of Pre-K to Grade 5, makes a neat little gift that is fun and learning at the same time.
I am an educator and advisor to parents and educational institutions. As an independent reviewer of children’s books and educational aids, I do not accept any payments. These are my personal opinion. The publisher/distributor send me the samples they would like me to review and write about. If you are a parent/educator and would like to receive an update whenever I write about a book or a product, please subscribe to my blog with your e-mail id. It is free.
“Sorry” the magic word.
“Sorry” the magic word.
When did you last say “sorry” to your friend? Your sibling? Your teacher? Your parent? Anyone?
How did you feel after saying “sorry”?
What did it make the other person say/feel when you said “sorry” to them?
Was it easy for you to say “sorry”?
Here are a three tips for you to say this magic word “sorry”.
- Sit down or stand still while saying sorry and look at the person.
- Say the full sentence of why you are saying sorry. E.g. “I am sorry that I pushed you in the playground, I was… not looking/wanted to get to the slide first”; “I am sorry that I snatched your pencil box, I was eager to see your new box/ I wanted to see if you have my pencil in it”; “I am sorry you fell down, are you hurt?”; “I am sorry your pet died, it is very sad”.
- Offer how it can be made better. g. “Next time I will be more careful in the playground”; “In future I will ask your permission before looking into your pencil box”; “Can I take you to the teacher or get you some water to drink or can I help you get up”; “Would you like to talk to me about your pet?”
Don’t forget to ask the person if they are ok, after you have said sorry and before moving away. Be sure to use a gentle, calm voice when you say sorry so that the other person understands that you mean it.
Sorry is one magic word, when said right, can repair friendships and help in making bad situations a little better.
If you like to receive articles on education and parenting on your email once or twice a month, please subscribe to my blog, it is free. You can share the link of this post with your friends and family as well.
CIO India, 1999 – 2002
When Boston based International Data Group started this magazine in 1987, the title CIO – Chief Information Officer was relatively new in America. When I was Managing Editor of this Magazine in India, more than 10 years later, this position was just about getting introduced. Who is CIO? that question is almost redundant now.
At one time, these were senior executive who would be reporting to the CEO in an enterprise or to the commanding officer in the military. As said often, all businesses are now software businesses and the role of the CIO is larger than ever.
In 1996, the CIO (US edition) website was launched as a companion to the magazine. By the end of 2015, the print version of the magazine was stopped altogether. CIO India (2000-2001) went on to win awards and accolades for both content and design. Leafing through them, reading what I wrote as editorials nearly two decades back, brought back some moments from the tech scene then as well as my journalistic writing.
Sharing some issues from my personal archives. Have uploaded some covers and a few of the editorials as well. Enjoy this blast from the past.
I continue to write and speak on education and related matters, follow me for updates from the museum of the past and a peak into the future through my journalistic lens.
Tagore memorial at Shakespeare’s birthplace
Happy Birthday Tagore! Kobiguru, Gurudeb Robindronath Thakur. Much loved and revered by Bengalis, Indians and the International community. Whatever the sorbiquet, Rabindranath Tagore, the poetry, music and art of the polymath is enjoyed across ages and continents.Born on Poncheeshe Boishakh, the 25th day of the month of Boishakh of the Bengali calendar – ie 6th/7th/8th May, 1861, his birth anniversary is celebrated on any of these dates every year. He was the first non-European to win the Nobel prize in Literature for his collection of poems – Gitanjali or Song Offerings.
Tagore spent a number of years in England. He undertook the translations of his poems (original Bengali poems were about 156/157; his own translation into English – for the English Gitanjali has 103 poems). Chitto jetha bhayshunyo (Where the mind is without fear) is among one of the most quoted poems from Gitanjali in which Tagore’s has expressed his dream of how the new, awakened India should be after independence. The introduction is written by W.B. Yeats, the famous Irish poet of the 20th Century. The U.K. still remains one of the most active countries where individuals and organisations have collaborated with English scholars in highlighting and popularising Tagore.
Little surprise then, to find the bust of Tagore in the garden of Shakespeare’s birth place in Stratford Upon Avon. The bust has a tablet with a poem carved by the French sculptress, Catherine Retailleau, following the hand of Tagore in Bengali script (and his own translation) that he wrote in honour of Shakespeare.
“When by the far-away sea your fiery disappeared from behind the unseen, O Poet, O Sun. England’s horizon felt you near her breast, and took you to be her own.
She kissed your forehead, caught you in the arms of her forest branches. Hid you behind her mist mantle and watched you in the green sward where fairies love to play among the meadow flowers.
A few early birds sang your hymn of praise, while the rest of the woodland choir were asleep. Then at the silent beckoning of the Eternal you rose higher and higher till you reached the mid sky, making all quarters of heaven your own.
Therefore, at this moment, after the end of centuries, the palm groves by the Indian sea raise their tremulous branches to the sky, murmuring your praise.”
The inscription on the York stone plinth of the bronze bust says “Rabindranath Tagore – Poet, Painter, Playwright, Thinker, Teacher – The Voice of India”, and it was given as a gift to Shakespeare Birth Trust in 1995 by the Indian High Commissioner. It is placed a a peaceful part of the lovely gardens, overlooking Shakespeare’s birth place. Gives us visitors, Bengali, Indian, The Bard and Tagore-philes – a moment to dwell on both masters of their own leagues, born centuries apart. Epitome of genius both. Loved, read and appreciated beyond boundaries.
Did you know that they both wrote most of their works in blank verse, a literary device? Un-rhyming. Written in consistent meter of stressed and un-stressed syllables. Could be that of iamb, trochee, spondee, and dactyl meters. With no fixed number of lines.
Will continue to share Shakespeare and Tagore over time. Watch this space and subscribe to my blog for getting post updates once or twice a month.
Nivedita Mukerjee 