Tagore’s “The Post Office”: A Thematic Study

TAGORE’S “THE POST OFFICE”:
A THEMATIC STUDY

Dr. P. BAYAPA REDDY
S. K. University, Anantapur

Tagore, a unique figure in the history of Indian drama in English, equipped himself with the classics of Indian drama and was, at the same time, alive to the European dramatic tradition. He evolved a dramatic form which influenced the Bengali theatre at the beginning of this century. His career as a dramatist may be divided Into three periods, namely–pre-Gitanjali period, Gitanjali period and post-Gitanjali period. During the pre-Gitanjali period he wrote Sacrifice, King and Queen, Malini, and Balmiki-Pratibha. During the Gitanjali period appeared Autumn Festival, The Castle of Conservatism, The King of the Dark Chamber and The Post Office. During the post-Gitanjali period he wrote The Cycle of Spring, The Free Current Tent and The Red Oleanders. The range and variety of his drama is astonishing. He borrowed many of his themes from Indian mythology, Buddhist legends and other classical sources without any artistic inhibition or compunction. Edward Thompson remarks, “All these dramas are vehicles of thought rather than expression of action.¹” Tagore achieved a complete dramatic integration in his The Post Office.

            The Post Office is about a young boy, Amal, who is forbidden by the village doctor to move out of doors. He lies confined to his room and collects a host of friends who are ready to minister to his inquisitive, innocent mind in the most delightful way possible. He not only feels happy but also makes those who come in contact with him very happy. He is happy in the fertile world of his imagination, and is willing, when the time comes, to journey from this world to the next.

The opening of the play is very revealing. Madhav is very much concerned with Amal a sick child who is “so quiet with all his pain and sickness.” His anxiety for the child, his love of it and his interest in earning money are just contrasted with the learned unconcern and impertinence of the doctor who says: “In medicine as in good advice, the least palatable is the truest.” Madhav tells Gaffer how earning has become very significant for him after the arrival of the boy. He says: “Formerly earning was a sort of passion with me: I simply could not help working for money. Now I make money and as I know it is all for this dear boy, earning becomes a joy for me.” The ephemeral concerns of the materialistic world and the keen longings of the child eager to be lost in a world of sensation are juxtaposed most vividly.

The boy tells his uncle about his meeting with a crazy man who has a bamboo staff on his shoulder with a small bundle at the top and a brass pot in his left hand and an old pair of shoes on. He wants to go out to seek work. Realization slowly comes to him. He is rather queer in his behaviour because he intends to walk on so many streams. When people are asleep with their doors shut in the heat of the day, he will tramp on and on far, very far, seeking work. He, also, loves to talk to strangers.

With the arrival of the Dairyman the play shifts to a different level. The boy is thrilled with delight to see the Panchmura hub and the Shamli river near the Dairyman’s village. He, then, goes on giving all the details about the village. There is a moment of realization and another moment of ignorance; He expresses his awe at the tune of the Dairyman. “I can’t tell you how queer I feel when I hear you cry out from the end of that road, through the line of those trees.” The boy definitely teaches the Dairyman how to be happy selling curds.

In Act I of the play, there is the theme of love. Whoever comes into contact with Amal, is filled with love for him. The Dairyman who is rather irritant in the beginning gets closer to the boy and tells him that he has learnt the art of remaining himself happy by selling curds. Even the watchman expresses his warmth to the boy by telling him something about the gong and the town. The other people in the play, too, love the boy, There is the theme of death also, the deliverance which the child discovers in death, as Yeats points out. Death is not something to be hated or feared, on the other hand, it is a welcome release from the earthly bonds. In stanza LXXXVI of Gitanjali, Death is conceived as God’s servant who brought  

Thy call to my home,
The night is dark and my heart is fearful
Yet I will take up the lamp; open my gates
and bow to him my welcome.

What is more remarkable about The Post Office is the use of symbols in the play. The Post Office becomes a symbol of the universe, the king stands for God, Postmen are the six seasons representing the visible nature. The letter is the message of eternity, the message calling us to reach God. The Blank Slip of paper symbolises the message of God which one is free to interpret according to one’s own lights. The Post Office is the place where messages are received and delivered and where there is ample scope for communication.

Amal’s confinement to the small room symbolises the human soul imprisoned in the mortal body. His soul has received the call of the open road where there is light and beauty of the world beyond but it is denied to his soul, the imprisoning confines of the body. The only way to secure freedom of the soul is through death, as death is said to be the emancipation of spirit. There­fore the doors and windows of the room are opened on the arrival of the king’s physician. The opening of the gate by the king’s physician is the opening of the human mind to the nature of experience. Amal finds some comfort in his soul as death brings him spiritual freedom. Tagore himself gave an interpre­tation of The Post Office to G. F. Andrews thus:

Amal represents the man whose soul has received the call of the open road–he seeks freedom from the comfortable enclosure of habits sanctioned by prudent and from the walls of rigid opinion built for him by the respectable. ²

Tagore uses symbols that have been part either of the life of the common people or of the ancient Indian tradition. Only by using them unconsciously could he transform them into the living symbols, not of any particular time but of the past, the present and the future in one. In this sense, his work may be said to be archetypal. The Times Literary Supplement (14-1-1926) says:

Tagore has the rare gift which some poets and writers of fairy stories have, of unconsciously using symbols while consciously writing an interesting story. But he appears to be aware of his gift, and for this reason he is not like the writers of fairy stories, and is, indeed, half-way between Coleridge and T. S. Eliot. The play embodies the myth of the child as conceived by the Indian poets and sages. Amal in his keen longing for escape, from the ephemeral and materialistic world, into the world of sensations, and in his wish to seek identity with God somewhat resembles Dhruva and Prahlada.

The symbol of the soul longing for eternity and the relation­ship between the Finite and the Infinite and other symbols of the play can be ascribed to the influence of the Upanishads and certain aspects of Vaishnavism. The ideas that the infinite can only be understood in close relationship to the Finite, that man is a “finite-infinite” being conscious of his finitude only through the presence of an infinite nature within him are some of them. Soul yearns for eternity. God, too, sets out to meet the Soul. Amal’s prayer for the king’s letter is answered by the king who sends his royal physician. “I can feel his coming nearer and my heart becomes glad” says Amal.

Amal sees the vision of the Parrot Isle. From the moment he is aware of the presence of the Post Office, he starts feeling happy. He tells the State physician:

I feel very well, doctor, very well. All pain is gone. How fresh and open! I can see all the stars now twinkling from the other side of the dark.

The feeling of freshness and happiness Amal gets is in correspondence with the coming of the king’s messenger. In Gitanjali, there is a constant feeling not only of the presence of God but also of His coming. His eager journey towards the Finite. In the words of Prof. K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar “as in the physical world ‘action’ and ‘reaction’ are equal and opposite, in the spiritual world too ‘aspiration’ and ‘response’ have a like casual relation”. ³

Amal, in The Post Office, is innocent, pure and simple. He is a nice little boy, imaginative, observant, full of curiosity and wonder. He would like to be a squirrel, a workman going about finding things to do, a curd-seller, the king’s postman, a bird and so on. He would love to fly away with the time to that land where no one knows anything. He tells Madhav:

The day I am well, off I go with the Fakir, and nothing in sea or mountain or torrent shall stand in my way.

He expresses a sense of mystery to us when he says:

I have been feeling a sort of darkness coming over my eyes since the morning. Everything seems like a dream. I long to be quiet.

Even the physician knows that the deliverance sought by the boy has come definitely. He says to Madhav:

Sleep is coming over him. I will sit by his pillow. He is dropping. Blow out the oil lamp. Only let the starlight stream in.

The most remarkable thing about Amal is that he redeems whoever comes in contact with him. Madhav says:

Now, I make money and as I know it is all for this dear boy, earning becomes a joy to me.

The Dairyman says:

“You have taught me how to be happy selling curds.” Amal tells the Watchman, “Oh yes, your work is great too.” Watch­man who says in the beginning “Are you not afraid of me,” says in the end, “I will drop in again tomorrow morning.” The Headman who is annoyed at Amal and who calls him “a wretched monkey” says toward the end “though a little silly, he has a great heart.” Gaffer who generally scares children remains with folded palms by the death-bed of Amal. Sudha is in a hurry to go but returns with flowers, to be placed as funeral wreaths on Amal’s body.

Sound and metaphor in Tagore’s plays are the “loci” of energies. These sounds, which do not always depend upon words, actually enhance or change the meaning of the plays. The Post Office is more effective when heard over radio. Many sounds used in the play–Ding, Dong, Dong, the cry of curds, curds, curds and curds could be tuned to the Raga of Bhatiyali by a flute. “The cascade of musical emotion” is the main channel along which flows Tagore’s dramatic energy and resourcefulness. Like music, the play has rhythmic ebb and flow of many tunes, all apparently hinged on the major key of an idea “the joy of attaining the Infinite with the Finite.”

References

¹ Edward J. Thompson: Rabindranath Tagore: His Life and Work. Calcutta: Y. M. C. A. Publishing House. 1921. P. 19.
² Quoted by B. C. Chakravorthy: Rabindranath Tagore, His Mind and Art. Young India Publications, New Delhi. P. 133.
³ K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar: Indian Writing in English. Asia Publishing House, Bombay. P. 142.