Rabindranath was sent the following telegram on 14 November 1913: SWEDISH ACADEMY AWARDED YOU NOBEL PRIZE LITERATURE PLEASE WIRE ACCEPTATION SWEDISH MINISTER. The message reached Rabindranath on 15 November. On 17 November the ACCEPTATION was sent. A reply from the Secretary of the Swedish Academy came on 20 November: Nobel Prize will be solemnly handed over Stockholm 10th of December Invite you heartily though fear time will not allow your coming. On behalf of the poet, the British ambassador in Stockholm was invited to receive the award. The ambassador contacted Lord Carmichael, then Governor of Bengal, for a note of thanks from the poet. The note of thanks from Rabindranath read, I beg to convey to the Swedish Academy my grateful appreciation of the breadth of understanding which has brought the distant near and has made a stranger a brother. On 10 December, Ambassador Clive received the Gold Medal and the Diploma. He read out the note from Rabindranath. On the diploma was inscribed in Swedish, Awarded to Rabindranath Tagore, because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh, and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West. On 9 January 1914, Lord Carmichael handed over the medal and diploma to the poet at Governors House, Calcutta, before a distinguished gathering. Every laureate is supposed to deliver a lecture but what was the case of Rabindranath in this regard? During the poets America tour in 1920, when the Secretary of the Swedish Academy Dr. Erik Axel Karfeldt (1864-1931) came to know about the possibility of the poets visit, he sent a telegram on 9 November saying, If you intend going Sweden Swedish Academy bids you welcome to Nobel Feast December 10. Sadly, however, the poet could not reach Sweden in time. When he did, it was 24 May 1921. He was warmly received at the Stockholm railway station. On 26 May the poet delivered his Nobel Lecture. A sixteen-page typed lecture commenced thus: I am glad that I have been able to come at last to your country and that I may use this opportunity for expressing my gratitude to you for the honour you have done to me by acknowledging my work and rewarding me by giving me the Nobel prize. Subrata Kumar Das, freelance teacher, writer and author of the web site bangladeshinovels, can be reached at subratakdas@yahoo
Posted on: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 18:34:25 +0000
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