Red Oleanders - Rabindranath Tagore

Red Oleanders, a powerful and moving play by Rabindranath Tagore, is the story of Nandini, a girl who recognizes no social barriers and taboos and who disregards them in her search for happiness. This was my 72 of 2020.

Nandini is one of those individuals who bring out the best in human nature. Entering a town where men are enslaved to mine gold, she makes them aware of their bondage and creates in them a desire to be free.

Her symbol, the red oleander, can be variously interpreted as frailty or as the red badge of courage. But Nandini escapes being defined as just a symbol. The tremendous verve with which Tagore invests her, makes her a real living personality, and her death is actually a rebirth for the gold diggers.

Perhaps the most obvious use of symbolism is used to illustrate the absolute power that the antagonist—the Governor—and the King have over Yaksha Town and its citizens. The Governor and the King have complete authority in their hands and are the sole beneficiaries of the direful situation. However, it is the Governor who is “[…] nice and polished, like the crocodile’s teeth, which fit into one another with so thorough a bite that the King himself can’t unlock the jaw, even if he wants to.” (Tagore 34). It can, then, be seen that the Governor is the ultimate “puppet master” of the play who appears to be kind, but is manipulative and cunning in nature. The Governor emulates a crocodile who clasps its teeth together in a smile before it captures its prey; he is a “boa-constrictor […] who remains in hiding and swallows [and suffocates] men” (Tagore 105). In the play, other kinsmen are also obsequious to the Governor and try to gain power through nepotism. In the grand scheme of things, Tagore is excoriating the British Raj that colonized the Indian subcontinent in the mid-1800s to mid-1900s. As such, he is mirroring the regime’s rule over Yaksha Town to the Hindu Caste System, sectarianism, and the British Empire’s conquest of India. Throughout his life, Tagore, albeit raised in a wealthy family, saw the disparity between the lower class and higher class members of society; he especially empathized with the proletarians—the “Untouchables”—in India. Red Oleanders is one of many of Tagore’s works where he devotes himself to speaking up for alienated groups. Therefore, through the means of animal symbolism, Tagore effectively highlights the ways in which the groups in power capitalize on the powerless.

This play is a masterful piece in that it allows us, as readers, to not only gain a deepened understanding of the underlying meaning of this play, but also gain perspective of our own lives. We may have all means to support ourselves, but Tagore reminds us to be grateful and stay humble, for there will always be people who are less fortunate than us. Despite the fact that Tagore published this play nearly a century ago, the themes and motifs used express a timeless universal truth that resonates with people from all backgrounds and all walks of life.

Like the real oleander flower happiness  too must be the fruit of love, of labour that is true, that is civil, that is honest, the fruit of human sympathy and consideration,  and of human sacrifice  in the course of that real unity which is truth.