The Tagore Family: A Memoir

This book highlights the 'other' Tagores apart from Rabindranath Tagore. The author chose this family as his subject because it is a good example of the assimilation of European ideas though its members were descendants of the most celebrated apostle of Brahmanism, Bhatta Narayana. The Tagores were keen students of the English language and literature. Darpa Narayan Tagore was proficient in English and French while Gopee Mohun Tagore was additionally well versed in Portuguese, Persian and Urdu. The Tagore family also remained one of the most distinguished families for their pre-eminence in Sanskrit. This co-existence of the East and the West in all its glory in one family alone makes the Tagore clan unique. The book covers the early ancestry, life of Dwaraka Nath Tagore, Rama Nath Tagore, Devendra Nath Tagore, Gopee Mohun Tagore et al .

Preface

The Memoir contained in the following pages is based mainly on materials placed at the author's disposal by the Honourable Maharaja Jotendra Mohun Tagore, and in respect of the life of Dwarika Nath Tagore, on the biography of that gentleman published some years ago by the late Babu Kishori Chand Mittra.

Owing to the veil which the conditions of Indian society throw over the intercourse of domestic life, and to the fact that such epistolary correspondence as is preserved in native families is confined, for the most part, to matters of business devoid of interest to the outside world, it can claim to be little more than a record of the public careers of the leading members of the family whose name it bears.

In the translation of Indian names the author has adopted the scientific system wherever he felt himself at liberty to do so, the exceptions being those cases in which family usage or common custom has established a different mode of spelling.