Uneasy lessons from Tagore’s beloved Bengali primer

In Sahaj Path, or “Easy Lessons”, Rabindranath Tagore’s multi-volume Bengali-language primer, the letters themselves are characters in a story. Published around 1930, and including striking linocut illustrations by the artist Nandalal Bose, designed to be coloured in by young readers, the volumes of Sahaj Path seamlessly fuse pedagogy and art. Nearly a century after their publication, they remain integral to Bengali education, and continue to be used as supplementary textbooks in West Bengal’s primary schools.

Rhyming couplets that introduce the letters of the Bengali alphabet – and the poetry and prose that follow – bring us into Tagore’s Bengal. This is a place lush with mango trees and coloured by the dark clouds of the monsoon, populated by mischievous animals and labouring peasants. A lone boatman’s meditative tune rings with the velar consonants “ka kha ga gha”, while two spirited monkeys seek shelter from the hissing “shri” of a torrential downpour. Readers discover the topography of each letter alongside Tagore’s idyllic vision of the Bengal countryside.