Chapter 3

Connecting the Toddler and the Timber- An Ecological Insight into Tagore’s Short-Story “Balai”

• Dr. Saradindu Mukherjee (Faculty Member, Dept. of English, Bolpur College (University of Burdwan))

In

Advances in Interdisciplinary Research in Engineering, Business Management and Social Sciences

ISBN

978-81-963834-1-1

Published

10 July 2026

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Abstract

An ecological insight guided by the spirit of universal oneness as sermonized in the Upanishads has been reflected in various poetry collections, plays and short stories of Tagore. Swayed with the very idea of forest colonies of great teachers in ancient India Tagore set up a school named Patha Bhavana in 1901 at Santiniketan. Tagore envisioned these forest colonies of great teachers as the abode of holistic coexistence of man and other natural creatures. This idea of integrity and holism has been replicated in the short story “Balai” which Tagore read out after the tree planting ceremony (briksharopan) on 14th July, 1928 at Santiniketan. “Balai” narrates the story of a child’s kindred association with the natural world and the ethereal passage of his soul in the world of natural creatures generating the idea of oneness in the universe. In this paper I will venture into exploring how Balai and his natural world are interconnected having an inseparable entity. I will try to investigate whether Tagore’s ecological concerns mirror the ecological paradigms of the ecologists of contemporary times or not. I will again study whether the age-old pantheistic mainstay of Indian philosophy drifted through the passage of time and sermonized among Indian intellectual world has stimulated Tagore’s ecological concerns or not. It will attempt to set parallels between Tagore’s ecological solicitude getting reflected in this short story with that of various thinkers of his time around the world. Key Words: Integrity, togetherness, holism, ecological, nature, man, tree.