This is the second part of the two-part article Rabindranath Tagore in Iran. Read the first part here.The flight that carried Rabindranath Tagore to Iran took off from Calcutta (now Kolkata) early in the morning of April 11, 1932 and made four pit stops at Allahabad, Jodhpur, Karachi and Jask, before it landed in Iran’s Bushehr on April 13. This was really Tagore’s first substantive experience of air travel, and his ruminations on the experience, captured in his inimitable prose in the travel diary Parasya-Yatri (‘Travelling around Iran’), are as wonderful to read as they are insightful:The higher the airplane climbed, the feebler our senses’ ties to mother earth became, until we were left with sight alone, that too at several removes from what we were experiencing, not intimately. The world that I had come to know via myriad attestations as concrete and infinitely variegated grew fainter – and what was three-dimensional reality now morphed into a two-dimensional picture. Creation manifests itself in many different shapes and forms within defined structures of integrated spacetime. When the contours of those structures begin to grow fuzzy, creation rolls towards evanescence. As the earth faded into a blur before our eyes, its identity became tenuous, and its existential claims on our minds weakened.These musings then lead to the startling realisation that ……under such situations, when man sets out to rain countless incendiaries from an aeroplane on the hapless below, he can become truly sinister. His fury is not the least tempered by his sense of the possible culpability of his victims, because all accounting of guilt and liability has been rendered irrelevant at that height. Man has a natural affinity for the real world, and when that reality itself turns foggy, the very basis of that affinity evaporates. The philosophical injunction of the Gita also served the purpose of an aircraft: it lifted Arjuna’s habitually compassionate soul to such dizzying heights as to make the killer and the killed, friend and foe perfectly indistinguishable from one another. In his arsenal, man has numberless such metaphysical airplanes with which to occlude reality, and they proliferate in the arenas of his imperial, social and religious doctrines. Those who are destroyed by projectiles hurled down from the lofty heights of those sophisticated doctrines can only draw solace from the aphorism: ‘the body may be destroyed but the soul isn’t’. Looking back, this feels like epiphany. Large-scale aerial bombardment of civilian populations was still relatively unknown at that point. Vietnam was a good forty years away, Dresden about thirteen. Even Guernica, that acclaimed pioneer of aerial killing, was five years down the road. Tagore’s travelogue of Iran must therefore count among the early explicators of the moral philosophy (or the absence of it) of aerial mass killing.BushehrThose bitter reflection soon made way for genuine joy, however, as the poet arrived in Bushehr to a very warm welcome. Being mainly a port town, Bushehr, Tagore knew, was not truly representative of the soul of Iran, but he had a sense of how Iran was reinventing itself and of the tensions underlying the processes of that reinvention. When a member of the Iranian parliament enquired what Tagore was looking forward to seeing in their country, he replied that he wanted to get his arms around ‘the eternal Iran’ and the spirit that animated it. What struck the poet here was that most Iranians hadn’t had access to his work as yet, but they nevertheless embraced him knowing he was a poet, for, as Tagore notes in his diary, “Persians have a passion for poetry, a genuine affection for their poets, and I have obtained a share of that affection without having to show anything for it in return”. .They also, Tagore sensed, were treating him as both an ethnic and spiritual kinsman, because(f)irst, I am an Indo-Aryan. The Iranians have been proud of their Aryan blood since ancient times, and the feeling seems to be stronger today…… Second, it is believed that my poetry has affinities with Persian Sufis.The resurgence of a proud Iranian nationalism, tempered however by a strong urge to reach out to and understand the wide world outside, impressed the poet strongly during his three days in Bushehr when he was the guest of the provincial governor. ShirazTagore’s next port of call, the ancient city of Shiraz, meant a great deal to him, because Shiraz had been home to two of Iran’s greatest poets, Sa’adi and Hafiz, who had lived and worked in the 13th and the 14th centuries respectively. Feting Tagore in a large gathering of Shiraz’s cultural elite, a citation presented to him indeed spoke of the Indian poet as a kindred soul to those two great sons of Shiraz. The city announced a public holiday in Tagore’s honour.Tomb of the poet Hafiz at Shiraz. Photo: Public Domain.The poet visited the tombs of both Sa’adi and Hafiz and spoke to the crowds who had gathered there. He was particularly moved to be able to pay homage at the Hafiz mausoleum, because, as he explained to the assembled guests, he had grown up admiring Hafez’s poetry. Tagore didn’t know Persian, but his father was a great connoisseur of Persian poetry and soPersia’s introduction came to me when I was a boy…. My father was intoxicated with Hafiz’s verses. When I was a boy, I often used to listen to his recitation of those poems, and he translated them to me with a fervour of enjoyment that touched my heart…….I am glad to be able to mingle my voice with the rejoicing of life which has broken out in the air of your beautiful country fragrant with the perfume of orange blossoms. It brings to my mind once again how my father to the end of his days derived deep solace from your poet’s songs assimilating them in his devotional life. The son now felt he was conveying his deceased father’s salutations to Hafiz along with his own. Tagore recounts a singular experience he had at Hafiz’s grave. A book of Hafiz’s poems was brought to him with the request that he make a wish to himself and then open the book at any page he liked. Tradition had it that the opened page would indicate a way of fulfilling the reader’s wish. Earlier that day Tagore was engaged in a conversation with the governor of Shiraz about how to deliver India from the fetters of blind religiosity and that question still weighed on his mind at that point. And now the poem greeting his eye on the opened page read:Will it ever happen that the gates of heaven will open and with it the knots of our problems? If the doors refuse to open due to our vain priests who are religious only in name, then trust in god and he will open them wide. Fortuitous though this occurrence may have been, it touched the poet deeply.The poet with other guests at the Hafiz mausoleum. Photo: Public Domain.On his way from Shiraz to Isfahan, the poet stopped at the magnificent ruins of ancient Persepolis, the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire built in the 6th century BC by King Darius 1 but burnt to the ground by Alexander in 330 BC. Here Tagore met with the great German archaeologist Dr Ernst Herzfeld who was directing the excavation of ancient Persepolis. Dr Herzfeld had met the poet in Berlin once and now the two men exchanged notes on the history of the great fallen city. The conversation between them shows how widely readTagore was in both pre-Islamic and the later history of Iran. IsfahanAt a civic reception given to the poet at Isfahan, a poet from a nearby town presented a panegyric to their revered guest:The caravans of India always carry sugar but this time it has the perfume of the muse. O caravan, please stop your march, because burning hearts are following thee like butterflies who flit around the burning candle’s flame. O zephyr, softly blow and whisper on the tomb of Sa’adi. Thereupon in joy Sa’adi will come to life in his tomb.Tagore, he is unique, (he) is the philosopher who knows what is past and what the future holds.Let his arrival be blessed and fortunate in the land of the great Cyrus, whose august descendant wears the crown of Persia today.The poet’s time in Isfahan was packed with engagements, yet he came to love this beautifully-laid-out ancient city, as much for its majestic mosques and its expansive public squares as its leafy avenues and carefully-tended public gardens. He was enchanted by the pretty-as-a-picture river flowing right through the city’s middle, appropriately named the Zayanderud (or ‘life-giver’) which reminded him of the Ganga back home in Calcutta except that the modern-day Ganga was a monument to enormous civic neglect while the river in Isfahan was clearly very well looked after. Had Tagore been alive today, he would have been heart-broken to know of the extensive damage to some of Isfahan’s exquisite monuments done by US-Israeli blanket bombing.TehranReaching Tehran on April 29, 1932, the poet straightaway plunged into a variety of meetings and felicitations. He visited the parliament (Majlis), called on the king and his prime minister, was feted on several different platforms including the writers’ association, attended a theatre performance (which, incidentally, didn’t much appeal to him because, clearly, “the theatre and dramatic performances are a recent import into Iran”) and was serenaded by prominent local musicians.Rabindranath Tagore with Iranian writers. Photo: Public Domain.Tagore found the king self-possessed but modest and unassuming and was greatly impressed by the king’s willingness and to get involved in even such unglamorous tasks as road-building. He gifted the king several of his books, a painting, and a poem dedicated to him which read I carry in my heart a golden lamp of remembrance of an illumination that is past. I keep it bright against the tarnishing touch of time. Thine is a fire of a new magnanimous life. Allow it, my brother , to kiss my lamp with its flame.Reja Shah PallaviAs our first despatch had pointed out, Tagore felt that the king, ever since he came to power in 1925, had been playing a very active part in the rejuvenation of Iranian society after decades of stagnation, sectarian strife and intensely illiberal governments. Reja Shah had come from common stock, was not highly educated himself, but appreciated the value of mass literacy (including female literacy), science education and social liberalism. He encouraged the opening-up of Iran to Western cultural influences, with the caveat that those influences be mapped to, and not privileged over, Iran’s own, profoundly rich cultural traditions. He began modernising Iran’s economy, established a national bank, initiated steps for a national railway and actively limited clerical influence on society, education and the state. He also tried to carve an independent foreign policy for Iran free from British hegemony. For years, Tagore had been following these developments keenly from a distance, and was now glad to have the opportunity to witness Iran transiting to an enlightened modernity without, however, disavowing its ancient cultural roots or sacrificing its political sovereignty. It’s true that the later years of Reja Shah’s rule didn’t prove to be an unmixed blessing for Iran. But Tagore’s visit happened when Iran was marching ahead with purpose and hope. Interestingly, the king happened to abdicate his throne just about a month after Tagore’s death in August, 1941. Tagore’s 71st birthdayThe poet’s birthday was celebrated enthusiastically on multiple forums across Tehran. In the evening, the Minister of Education hosted Tagore at home and introduced prominent Iranian intellectuals to the poet. Acknowledging the warm greetings and encomiums, Tagore said he felt as though he was born a second time that day: at his first birth in his own country, only members of the family had taken him in their arms, while now friends from a distant land embraced him as their own. The poet also requested that the government of Iran consider instituting a Chair of Persian Language and Literature in the Viswa-Bharati University in Santiniketan, India. The request was promptly acceded to.The poet’s message to IranIn reply to felicitations at a large public meeting held in his honour on May 5, 1932 in Tehran, Tagore, said:The different nations of Asia will no doubt have to solve their own national problems alone according to their own temperament and needs, but the torches held up on their path of progress will send their beckoning lights to each other, thus creating a comradeship of culture, a brotherhood of pathseekers. We remain obscure like dark stars when we are inarticulate. When our national genius is active in …lighting up its surroundings, the illumination it produces spreads a bond of minds far and wide, proving that man was one in spirit. During his five weeks in Iran, Rabindranath Tagore went back again and again to two important themes: universal brotherhood and a renascent Asia rediscovering itself after centuries of neglect and pain. He was delighted to see in Iran the first but powerful stirrings of that national resurgence which, he perceived, was neither insular nor jingoistic in spirit. He admired the great resilience of Iran’s culture that never lost its way even after being repeatedly buffeted by rampaging armies of Turks, Afghans, Arabs and Mongols over centuries and managed to preserve its essential, inner unity while being fertilised by those new exposures. And this, Tagore believed, could serve as a beacon of hope for all Asia as it emerged from colonial dominance and stupor.As we write this, Iran once again faces a seemingly existential threat from a new combine of predatory forces. Often enough in the past few weeks since February 28, 2026, it has looked as though Iran was about to founder and fall apart. It has always found its feet, however. A close reading of Rabindranath Tagore’s wonderful travelogue can show everyone who cares to see that Iran’s inner unity gives its society a stability that hostile outsiders are unlikely to breach. As per the Bengali calendar, Tagore’s birthday this year is on May 9.Anjan Basu can be reached at basuanjan52@gmail.com.