Rabindranath Tagore, the only Indian to get Nobel Prize for Literature, is mainly acclaimed

as a poet. But his short stories are world renowned and they are as brilliant and competent as

his poetry. He is compared by critics to Chekhov. Tagore has written nearly one hundred short

stories. Tagores short stories reflect human relations from different angles. A story is a mirror

for the existing social, cultural, educational and personal relationships, which all together

form into human relations. His treatment of women and their position in society was of

serious concern to Rabindranath Tagore. Being a sensitive man and the supreme romantic

poet of Bengal, he understood women in all their joy and sorrow, hope and despair, their

yearnings and their dreams.

The short story Subhaor The Dumb Girl leaves a lasting impression on the readers mind

in the arena of human sentiments and feelings. Tagore being an able-bodied person presents

this narrative on disability from an outsiders perspective. In the very beginning itself

Tagore reveals that Subha cannot speak, When the girl was given the name of Subhashini,

who could have guessed that she would prove dumb? A feeling of sympathy immediately

arises in the readers mind. The feeling of affection is attached to Subha when the readers

come to know that she has created her own world, which responds to the feelings of Subha.

Tagore has used the close affinity between man and Nature as an important theme in the

story.

Subha was the youngest of the three daughters of Banikantha. She was a silent weight upon

the heart of her parents. Her mother feels a sense of shame she never overcomes when the

family realizes that Subha will never be able to speak or hear. In the culture of the time

congenital impairments of children were seen as sign of a moral defect or depravity in the

mother. Her mother tries to love her but she can barely force the emotion. She had felt from
her earliest childhood that God had sent her like a curse to her fathers house, so she kept

away from ordinary people and tried to live in the company of nature. The feeling of purity

and innocence emerge in the readers by looking at her playing friendship with the mild

animals like cows. Whenever she heard any words that hurt her, she would come to these

dumb friends for consolation. Her only friend among humans was Pratap, a lazy fellow

whose only amibition was to catch fish.

The feelings of pity and fear rise for Subha in the readers mind when her parents plan her

marriage. The traditional Indian society still considers marriage as the ultimate goal of every

woman. Till date disable women like Tagores Subha find it difficult to find a match.

Sometimes gendered roles assigned to women in general are also denied to Indian women

with disabilities. It is considered that these women can be neither good wives and mothers

nor can they go out and earn money. Marrying off disabled girls by hiding their impairments

is still a common phenomenon and as a result in their post-marriage lives, domestic violence

is a regular feature. Subhas marriage was fixed by her parents. The groom inspected her from

all angles and remarked not bad but the silent language of Subha could not be understood by

either her parents or the proposed spouse. Her defect was not disclosed, to the bridegrooms

party. Later when they learned the truth they decided to find the groom a second wife. The

future mother-in-laws usually fear that a disabled woman like Subha will give birth to

children with the same impairments she has. The society in general believes that such women

cannot lead a normal or successful married-life.

That marriage supplied Subha with everlasting miseries, being abandoned by her husband for

another. Her disability denied her all possibilities of self-expression. She had to remain silent

throughout her life. Stronger was her relation to animals and Nature than to human beings. he
was plucked away from her mother Nature when the family shifted to Calcutta. She was

denied the only happiness she had. It was heart-rending for her to leave the stream, the cows,

the Nature and her friend, Pratap. Her tragedy started there. She lost Nature but did not gain

man. There is irony in the name Subha. Subha, shortened form of Subhashini means one

who speaks well. But Subha of the story is destined by fate to be a mute speaker. She is voice

of the voiceless. She speaks through her smiles and tears.