Anand: Remembering the Nobel Laureate, author of India’s national anthem– Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore on his death anniversary, for his inspiring ideas on education, world peace and international cooperation and his vision of peace and brotherhood.
A leader of Brahmo Samaj, a novel religious sect in nineteenth century Bengal and the youngest son of Debendranath Tagore, Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was a Bengali poet, short-story writer, song composer, playwright, essayist and painter who introduced new prose and verse forms and the use of vernacular language into Bengali literature.
He was highly influential in introducing Indian culture to the West and vice versa, and he is generally regarded as the outstanding creative artist of early 20th-century India. In 1913 he became the first non-European to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. The son of the religious reformer Debendranath, he early began to write verses, and, after incomplete studies in England in the late 1870s, he returned to India. There he published several books of poetry in the 1880s and completed Manasi (1890), a collection that marks the maturing of his genius. It contains some of his best-known poems, including many in verse forms new to Bengali, as well as some social and political satire that was critical of his fellow Bengalis.
He was home schooled. In his mature years, in addition to his many-sided literary activities, he managed the family estates, a project which brought him into close touch with common humanity and increased his interest in social reforms. He also started an experimental school at Shantiniketan where he tried his Upanishadic ideals of education. From time to time he participated in the Indian nationalist movement. Tagore was knighted by the ruling British Government in 1915, but within a few years he resigned the honour as a protest against British policies in India.
Tagore had early success as a writer in his native Bengal. With his translations of some of his poems he became rapidly known in the West. In fact his fame attained a luminous height, taking him across continents on lecture tours and tours of friendship. For the world he became the voice of India’s spiritual heritage; and for India, especially for Bengal, he became a great living institution.
Known for some of his masterpieces like ‘Gitanjali’, ‘Ghare-Baire’ and many more Tagore had made major cultural contributions in the field of art and literature. He is also known as the ’Bard of Bengal’. Tagore is the writer of India’s national anthem ‘Jana Gana Mana’, as well as ‘Amar Shonar Bangla’, which is the national anthem sung in Bangladesh.
Besides these, he wrote musical dramas, dance dramas, essays of all types, travel diaries, and two autobiographies, one in his middle years and the other shortly before his death in 1941. Tagore also left numerous drawings and paintings, and songs for which he wrote the music himself.
-Prachi Vyas