TAGORE’S BIRTHDAY
Today is the birthday of Rabindranath
Tagore. He was born on 7 May 1861 and died n 7 August 1941.
He
is known as India’s great poet, writer, playwright, composer, painter, social
reformer, and philosopher.
His
literary works are many. Of these the best one is Gitanjali (Song offerings). Originally in his mother tongue Bengali,
it was the English translation which won him the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature.
The
songs of Gitanjali are mostly
addressed to God. They are short and highly lyrical . The reader wishes to read them again
and again.
Look
at the following song which finds space in almost every anthology of English poetry.
It was written at a time when India was under the British rule and was struggling for independence.
The full text of the song referred to above reads
as follows:
“Where
the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where
knowledge is free;
Where
the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where
words come out from the depth of truth;
Where
tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where
the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where
the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action---
Into
that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.”
To
conclude, Mahatma Gandhi called Rabindranath Tagore as “Gurudev” which means “revered
teacher”.
******
G.R.Kanwal
7th May 2025
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