RABINDRANATH TAGORE

 

 

                                                RABINDRANATH TAGORE

            Rabindranah Tagore was a great Bengali poet, writer, essayist,   philosopher, educationist, composer, and artist,  

            He was born on 7^th May 1861 and passed away on 7^TH August 1941. Mahatma Gandhi called him Gurudev.

            He was a prolific writer. His works consist of poems, novels, short stories, dramas, paintings, and songs.

            Among his most  famous writings are two novels Gora (1910) and Ghare Baire (The Home and the World, 1916), as also two plays Dak Ghar (The Post Office, 1912) and Raktakarbi  (Red Oleanders, 1926).

            According to literary critics : “He transformed Bengali literature with short stories, notably Kabuliwala and Postmaster.

            He is said to have composed 2,000 songs.

            His internationally known book is Gitanjali (Songs Offerings) for which he was the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.

            Tagore also composed the national anthems of India ---Jana Gana Mana and Bangladesh (Amar Sonar Bangla).

            As an educationist, he is famous  for having founded  in Santiniketan Visva-Bharati University which blends Indian traditions with Western education.    

              Briefly speaking, Tagore was a key figure who promoted intercultural harmony in the Bengal Renaissance.  

            In his introduction to Gitanjali, William Butler Yeats,  the Irish poet, dramatist, writer and literary critic (1865-1939)  rightly says “All the aspirations of mankind  are in his hymns. “

            Most of the songs in Gitanjali are addressed to God. Here is the first one:

            “Though hast made me endless such is thy pleasure. This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life.

            This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales, and hast breathed through it melodies eternally new.

            At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart loses its limits in joy and gives birth to utterance ineffable.

            Thy finite gifts come to me only on these very small hands of mine. Ages pass, and still thou pourest, and still there is room to fill.”

            To conclude, look at one of his famous quotes :

              “What you are you do not see, what you see is your shadow”.

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G.R. Kanwal

3^rd May 2026

 

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