On 7 May, we are celebrating the birth anniversary of “the Bard of Bengal”, Rabindranath Tagore, who was a painter, patriot, poet, playwright, novelist, story-teller, philosopher, educationist and a great humanist.
He was considered to be the most remarkable literary personality in India. Born on 7 May 1861, he revolutionalised Bengali art, literature and music. He became the first Indian to win Nobel Prize in Literature
in 1913. Tagore took birth in a Brahmin family in Kolkata and started writing poems at the age of 8.
He created his first collection of poems at the age of 16 using a pseudonym “Bhanusimha”. In 1877 he released his first book of stories and dramas under his own name. His creations touched many aspects of life, nature, human relations, nationalism, politics and other socio-cultural ethos. He authored the national anthems of Indian and Bangladesh and created many other songs. The novels he wrote like Chaturange, Chokher Bali, Ghare Baire, Nastanirh, Jogajog, Shesher Kobita have been translated into many languages.
His beautiful writing can be seen in works like Gitanjali, Gora and Ghare-Baire, among others. Tagore promoted humanism and was against orthodox thinking. In 1930, Tagore met the great scientist Albert Einstein four times.