In news– 161st birth anniversary Rabindranath Tagore was observed on 9th May 2022.
A brief history of Rabindranath Tagore-
- Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter.
- He was born on May 7, 1861 to Debendranath Tagore and Sarada Devi in Jorasanko Thakurbari in Kolkata.
- As per the Bengali calendar, his jayanti falls on the 25th day of the Boishakh month.
- Tagore’s poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his “elegant prose and magical poetry” remain largely unknown outside Bengal.
- At the age of sixteen, he released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha (“Sun Lion”), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics.
- Gurudev, a moniker given to him by Mahatma Gandhi, became the first Indian and the first non-European to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 for his work, Gitanjali.
- Referred to as “the Bard of Bengal”, Tagore was known by sobriquets – Kobiguru, Biswakobi.
- In 1915, he was awarded the knighthood by British King George V which he later renounced in 1919, to protest against the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre.
- He was an educationist, who wanted to restructure the education system in India, founded Shantiniketan to provide education and later this became Visva Bharati University.
- Some of his most famous works include Ghare Baire, Jogajog, Nastanirh, Gora and Chokher Bali.
- His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India’s “Jana Gana Mana” and Bangladesh’s “Amar Shonar Bangla“. The Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work.
- “Jana Gana Mana” was originally composed as Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata in Bengali by Tagore.
- The first stanza of the song Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata was adopted by the Constituent Assembly of India as the National Anthem on 24 January 1950.
- It was first publicly sung on 27 December 1911 at the Calcutta (now Kolkata) Session of the Indian National Congress.
- “Amar Shonar Bangla“(My Golden Bengal), is an ode to Mother Bengal, written by him in 1905 during the first partition of Bengal, while the melody of the hymn was adopted from the Baul singer Gagan Harkara’s song “Ami Kothay Pabo Tare”.
- His travelogues, essays, and lectures were compiled into several volumes, including Europe Jatrir Patro (Letters from Europe) and Manusher Dhormo (The Religion of Man). His brief chat with Einstein, “Note on the Nature of Reality“, is included as an appendix to the latter.
- He passed away on August 7, 1941.
Source: The Indian Express
