Author Feature of the week - Rabindranath Tagore
Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.
Happy night peeps! Hope ya'll having a good weekend. This time for Tagore week, it's obvious to know, who we'll celebrate.
Born as Robindronath Thakur on 7th May 1861; Tagore lived in the Calcutta of 1800s. Our birthday boy was an Indian polymath – poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter. This year was his 160th birth anniversary. And even today his incredible contributions to reshape Indian art with contextual modernism, influence us greatly.
Son of Debendranath Tagore and Sarada Devi was the first Asian who won the Nobel Prize for Literature (1913). He is and will continue to be the most cherished, revered polymath India ever had. His rich legacy has forever inspired generations across the world.
Lovingly called Gurudev, Tagore had a distinctive style of writing - Prose. It's a style where one writes in an uninterrupted and linear fashion. Fluent in Bengali and English, Gurudev started writing poetry at the age of 8 and published his first poem collection Bhanusimha (Sun lion) when he was just 16.
To add in, he has also composed about 2230 songs, and this collection is often called Rabindrasangit. Another very interesting, lesser know fact; Rabindranath Tagore is the only person who has composed the national anthems of three nations. India Bangladesh and Sri Lanka! Yes, you read that right.
Tagore wrote the national anthems of India and Bangladesh - 'Jana Gana Mana' and 'Amar Sonar Bangla' respectively. But few know that Sri Lanka's national anthem is based on a Bengali song originally written by Tagore in 1938. It was translated into Sinhalese and adopted as the national anthem in 1951.
Btw, Did you know? Tagore was good friends with Gandhi and Einstein. It was him who conferred the title of 'Mahatma' on Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in 1915. But experts have said that though Tagore admired Gandhi, he differed with him on certain issues.
Further, Tagore met Albert Einstein four times between 1930 and 1931, and their conversations were marked "by their curiosity about the other's contributions, their pursuit of truth and their love of music".
Artists all over the globe have adopted Tagore's work. And it will always remain a great source to learn and inspire from. Our Indian legend passed on 7th August 1941.