Tell about Rabindranath Tagore ?

Most of his finest short stories, which examine “humble lives and their small miseries,” date from the 1890s and have a poignancy, laced with gentle irony, that is unique to him (though admirably captured by the director Satyajit Ray in later film adaptations).

Tagore came to love the Bengali countryside, most of all the Padma River, an often-repeated image in his verse. During these years he published several poetry collections, notably Sonar Tari (1894; The Golden Boat), and plays, notably Chitrangada (1892; Chitra). Tagore’s poems are virtually untranslatable, as are his more than 2,000 songs, which achieved considerable popularity among all classes of Bengali society.

In 1901 Tagore founded an experimental school in rural West Bengal at Shantiniketan (“Abode of Peace”), where he sought to blend the best in the Indian and Western traditions.

He settled permanently at the school, which became Visva-Bharati University in 1921.

Years of sadness arising from the deaths of his wife and two children between 1902 and 1907 are reflected in his later poetry, which was introduced to the West in Gitanjali (Song Offerings) (1912).

This book, containing Tagore’s English prose translations of religious poems from several of his Bengali verse collections, including Gitanjali (1910), was hailed by W.B. Yeats and André Gide and won him the Nobel Prize in 1913.

Tagore was awarded a knighthood in 1915, but he repudiated it in 1919 as a protest against the Amritsar (Jallianwalla Bagh) Massacre.

From 1912 Tagore spent long periods out of India, lecturing and reading from his work in Europe, the Americas, and East Asia and becoming an eloquent spokesperson for the cause of Indian independence.

Tagore’s novels in Bengali are less well known than his poems and short stories; they include Gora (1910) and Ghare-Baire (1916), translated into English as Gora and The Home and the World, respectively.

In the late 1920s, when he was in his 60s, Tagore took up painting and produced works that won him a place among India’s foremost contemporary artists.

Rabindranath Tagore or simply Rabindranath as he is known in India, was born into an affluent and brilliantly talented Calcutta family on May 7, 1861. His grandfather Dwarkanath Tagore (1794-1846) had amassed great wealth through investment and speculation in coal mines, indigo, and sugar

Despite the fact that the family was an outcast Brahmin one, belonging to the group called pirali brahman—Brahmins who had been made ritually impure by sometimes forced contact with Moslems—the dynasty he founded gave Bengal and all of India some of its most prominent painters, poets, musicians, and religious leaders.

Rabindranath Tagore, who composed the National Anthem of India and won the Nobel Prize for Literature, was a multitalented personality in every sense. He was a Bengali poet, Brahmo Samaj philosopher, visual artist, playwright, novelist, painter and a composer

He was also a cultural reformer who modified Bengali art by rebuffing the strictures that confined it within the sphere of classical Indian forms. Though he was a polymath, his literary works alone are enough to place him in the elite list of all-time greats.

Even today, Rabindranath Tagore is often remembered for his poetic songs, which are both spiritual and mercurial. He was one of those great minds, ahead of his time, and that is exactly why his meeting with Albert Einstein is considered as a clash between science and spirituality.

Tagore was keen in spreading his ideologies to the rest of the world and hence embarked on a world tour, lecturing in countries like Japan and the United States. Soon, his works were admired by people of various countries and he eventually became the first non-European to win a Nobel Prize.

Apart from Jana Gana Mana (the National Anthem of India), his composition ‘Amar Shonar Bangla’ was adopted as the National Anthem of Bangladesh and the National Anthem of Sri Lanka was inspired by one of his works.

Rabindranath Tagore was born on 7th May 1861 to Debendranath Tagore and Sarada Devi in the Jorasanko mansion (the ancestral home of the Tagore family) in Calcutta.

He was the youngest son among thirteen children. Though the Tagore family had many members, he was mostly raised by servants and maids as he lost his mother while he was still very young and with his father being an extensive traveler

At a very young age, Rabindranath Tagore was part of the Bengal renaissance, which his family took active participation in.

He was also a child prodigy as he started penning down poems at the age of 8. He also started composing art works at a tender age and by the age of sixteen he had started publishing poems under the pseudonym Bhanusimha.

He also wrote the short story, ‘Bhikharini’ in 1877 and the poem collection, ‘Sandhya Sangit’ in 1882.

Tagore was largely home-schooled and was trained by his siblings in the field of gymnastics, martial arts, art, anatomy, literature, history and mathematics among various other subjects

Rabindranath Tagore’s traditional education began in Brighton, East Sussex, England, at a public school.

He was sent to England in the year 1878 as his father wanted him to become a barrister. He was later joined by some of his relatives like his nephew, niece and sister-in-law in order to support him during his stay in England.