Rabindranath Tagore’s Birth Anniversary

Context

The Prime Minister paid tribute to Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore on his birth anniversary on 9th May, 2022.

• According to the Bengali calendar, the Tagore Jayanti falls on the 25th day of the Boishakh month.

About Rabindranath Tagore

• He was born on 7 May, 1861 to Debendranath Tagore and Sarada Devi in the Jorasanko mansion which is the ancestral home of the Tagore family in Kolkata (Calcutta). 
• He was also referred to as ‘Gurudev’, ‘Kabiguru’, and ‘Biswakabi’.
• He lost his mother when he was very young, his father was a traveller and so, he was mostly raised by his servants and maids. 
• At a very young age, he was part of the Bengal renaissance and his family also took active participation in it. 
• He was a good friend of Mahatma Gandhi and is said to have given him the title of Mahatma.
• At the age of 8, he started writing poems and by the age of sixteen, he also started composing artworks and started publishing his poems under the pseudonym Bhanusimha. 
• In 1877 he wrote the short story 'Bhikharini' and in 1882 the collection of poems 'Sandhya Sangit'.
• He was influenced by the classical poetry of Kalidasa and started writing his own classical poems. 
• His sister Swarnakumari was a well-known novelist. 
• In 1873, he toured with his father for several months and gained knowledge on several subjects. 
• He learned Sikhism when he stayed at Amritsar and pen down around six poems and many articles on the religion.
• His traditional education began in Brighton, East Sussex, England, at a public school. 
• In 1878, he went to England to become a barrister to fulfill his father's wish. 
• He was not much interested in school learning and later also he joined University College in London to learn law but he dropped this and learned various works of Shakespeare on his own. 
• He also learned the essence of English, Irish and Scottish literature and music.
• He returned to India and married Mrinalini Devi.
• Around five museums are dedicated to Tagore out of which three are situated in India and the remaining two in Bangladesh.
• He spent his last years in severe pain and even in 1937, he went into a comatose condition. After a lot of suffering, he died on 7 August 1941 in the Jorasanko mansion where he was brought up. 

Literary Works

• Japajog: Published in 1929, His novel is a compelling take on marital rape.
• Nastanirh: Published in 1901. This novel is about relationships and love, both requited and unrequited.
• Ghare Baire: Published in 1916. It is a story about a married woman constricted in her household trying to find her own identity.
• Gora: In the 1880s, it is an expansive, exhaustive, and extremely relevant novel that deals with several themes like religion, gender, feminism, and also tradition against modernity.
• Chokher Bali: In 1903, a novel which consists of various facets of relationships.
• Short Stories: His short stories are Bhikarini, Kabuliwala, Kshudita Pashan, Atottju, Haimanti and Musalmanir Golpo etc.
• Poems: Poems are Balaka, Purobi, Sonar Tori and Gitanjali.

Contribution

• He is said to have composed over 2000 songs and his songs and music are called ‘Rabindra Sangeet’ with its own distinct lyrical and fluid style.
• He is responsible for modernising Bengali prose and poetry. His notable works include Gitanjali, Ghare-Baire, Gora, Manasi, Balaka, Sonar Tori, He is also remembered for his song ‘Ekla Chalo Re’.
• He published his first poems aged 16 under the pen-name ‘Bhanusimha’.
• He not only gave the national anthems for two countries, India and Bangladesh, but also inspired a Ceylonese student of his, to pen and compose the national anthem of Sri Lanka.
• Besides all his literary achievements he was also a philosopher and educationist who in 1921 established the Vishwa-Bharati University, a university that challenged conventional education.

Awards

• In 1913 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his work on Gitanjali.
• He was the first non-European to receive the Nobel Prize.
• In 1915 he was awarded knighthood by the British King George V. In 1919, following the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre, he renounced his Knighthood.