7 May 1861: Rabindranath Tagore, Indian author and poet, was born

7 May 1861: Rabindranath Tagore, Indian author and poet, was born

“The work of a supreme culture, they yet appear as much the growth of the common soil as the grass and the rushes. A tradition, where poetry and religion are the same thing, has passed through the centuries, gathering from learned and unlearned metaphor and emotion, and carried back again to the multitude the thought of the scholar and of the noble.” – W.B. Yeats in the preface of Rabindranath Tagore’s Nobel Prize winning work Gitanjali.During childhood, going to school was young Rabi’s least favourite activity. He found the teaching method, which included punishment if the lesson wasn’t learned, very painful. Later in life, Rabindranath started a school in Shantiniketan, which was experimental in a way that it inspired children to study in a natural environment and not within the four walls of a classroom, with liberal teachers.

At the age of eleven, Rabindranath’s father took him along on an all-India tour. This gave the young child, a holistic exposure to the country. He was also exposed to a wide number of books of different genres like Astronomy, Science, and even Biographies. While in Dalhousie, he studied under tutors at home.

Rabindranath also went to London to pursue a Law degree. But, during the 18 months that he spent there, he read more of literary works than law manuals. He delved into works of writers like Shakespeare, Dickens, and Walter Scott. Rabindranath had a good musical ear as well. He also brought home with him knowledge of folk tunes from England, Scotland and Ireland. With such knowledge and inspirations, Rabindranath returned home with enough to composeRabindranath’s literary works include a large array of forms, from poems and ballads, to short stories and novels, and even essays, plays and songs. His writing career spans over seventy years. Starting at a tender age of eight, Rabindranath’s writing ideas came mainly from the things he saw, books he read, events he experienced, and emotions he felt in his life.

His initial writings were mainly poems, about his love for nature and his feelings of loneliness. After travelling around India and reading works of several Indian authors, Rabindranath’s writing expanded and he also ventured into short stories. During his brief stay in London, he gathered a wide range of knowledge not just about novels, plays, short stories and poems, but also music. His travels around the world expanded his literary horizons even further. This is when he penned travelogues. Rabindranath’s middle age was emotionally tumultuous and that reflected in his stories and poems. He also centered his characters dealing with prevailing social injustices, like child marriage, Sati ritual, etc. With the beginning of the National Movement in India, Rabindranath’s mode of protest was his essays and other forms of write-ups.

Among his most famous literary works, Rabindranath is remembered for his Nobel Prize winning collection of poems, named Gitanjali. This however, depicts just a tiny amount of his entire ‘bank’ of work.

Here are points providing an idea of the literary legacy he has left behind:

Just mentioning the literary works of Rabindranath Tagore cannot justify his life’s work. The 25,000 songs (approximate), doodles on his writing manuscripts, and paintings also form a major chunk of his creations. His songs are considered as a separate musical genre, that is taught along with classical and modern music. His songs are famously known as Rabindra Sangeet.

The genius of Tagore lies in even the mistakes he made while writing. Rather than scratching them, he connected each of the patches and gave them interesting forms, like trees, birds, and even ancient symbols. These doodles are awe-inspiring and worth being included among his art works. Other art works include paintings that have been showcased in galleries all around the world, including Paris, Berlin, Rome, Ontario, New Delhi, and London