Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore was born on 7th May 1861, in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta, India. He was the man who rejuvenated the Bengali music and literature in late 19th and early 20th century and them their recognition into this world. He was the first non-European to win Noble Prize for his work in Literature. He is the person who gave national anthem of India and Bangladesh. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are some of his best known works.

Childhood

Rabindranath Tagore belongs to a Royal family of that era, the loyalist "Prince" Dwarkanath Tagore, who employed European estate managers and visited with Victoria and other royalty, was his paternal grandfather. He was raised mostly by servants, as he lost his mother at very early age, and his father mostly have official trips outside the city. In his childhood days, Rabindranath avoided the classroom schooling, rather he liked to roam the manor or nearby Bolpur and Panihati. And it is surprising that he didn’t like English much during his childhood days.

Education

Tagore enrolled at a public school in Brighton, East Sussex, England in 1878, as his father wanted him to be a barrister. And later he completed his study in law at University College London, but he left that school and opted instead for independent study of Shakespeare, Religio Medici, Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra. But in 1880 he returned to Bengal with no degree.

Career

At the age of only 8 years Tagore started poetry. And at the age of 16 years, he released his first substantial poems and after that this process continues into uncountable poetry, music, stories writing. In 1890, Rabindranath Tagore began managing his vast ancestral estates in Shelaidaha (a part of Bangladesh). Here he released his first known work ‘Manasi poems’. For Gitanjali (which he released in 1912) he was honored with a Nobel Prize in November 1913. The period from 1932 to 1941 was considered as his most productive years, when he worked successfully in many fields like - article writing, music, poetry, painting, theatre, novels and stories.

At the End

During the last years of his life, Rabindranath Tagore was actively involved into Indian Nationalist movements. During these days he wrote "Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo" ("Where the Mind is Without Fear") and "Ekla Chalo Re" ("If They Answer Not to Thy Call, Walk Alone"), these two were politically charged lines that gained mass appeal during the fight for Independence. Rabindranath Tagore took his last breath on 7th August 1941.