Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Tagore: The dream of a child

Celebrating the 150th year of Rabindranath Tagore, we take a look at his writings, his poems and movies.

In 1913, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. In 1915, he was awarded a knighthood by the British, but he returned it four years later to mark his protest against the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. He was a writer, poet, novelist, educator and an early advocate of Indian Independence. This year we celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore. Born in Calcutta, Tagore was the son of a religious reformer and scholar. His most important works have been written in Bengali, but he often translated them into English. When he was 70-years-old, he began to paint. He was a composer too, and set his poems to music.

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
by narrow domestic walls…….
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

These immortal words were written by an Indian who stood tall in the world of literature. His writings were translated and read all over the world. He wrote poems, plays, essays, stories and novels. He wrote and tuned songs. He was also an artist and a patriot.

We are talking of the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore.

Full report here Hindu

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