Essays

Mahatma Gandhi and Rabmdra Nath Tagore are two Indians who are equally well known in India and abroad. His father Maharishi Davendra Nath and grandfather Sh Dawarika Dass were landlords who began to be addressed as Thakur'. The term was later anglicised as Tagore. Rabindra Nath Tagore was born in Jorasanko in Calcutta on 8th May, 1861. His mother's name was Sharda Devi. He was the youngest of the fourteen brothers and sisters.

Rabindra Nath Tagore is the most famous man of letters that modern India has produced so far. He is many things rolled into one. He is a novelist, playwright, painter, philosopher, educationist, freedom fighter and an actor. But above all he is a poet. His position as a world poet is now universally recognized through the English translations of some of his writings. Generally he is considered to be only a religious poet. No doubt he is a great religious poet, perhaps one of the greatest that the world has ever produced. But at the same time he is a nature poet, a love poet, a patriotic poet and a poet of childhood. But above all he is a maker of songs. On 13th November, 1913, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his collection of well known poems named Geetanjali.

Rabindranath's childhood was not very happy. He lost his mother when he was very young. He could not meet or speak to his father frequently as the latter was pre-occupied with his own pursuits. Rabindra Nath could not develop love for schooling. He hated authority and coercion. Therefore, he was allowed to study at home. He was, in fact, not very much interested in private lessons either. He was too independent, too sensitive and too dreamy to fall into traditional ruts.

Rabindra Nath Tagore was a voluminous writer. Out of eighty years he lived, he did his literary work for seventy years. It is so because he started writing poems as a child of eight and he continued it until his death. His literary production was vast and varied. Poems, songs, dramas, short stories, novels, letters, diaries, sermons, addresses and

I essays of various kinds flowed from his pen. He wrote on all kinds of subjects politics, religion, education, social reform, literary criticism, language, music and science. His English books, whether

translations or original Works, form only a very small part of his writings.

Though Rabindra Nath Tagore learnt to write in English rather late, he was able to achieve a style of. his own which is

beautifully distinct. It is also very surprising that, though he started painting at a very old age yet he achieved an individuality of style in this art.

His father was a great traveller. He took the boy with him on his wanderings During these journeys he developed love for fields. He also developed love for simple peasant folk. He enjoyed nature. He enjoyed the sights and sounds that these wanderings offered to him.

Rabindra Nath Tagore had great love for humanity. Love for mankind is the very comer-stone of his religion. He loves

mother earth more than the fabled heaven. Man is the measure of all things for him. He once said, "If there be any truth absolutely unrelated to humanity, then for us it is absolutely non-existing." He denounced the aggressive nationalism of the West. He deemed it a crime against humanity.

Tagore's love for humanity is the outcome of his spirituality. His love for mankind is only the obverse of his love for God. He is a mystical poet, he sings of man and nature, life and death, love and beauty and their relations to the infinite spirit. A critic has said, "Perhaps no living poet was more religious, and no man of Breligion was more poetical than Tagore. In fact Upnishads and the teachings of Buddha played a great part in shaping his  spiritual- life.

Besides our National Anthem Vana GanaMana' Tagore gave us his famous Gitanjali, Sonar Tari, Puravi, The cycle of the Spring, The Evening Songs and the Morning Songs. Among his famous novels are: Gora, The Wreck, Raja and Rani, Mukt Dhara, Raaj Rishi, Nauka Dubi and Binodini. Kabuli Wallah and Kshudita pashan are his two famous stories.

He was opposed to the foreign rule. He strongly disliked the slavish mentality of the Indian politicians of his time He wanted Indians to be self reliant and proud of their cultural heritage.

He spent the entire amount of money that he got from the Nobel Prize on Shantiniketan. This is his great gift to the people at large and also his most enduring memorial. He wanted to bring the East and the West closer to each other. Shantiniketan later on developed into the Vishvabharti University.

He was honoured with the title of 'Sir'. But in protest against the Jallianwala Bagh tragedy, he returned the title in 1919. The great 'Maker of Songs' breathed his last on 8th August, 1941. His death was widely mourned throughout the world. But he lives forever in his lofty ideas:

Where the mind is without fear and where the head is held high In that heaven of freedom, 0 Lord! Let my country awake.