Rabindranath tagore biography wallpaperswide

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A Bengali literary giant and Nobel laureate, Tagore was born, grew up, worked, and died in Bengal.

I slept and dreamt that life was joy. He was highly influential in introducing Indian culture to the West and is generally regarded as the outstanding creative artist of modern India. He was born on May 6, 1861, in Kolkata, into a family of religious and reformist leaders.

Reportedly, the Tagore family was benefitted from the growing influence of the British East India Company. Kadambari was two years younger than Tagore. His elder sister Swarnakumari (1855–1932) was also a gifted writer, song-composer, editor, and social worker.

Rabindranath Tagore’s elder sister Swarnakumari

The names of his other elder sisters are Sukumari and Saratkumari.

In November 1924, while Tagore was on his way to Peru to attend the centenary celebrations of independence, he had to stop in Buenos Aires for medical rest on 6 November 1924. The greenery, the rivers, and the simplicity of rural Bengal inspired Tagore to write many of his famous essays, short stories, and poems including Sonar Tori, Kotha o Kahini, Chitra, and Chaitali.

Most of the poems of Kheya and Naibedya, and many songs, which formed part of Gitanjali and Geetimalya, were also written during his stay in Shelaidaha. He also wrote numerous articles about Sikhism in a Bengali child magazine. These institutions aimed to educate scholars interested in Eastern civilizations.

In his final years, Tagore dedicated a significant part of his time to Visva-Bharati University and the mission of global unity in international culture.

• The first time when Tagor was in close proximity to nature was when his father took him to Dalhousie, where they stayed in the Himalayan foothills. Tagore was born when India was transitioning from medieval to modern times. Tagore was very close to Renuka, and when Renuka was suffering from tuberculosis, he took her to the Himalayas in May 1903, so that she could get a fresh climate.

  In one such lyrics, which is also a popular Rabindra Sangeet, Tagore wrote –

  Tobu Mone Rekho (Pray, love, remember)”

  In another song that he composed in Kadambari’s memory, he wrote –

  Amaar praner pore chole gelo ke (The one who went out of my life)”

  A Complicated Relationship

  Rabindranath Tagore had a brief romantic encounter with an Argentine writer and intellectual, Victoria Ocampo (born on 7 April 1890; died on 27 January 1979).

  Bizarrely, Tagore, in his Bengali novella Nashtanirh (The Broken Nest) he wrote at the same time when he was arranging his daughters’ marriages, describes the agony of child marriages.

  

  This is surprising as Tagore had started speaking against child marriages as early as 1887.

  Caste

  According to Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyaya, one of the biographers of Rabindranath Tagore, the Tagores were Rarhi Brahmins who belonged to a village named Kush in the Burdwan district of West Bengal, and their original surname was Kushari.

  Tagore was sceptical about Mahatma Gandhi’s Non-cooperation Movement and didn’t agree with Gandhi’s philosophy towards “Charkha.” Tagore also criticized Gandhi for linking the Bihar earthquake to the sin of untouchability.

• The 2012 Bengali language film Nobel Chor is inspired by the theft of Tagore’s Nobel Prize.

• The 1932 Bengali film Natir Puja is the only film directed by Rabindranath Tagore.

  All his sisters were known for their beauty and education.

  Wife & Children

  On 9 December 1883, the 22-year-old Tagore got married to an 11-year-old Mrinalini Devi (born Bhabatarini). In the article ‘An Indian Folk Religion’ in his book Creative Unity, Tagore formally interprets the humanistic philosophy of Baul singers.

  My father, seated amidst the throng of worshippers, would sometimes add his voice to the hymn of praise, and finding a stranger joining in their devotions they would wax enthusiastically cordial, and we would return loaded with the sanctified offerings of sugar crystals and other sweets.”

• Tagore was so inspired by Sikhism that he went on to write six poems on Sikh heroism and martyrdom.