Celebrating Rabindranath Tagore: How His Legacy Continues to Inspire Generations

Cite-HR wishes a HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the great composer of JAN_GAN_MAN.

[Rabindranath Tagore](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Hi-Rabindranath_Tagore.ogg)

(7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) as per Bengali Calendar, also known by the [sobriquet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobriquet) Gurudev, was a [Bengali](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_people) polymath. He was a poet, visual artist, playwright, novelist, educationist, social reformer, nationalist, business manager, and composer whose works reshaped [Bengali literature](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_literature) and [music](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Bengal) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He became Asia's first [Nobel laureate](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize) when he won the 1913 [Nobel Prize in Literature](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_in_Literature).

A [Pirali Brahmin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirali_Brahmin) from [Calcutta](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolkata), Bengal, Tagore first wrote [poems](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_poetry) at the age of eight. At the age of sixteen, he published his first substantial poetry under the pseudonym Bhanushingho ("Sun Lion") and wrote his first short stories and dramas in [1877](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1877_in_literature). In later life, Tagore protested strongly against the [British Raj](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Raj) and gave his support to the [Indian Independence Movement](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Independence_Movement). Tagore's life work endures in the form of his poetry and the institution he founded, [Visva-Bharati University](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visva-Bharati_University).

Tagore wrote novels, short stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays on political and personal topics. [Gitanjali](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gitanjali) (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced), and [Ghare-Baire](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Home_and_the_World) (The Home and the World) are among his best-known works. His verse, short stories, and novels, which often exhibited rhythmic lyricism, colloquial language, meditative naturalism, and philosophical contemplation, received worldwide acclaim. Tagore was also a cultural reformer and polymath who modernized Bengali art by rejecting strictures binding it to classical Indian forms. Two songs from his canon are now the national anthems of [Bangladesh](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh) and [India](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India): the [Amar Shonar Bangla](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amar_Shonar_Bangla) and the [Jana Gana Mana](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jana_Gana_Mana) respectively.

Rabindranath Tagore [](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tagore3.jpg)

Rabindranath Tagore in Kolkata, c. 1915

Born 7 May 1861 (1861-05-07) [Calcutta](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcutta)

Died 7 August 1941 (aged 80) [Calcutta](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcutta)

[Occupation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment) poet, playwright, philosopher, composer, artist

Writing period [Bengal Renaissance](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_Renaissance)

Notable award(s) [Nobel Prize in Literature](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_in_Literature) (1913)

Source: Wikipedia.

Political views of Rabindranath Tagore

Tagore (at right, on the dais) hosts Mahatma Gandhi and wife Kasturba at Santiniketan in 1940.

Marked complexities characterize Tagore's political views. He criticized European imperialism and supported Indian nationalists. According to evidence produced during the Hindu-German Conspiracy trial, as well as some later accounts, he was aware of the conspiracy. He even interviewed the then Japanese premier Count Terauchi and former premier Count Okuma on behalf of the conspirators to try and enlist Japanese support. He also lampooned the Swadeshi movement, denouncing it in "The Cult of the Charkha," an acrid 1925 essay. Instead, he emphasized self-help and the intellectual uplift of the masses, stating that British imperialism was a "political symptom of our social disease," urging Indians to accept that "there can be no question of blind revolution, but of steady and purposeful education."

Such views inevitably enraged many, placing his life in danger. He narrowly escaped assassination by Indian expatriates during his stay in a San Francisco hotel in late 1916. The plot failed only because the would-be assassins fell into an argument. Yet Tagore wrote songs lionizing the Indian independence movement and renounced his knighthood in protest against the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh Massacre. Two of Tagore's more politically charged compositions, "Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo" ("Where the Mind is Without Fear") and "Ekla Chalo Re" ("If They Answer Not to Thy Call, Walk Alone"), gained mass appeal, with the latter favored by Gandhi. Despite his tumultuous relations with Gandhi, Tagore was key in resolving a Gandhi-Ambedkar dispute involving separate electorates for untouchables, ending Gandhi's fast "unto death."

Tagore also criticized orthodox (rote-oriented) education, lampooning it in the short story "The Parrot's Training," where a bird is caged by tutors and force-fed pages torn from books until it dies. These views led Tagore, while visiting Santa Barbara, California on 11 October 1917, to conceive of a new type of university, desiring to "make [his ashram at] Santiniketan the connecting thread between India and the world [and] a world center for the study of humanity somewhere beyond the limits of nation and geography." The school, which he named Visva-Bharati, had its foundation stone laid on 22 December 1918; it was later inaugurated on 22 December 1921. Here, Tagore implemented a brahmacharya pedagogical structure employing gurus to provide individualized guidance for pupils. Tagore worked hard to fundraise for and staff the school, even contributing all of his Nobel Prize monies. Tagore's duties as steward and mentor at Santiniketan kept him busy; he taught classes in the mornings and wrote the students' textbooks in the afternoons and evenings. Tagore also fundraised extensively for the school in Europe and the U.S. between 1919 and 1921.

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;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action---

Life of my life, I shall ever try to keep my body pure, knowing that your living touch is upon all my limbs. I shall ever try to keep all untruths out from my thoughts, knowing that you are the truth which has kindled the light of reason in my mind. I shall ever try to drive all evils away from my heart and keep my love in flower, knowing that you have your seat in the inmost shrine of my heart. And it shall be my endeavor to reveal you in my actions, knowing it is your power that gives me strength to act.

By Rabindranath Tagore, "Gurudev"

O Fool,

Try to carry thyself upon thy own shoulders! O beggar, to come beg at thy own door! Leave all thy burdens on his hands who can bear all, and never look behind in regret. Thy desire at once puts out the light from the lamp it touches with its breath. It is unholy—take not thy gifts through its unclean hands.

Accept only what is offered by sacred love.

Song Unsung

The song that I came to sing remains unsung to this day. I have spent my days in stringing and unstringing my instrument. The time has not come true, the words have not been rightly set; only there is the agony of wishing in my heart. The blossom has not opened; only the wind is sighing by. I have not seen his face, nor have I listened to his voice; only I have heard his gentle footsteps from the road before my house. The livelong day has passed in spreading his seat on the floor; but the lamp has not been lit, and I cannot ask him into my house.

Patience

If thou speakest not, I will fill my heart with thy silence and endure it. I will keep still and wait like the night with starry vigil and its head bent low with patience. The morning will surely come, the darkness will vanish, and thy voice will pour down in golden streams breaking through the sky. Then thy words will take wing in songs from every one of my birds' nests, and thy melodies will break forth in flowers in all my forest groves.

Boat

I must launch out my boat. The languid hours pass by on the shore---Alas for me! The spring has done its flowering and taken leave. And now with the burden of faded futile flowers, I wait and linger. The waves have become clamorous, and upon the bank in the shady lane, the yellow leaves flutter and fall. What emptiness do you gaze upon! Do you not feel a thrill passing through the air with the notes of the far-away song floating from the other shore?

When Day Is Done

If the day is done, if birds sing no more, if the wind has flagged tired, then draw the veil of darkness thick upon me, even as thou hast wrapt the earth with the coverlet of sleep and tenderly closed the petals of the drooping lotus at dusk. From the traveler, whose sack of provisions is empty before the voyage is ended, whose garment is torn and dust-laden, whose strength is exhausted, remove shame and poverty, and renew his life like a flower under the cover of thy kindly night.

Friend,

Art thou abroad on this stormy night on thy journey of love, my friend? The sky groans like one in despair. I have no sleep tonight. Ever and again I open my door and look out on the darkness, my friend! I can see nothing before me. I wonder where lies thy path! By what dim shore of the ink-black river, by what far edge of the frowning forest, through what mazy depth of gloom art thou threading thy course to come to me, my friend?

`Prisoner, tell me, who was it that bound you?'
`It was my master,' said the prisoner.
`I thought I could outdo everybody in the world in wealth and power, and I amassed in my own treasure-house the money due to my king. When sleep overcame me I lay upon the bed that was for my lord, and on waking up I found I was a prisoner in my own treasure-house.'
`Prisoner, tell me, who was it that wrought this unbreakable chain?'
`It was I,' said the prisoner, `who forged this chain very carefully. I thought my invincible power would hold the world captive leaving me in a freedom undisturbed. Thus night and day I worked at the chain with huge fires and cruel hard strokes. When at last the work was done and the links were complete and unbreakable,