| Rabindranath was born in Calcutta on 7th May 1861. He was the 14th and youngest child of Maharshi Devendranath Tagore and Sarada Devi. His grandfather was the great entrepreuner and social reformer - Prince Dwarkanath Tagore. The Tagores were actually Pirali Brahmins from erstwhile Uttar Pradesh. Nilmani Tagore who was a businessman set up his residence at Jorasanko and thus formed the ancestral house of the Tagores or Thakurbari as it is known today. |
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| Rabindranath was very fortunate that he was born in such a family that ushered in a new wave of thought in all spheres in Bengal. He got the deep spiritual feeling from his father and the sense of art and the style of living from his grandfather. Thakurbari was a house that showcased the nouveau revolution in Bengal - Satyendranath the first ICS whose wife used to ride on horseback in public, Jyotirindranath the exponent of modern drama and fusion music - you name it and it was there. |
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| From an early age Rabindranath manifested his poetic skills. For a person who never completed formal education it was amazing that he could write such beautiful poems and prose. His first poem was written when he was only 7. First published work in 1875 (age 14) a translation of Macbeth. His early works are founds mainly in Bharati magazine and he published his first collection of pems in 1878 - Kabikahini. 1880 first visit to London with Satyendranath. He was married to Bhabatarini (later renamed Mrinalini) in 1883. |
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| Tagore founded the Brahmacahrya Ashram in Shantiniketan in 1901. This later developed into his pet project "Viswa Bharati" in 1921. His English transaltion of Gitanjali led him to receive the Nobel Prize in literature in 1913 - being the first Indian to do so. He donated all the money in Viswa Bharati. He was knighted in 1915 but gave it up in the light of the Jaliwanlabagh massacare in 1919. He visited many countries of the world - almost all continents except Australia and Antartica. In 1940 Oxford University came to Shantiniketan to grant him an honouraray D. Litt. He breathed his last on 7th August 1941. |
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| Rabindranath was a genius - he was not only a mere writer and author who penned numerous songs and poems, short stories and novels but also a painter a supporter of human values, idealist and a free thinker. He was not a prejudiced person and was always open to new ideas. He was a creator but has been made into a demi-god by his followers and Bengalis by crowning him with adjectives like Kobiguru and Biswakabi. |
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| For details about Tagore's Religion of Man and Hindu Brahmoism see http://www.thebrahmosamaj.org/founders/rabindra.html |
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| You can see more of his works at http://www.calcuttaweb.com/tagore/index.htm or learn about the activities of a London based group called the Tagoreans dedicated solely to propagating the ideals of Tagore in UK and Europe. |
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| The views in these pages are solely mine |
