It's 7th May 2015, marks the 154th Birthday of Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore is not a household name over here in the U.S. but because of coming from a Bengali family myself, I was pretty familiar with his name since my childhood like many others. I grew up reading his poetry, novel & short stories back in my School years. Later on, I also got introduced to his music and paintings.
Tagore, a Bengali Polymath who won The Nobel Prize in 1913, for his famous book Gitanjali, in English which means "Songs Offerings". A compiled book of well over hundreds of poems written and translated by Tagore himself. He became the first Asian to win such prestigious prize in Literature. Born in British India, Tagore wrote extensively in Bengali & Hindi language. He contributed to the Bengali literature and music so much so that his works ended up creating a new genre of Bengali Music, widely known as Rabindra Sangeet.
He is regarded as one of the most influential Poet in greater Indian diaspora, so much so that three country ended up choosing his song as their national anthem. It includes Anthem of India, Bangladesh & Sri-Lanka.
Surprisingly, Tagore was not only a man of Literature, in fact he was also a Humanist, a Nationalist who opposed British colonial power, Social Reformer and one of the key inspiration behind the Bengali Renaissance.
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