Rabindranath Tagore

রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর, (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941)

Rabindranath Tagore, pen name Gurudev, was a Bengali poet,novelist, musician, painter and playwright who reshaped Bengali literature and music. As author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he was the first non-European who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. His poetry in translation was viewed as spiritual, and this together with his mesmerizing persona gave him a prophet-like aura in the west.
The Tagore’s were affluent, distinguished, in many ways exclusive, if not alienated. His grandfather, Dwarkanath, who built the family fortune, was known as “Prince” and counted among friends people as far removed as Raja Rammohan Roy and Queen Victoria. His father, ‘Maharshi’ (The great sage) Devendranath was both a man a property and was inclined towards spiritualism. He broke away from orthodox Hindu ways and joined the Brahmo Samaj. Rabindranath, the fourteenth and last child, was born on May 7, 1861.

Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced), and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works. He is the only litterateur who penned anthems of two countries: India and Bangladesh.  Tagore won the1913 Nobel Prize in Literature, He was knighted by the British Crown. He later returned his knighthood in protest of the massacre of unarmed Indians in 1919 at Jallianwala Bagh.    In 1921, he founded Visva Bharati,  which means the communion of the world with India. Soon after independence, in 1951 the institution was given the status of a university.