Rabindranath Tagore born on the 9th of May, 1861 gave a new magnitude to Bengali literature through his work as a poet, novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist and literary critic. In 1913 he received the Nobel Prize for his work titled Gitanjali. The tremendous influence that his writing had on the people of the country drew him into the country's freedom struggle and it was Mahatma Gandhi who gave him the name the Great Sentinel. He lived to the age of eighty. The following excerpts say the rest.
Rabindranath Tagore, a poet by calling was one of the most influential figures of the early twentieth century.
The Man of Faith From The Child (1931)
The Man of faith moves along pitiless paths strewn with flints over scorching sands and steep mountainous tracks. They follow him, the strong and the weak, the aged and the young, the rulers of realms, the tiller of the soil. Some grow weary and footsore, some angry and suspicious. They ask at every dragging step, "How much further is the end?" The Man of faith sings in answer. They scowl and shake their fists and yet they cannot resist him; the pressure of the moving mass and indefinite hope push them forward. They shorten their sleep, and curtail their speed, they are ever afraid lest they may be too late for their chance while others be more fortunate.
The following is a famous passage from his work, Gitanjali:
Where the mind is without fear and the head held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken into fragments by narrow domestic walls; Where words come from the depth of truth; Where tireless striving stretches its arm 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 Into, that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
Comments