Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.
Rabindranath Tagore, left, with the Countess Anna de Noailles.
Tagore’s 150th Birth Anniversary
Over the weekend India and Bangladesh will celebrate the 150th Birth anniversary of poet and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore,
who was born May 7, 1861.
The writer and painter who gave both India and Bangladesh their national anthems—“Jana Gana Mana” and “Amar Shonar Bangla”—and who traveled widely, making friends from Europe to Argentina, is still seen as towering cultural icon today. He was the first person who was not from the West to win the prestigious Nobel Prize for Literature for his prolific body of work. According to Judith Plotz, a George Washington University professor who moderated an event in the Nobel laureate’s honor at the Asia Society in March, Tagore wrote 12 novels, 3,000 poems and and over 2,000 songs.
He was also a huge source of inspiration for another icon from Bengal—film-maker Satyajit Ray.
The celebrations this weekend cap a year of commemoration that kicked off last May. Many of the events are aimed at bringing the poet closer to younger people, many of whom are not very familiar with his works.
More on: http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2011/05/06/stamps-paintings-films-mark-tagores-150th-birth-anniversary/
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