KOLKATA, May 9:
Amid mellifluous songs and captivating poems, West Bengal along with the rest of India today remembered the 154th birth anniversary of poet and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. President Pranab Mukherjee paid homage to writer, painter and poet on his 154th birth anniversary, referring to him as ‘one of the greatest intellectual icons of India’.
“I join my fellow citizens in paying homage to Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, the first Nobel laureate of Asia and one of the greatest intellectual icons of India, on the occasion of his 154th birth anniversary,” said Mr Mukherjee Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee paid rich tributes to the bard posting a photo on her social networking page on the occasion.
Megastar Amitabh Bachchan also paid tribute to Gurudev. Bachchan, posted a black-and-white picture of Tagore on his Twitter account. The State Information and Culture Department, in association with the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) will organise a befitting tribute to the Kabiguru on the occasion of Pochishe Boishakh at Cathedral Road here.
The chief minister will inaugurate the programme. During the next fortnight, the Kabipaksha, May 10 to 25, regular programmes will be held at Rabindra Sadan and the open air stage at the Rabindra Sadan complex. An exhibition of paintings will be showcased at Gaganendra Pradarshanshala from May 9 to 15.
Students as well as popular artistes celebrated the day in Tagore’s ancestral home Jorasanko Thakur Bari by dancing to the tunes of his composition, singing his songs and reciting his poems. In every vicinity, cultural events were organised to commemorate the day by rejoicing the bard’s songs, poems, plays and dances. In schools and colleges, students dressed themselves up in traditional sarees and dhoti-kurtas and participated in the celebration.
Social networking sites were buzzing with netizens expressing their love for Tagore. His birthday is celebrated on May 8 or 9 after Visva-Bharati University, established by him in Santiniketan of West Bengal, decided to celebrate the birth anniversary of Gurudev on the actual date of his birth, Boishakh 25, scrapping a rule ushered in by his predecessor – that of celebrating the bard’s birth anniversary on Poila Boishakh.
Tagore was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region’s literature and music. He authored the ‘Gitanjali’ and became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Writing both in his native Bengali and in English, he achieved global fame as a poet, novelist, playwright, composer and an artist. He modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures.
His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas and essays spoke of topics ranging from political to personal. Tagore campaigned for the Indian nationalist movement and was a close friend of Mahatma Gandhi. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India’s ‘Jana Gana Mana’ and Bangladesh’s ‘Amar Shonar Bangla’. (UNI)
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel