Rabindranath is not all about his elegant prose and magical poetry.
He is part of our everyday life, mundane and spiritual. This mystic is omnipresent, through his verses, in our joy and sorrow, in merriment and mourning.
He is for every day. Yet there is something special the 25th Baishakh. For 154 years ago on this day he made his first mark upon the earth and never ceased to do so as long as he lived.
On 25th of Baishakh in 1268 Bengali year, Rabindranath Tagore, the fountainhead of Bengali wisdom was born at Jorashako in Kolkata. The Bengali world is commemorating the 154th birth anniversary of this immortal poet.
Nobody has influenced the minds of so many Bengali-speaking people before or after him. His influence has been compared, by many, to Shakespeare in the English-speaking world.
Tagore received Nobel Prize in literature in 1913.
It is not for nothing that Bangalees across the world today celebrate the bard’s 154th birth anniversary. Rabindranath became even more pertinent to Bangalees when in 1971 his “Amar Sonar Bangla” stirred up their political awareness and added substance to the Liberation War. The song was later made Bangladesh’s national anthem in 1972.
In homage to the Nobel laureate, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will lay the foundation of Rabindra Biswabidyalay at Sirajganj district’s Shahzadpur, once a Tagore family estate. The poet had the responsibility to look after the estate himself and visited it many times.
Just like Shilaidah in Kushtia, another former estate of the Tagores, Shahzadpur takes on a festive look on every birth anniversary of the poet. This year, the foundation laying of the university will add flavor to the festivity.
-Ittefaq Report
