Rabindranath Tagore: A Biography

The author has been closely associated with Rabindranath Tagore. While going through his autobiography, he remembers’ the following lines of the great poet: “Nature shut her hands and laughingly asked everyday, what have I got inside? And nothing seemed impossible”. He believes that these words from Rabindranath Tagore’s autobiography, referring to the eager mornings of his early boyhood, may serve as key to the following account, which tries to relate him both to the old traditions in India and to the new day anticipated in his writings. He was not only a great author, a poet, but also a great political thinker, who would be equally worried about state of affairs in India well as the outside world, especially the western world, which he thought would become disruptive in craving for luxuries, need of sensation and excitement, which were against the finer instinct he had cherished. The major energies were not constructive for the world’s commonwealth and would come into conflict sooner or later. He believed that civilization can never sustain itself upon cannibalism of any form, and that reflected in his works also. He was content to take things as he found them, and did not expect one to discourse all day on philosophy or the doctrine of Upanishads. His greatness reflected not only in his poems, his stories but also in his personality. A great poet, a great author, a great political thinker and also a great human being. After he received the nobel prize for literature, a great honor for him and the country, he said “they have taken away my shelter”.