Rabindra Jayanti 2023

Rabindra Jayanti is celebrated annually to mark the birth anniversary of the Bengali poet, philosopher, novelist and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Every year, this day is celebrated on the 25th of the Bengali month called Boishakh. This year we celebrate the 162nd birth anniversary of the creative genius. 

Rabindranath Tagore was born in 1861 in Calcutta and had 13 siblings. As a child, Tagore did not attend a formal school, but was taught at home by private tutors. He wrote his first poem at the age of 8. In 1877, Tagore published his first poetry collection at the age of 16.

Throughout his life, Tagore wrote several plays, poems, novels and composed many songs, which are popularly called Rabindra Sangeet. In 1913, Tagore won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his famous work Gitanjali, which is a collection of poems. He became the first Indian and Asian to win the Nobel Prize.

During India’s freedom struggle from British rule, Rabindranath Tagore shared his thoughts through speeches, songs, poems and news articles. This helped to motivate the freedom fighters. Tagore even met Gandhi in 1915 at Shantiniketan. 

In the same year he was awarded Knighthood for his contribution to literature by King George V. Four years later, in 1919, in protest to British rule in India, Tagore gave up his title of knighthood. 

Towards the end of his life, he went into a coma and passed away in 1941, at the age of 80.