As an activist, thinker, poet and rural reconstructionist, Rabindarnath Tagore continues to be relevant! Displayed here are some rare snaps of Tagore!
In pic: Tagore felicitating Gandhi and Kasturba Gandhi at the mango grove in Santiniketan, 1940.
Speaking at Berlin University. Tagore spoke to packed halls during his first visit to war-ravaged Germany in 1921.
Tagore with Helen Keller, when he visited New York in 1930.
Flanked by Sir Maurice Gwyer (right) and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan after a special convocation held by Oxford University at Santiniketan on August 7, 1940, to confer on Tagore the degree of D.Litt.
Tagore with niece Indira Devi in Valmiki Pratibha, 1881.
At twenty he wrote his first drama-opera: Valmiki Pratibha (The Genius of Valmiki).
Composed in 1881, the opera was first performed at the Jorasanko Thakur Bari on 26 February 1881. Tagore himself played the role of Valmiki. It was staged in front of some eminent literary personalities of contemporary Bengal like Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Gooroodas Banerjee and Haraprasad Shastri.
Tagore wrote in his reminiscence, Jibansmriti, “[In Valmiki-Pratibha] I played Valmiki and my niece Pratibha played Saraswati – this history remains in the naming of Valmiki-Pratibha.
Rabindranath Tagore and Mukul Chandra Dey with Kiyo-san and another Japanese lady at Tomitaro Hara's 'Sankeien' - Yokohama, Japan, August 1, 1916.
Mukul Chandra Dey was a student of Rabindranath Tagore's Santiniketan. He is considered as a pioneer of drypoint-etching in India. He was the first Indian artist to travel abroad for the purpose of studying printmaking as an art. While in Japan in 1916, Mukul Dey studied under Yokoyama Taikan and Kanzan Shimomura at Tokyo and Yokohama. At Yokohama Rabindranath Tagore and Mukul Dey lived as guests of Japanese silk-merchant Tomitaro Hara at his famous residential complex Sankeien, enjoying a rare opportunity to study classical Chinese and Nihonga style Japanese paintings. Especially the masterpieces of Sesshu Toyo.
Rabindranath Tagore at his painting desk, Government School of Art, Calcutta, 1932
Rabindranath Tagore with Brahmacharyashrama boys – Santiniketan 1903.
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