Send us a textGurudev Rabindranath Tagore is a writer who needs no introduction to the listeners. He not only rejuvenated Bengali literature, but there is not an Indian genre or subgenre of fiction, poetry, playwriting, philosophy, art, and education that he did not profoundly influence. He was born in Calcutta in 1861 in a distinguished family at the forefront of the Indian renaissance. While on a trip to England, he showed his translation of Gitanjali to poets William Butler Yeats and Ezra Pound, who helped him get the book published by Asia Society. That is how he won the Noble Prize in Literature in 1913; the first non-European to win this honor. He was also awarded a knighthood in 1915, which he renounced after the Jallianwala massacre of 1919. Tagore started writing short stories when he was sixteen. He was a gifted composer and composed more than 2000 songs. His songs are also national anthems of two countries – India and Bangladesh. Tagore traveled extensively and conversed with leading literary, political, and scientific personalities of his time, people like Einstein. He influenced literature and arts, not only in India but globally. The story “The Tale of a Muslim Woman” was composed by Tagore a few months before his death, but it was not published until 1955.

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