Rabindranath Tagore: An adequate Man

Coleridge used an adjective „myriad-minded‟ to William Shakespeare. It is also very much applicable to an adequate man like Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), the great personality of the Bengali literature as well as Indian literature too. K.R.S. Iyengar has observed the personality in this way: “Next only to Mahatma Gandhi and Sri Aurobindo, Tagore has been the supreme inspiration to millions modern India.‟‟(1) The atomic energy in his life and works has no end. K. Kripalini also has observed in another way : „„ Among modern writers he has the uncommon distinction that while the sophisticated Bengali intellectuals delight in his verse and prose and learned professors write volumes on them, the simple unlettered folk in the congested lanes of Calcutta(now Kolkata) or in the remote villages of Bengal sing his songs with rapture.‟‟(2) One of the greatest poet and critic of Bengali literature Buddhddev Basu said that, Rabindranath is a phenomenon. He had the Midas‟s touch. He is very much known as a poet though he created all kinds of literary works. He won the Nobel Prize for his extraordinary creation „Song Offerings‟ in the year 1913. At the same time he made the Indian literature universal. In this book Tagore has said, „„Where the mind is without fear and head is held high ;”(3) This is actually what explains him. In fact, he is a man of epic magnitude, a storehouse of mystery.