Seconds flow away,
In the speed,
That we can't even imagine,
And brings a new day,
A day which marks,
The 159th birth anniversary,
Of a national person.
The light of literature,
Born 7 May 1861
In Jorasanko, Calcutta
Giving the joy of parenthood to,
Debendranath Tagore and Sarada Devi.
The man started,
His enlightened career,
Penning his first poem,
Just at 8 years old in 1869,
One of his famous lines were,
"Don't limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time."
When someone takes birth,
For some major cause,
It can be seen from the person's childhood,
Hence the man released,
His first substantial poem,
Pen named Bhanusimha,
Again at a young age of 16.
He went to Europe,
For higher education,
And returned with the inspiration,
Of fusing Bengali and European tradition,
Through his poems and write ups.
As the saying goes,
Behind every successful man is an woman,
And the woman behind him was,
Mrinalini Devi,
They married in 1883,
According to Brahmo Samaj.
An eminent person always,
Shares the best teaching with others,
And the best place to learn something is school,
So he established his school,
In 1901 which is now known to the world,
As Santiniketan.
The national person wrote,
Our beautiful national anthem,
In the year 1911,
The anthem which rises,
Patriotism in each and every blood vessels,
Of an Indian.
The greatest achievement for India,
Of that time,
Was own by him,
In the year 1913,
The Nobel Prize,
For his book of poems Gitanjali.
He was knighted by the British government in 1915,
But such a great person,
Didn't allow pride to rule over patriotism,
And resigned the honour,
As a mark of protest against British policies in India.
The money he earned,
From books and prizes,
He gave it to his school,
And Visva Bharati University established by him in Santiniketan.
He started moving to places,
To spread the knowledge of,
Literature as much as he knew,
He was awarded,
The Doctorate of Literature,
By Oxford University in the year 1940.
One of his lines were,
"Death is not extinguishing the light, it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come"
He left the Earth,
And went to heavenly abode,
On August 7, 1941,
At the age of 80,
Leaving behind a lot of his hard works,
Today on his Birth anniversary,
I read his precious works,
And think such a person,
With so great knowledge about literature,
Was so simple,
And this is hard to find in today's world.
