By IANS,
Kolkata : The 149th birth anniversary of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore was celebrated Saturday amid great enthusiasm across West Bengal with renderings of songs and poems composed by him.
Tagore, the first Asian to win the Nobel prize for literature, in 1913, for his collection of poems “Gitanjali”, was born at Jorasanko in the northern part of the city on this day in 1861.
Since dawn, hundreds of people lined up before Tagore’s ancestral house at Jorasanko, now housing the Rabindrabharati University. As in earlier years, the authorities threw open to the public the room where Tagore was born, and eminent singers and elocutionists sang, read and recited his works in the courtyard.
But the biggest draw for the people was Santiniketan, a seat of learning founded by the poet in Birbhum district, where the day was celebrated through recitals and cultural soirees.
Functions were organised by schools, colleges, universities, clubs, voluntary organisations to remember the versatile genius who delved with aplomb into plays, novels, short stories, dance dramas, essays on all perceivable human emotions which earned him the sobriquet ‘Biswakabi’, or the world poet.
In Kolkata, the state government organised a dawn-to-noon function at Rabindra Sadan, with a large number of people assembling to hear renowned singers and poets.
The newspapers brought out special pages, while television channels and radio stations broadcast programmes remembering Tagore who till today is popular among people in the subcontinent, and in other parts of the globe.
Deciding to make hay while the sun shines, the Trinamool Congress brought out a big procession in support of their candidate from the Kolkata South constituency with youths singing Tagore songs. There were no political slogans, but a tableau urged voters to support party chief Mamata Banerjee.