Philatelic Tributes to Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore

159th Birth Anniversary of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore and The Post Office - a Philatelic Tribute by noted philatelist and artist Shri Dipok Dey is a beautiful book on stamps and other philatelic items issued on Nobel Laureate Gurudev  Rabindranath Tagore all over the world. Sharing here some pages from this book.

Rabindranath Tagore, the first Asian to win Nobel Prize, was born on 7 May 1861 in Kolkata. This year marks the 159th birth anniversary of Tagore. Every year, his birth anniversary is observed as Rabindra Jayanti across the country.

Rabindranath Tagore, one of the most celebrated and revered polymaths India ever had left behind a rich legacy of work inspiring generations across the globe. Tagore, also known as Gurudev played a pivotal role in shaping the Bengali literature, art and music. On his 159th birth anniversary,sharing here some facts about him,

-Rabindranath Tagore was the youngest of thirteen surviving children. He was born in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta to Debendranath Tagore and Sarada Devi. Unfortunately, his mother died at an early age and father travelled widely for work. He was nicknamed as Rabi.

--Interestingly, the Tagore family was at the forefront of the Bengal renaissance. Their family published literary magazines; theatre and recitals of Bengali and Western classical music featured regularly.

--Rabindranath Tagore became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. It was for the beautifully written Gitanjali.

Rabindranath Tagore is the only known person to have written the national anthems for two different countries - Jana Gana Mana, the national anthem for India; and Amar Sonar Bangla, the national anthem for Bangladesh. According to some historians, however, the Sri Lankan national anthem too was based on a Bengali song originally written by Tagore in 1938. It was translated into Sinhalese and adopted as the national anthem in 1951.

--Tagore had a unique vision for school training which he conceptualised and named the school Visva-Bharati. Tagore employed a brahmacharya system: gurus gave pupils personal guidance—emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Teaching was often done under trees. He staffed the school, contributed his Nobel Prize money, and his duties as steward-mentor at Santiniketan kept him busy: mornings he taught classes; afternoons and evenings he wrote the students' textbooks. He fundraised widely for the school in Europe and the United States between 1919 and 1921.

--Tagore's Nobel Prize was stolen from the safety vault of the Visva-Bharati University, along with several other of his belongings on March 25, 2004. However, on December 7, 2004, the Swedish Academy decided to present two replicas of Tagore's Nobel Prize, one made of gold and the other made of bronze, to the Visva-Bharati University.