Biography of Rabindranath Tagore

(Born: 7 May 1861 - Died: 7 August 1941)

Rabindranath Tagore, the writer of the National Anthem, was born on May 7, 1861. His father's name was Devendranath Tagore and his mother's name was Sharada Devi. He is also popularly known as Gurudev. He was the fourteenth child of his parents.

At the age of eleven, his ability to write beautiful verses and ability to describe any event with clarity came to the knowledge of his headmaster at school. However, he disliked formal schooling. On the insistence of his brother, he went to England to study but returned without completing his studies. Two main topics were of special interest to him - human relationship and his motherland.

His best-known work is ‘Gitanjali'. For this work, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Besides poetry, he wrote plays, dance, dramas, stories and novels. He founded the Vishwa Bharati University, Shantiniketan. Tagore also created numerous drawings, paintings and songs, for which he wrote the music himself.