Rare videos of Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore 1861-1941

Rabindranath Tagore (7 May 1861 to 7 August 1941), sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped Bengali literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he was the first non-European Nobel laureate. His poetry in translation was viewed as spiritual, and this together with his mesmerizing persona gave him a prophet-like aura in the West. His "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal.

A Pirali Brahmin from Kolkata, Tagore had been writing poetry since he was eight years old. At age 16, he published his first substantial poetry under the pseudonym Bhanushingho ("Sun Lion") and wrote his first short stories and dramas in 1877. Tagore achieved further note when he denounced the British Raj and supported Indian independence. His efforts endure in his vast canon and in the institution he founded, Visva-Bharati University.