by Salvatore M. Buttaci

India's most widely acclaimed poet, Rabindranath Tagore was born in 1861 and began writing at an early age. is first book of poetry appeared when he was only seventeen. 

After deciding not to continue studying law in England, he returned to his native India and quickly established himself as a poet, short story writer, novelist, playwright, and songwriter. He wrote the lyrics and melodies for several hundred popular songs, including the national anthems of both India and Bangladesh!

An exemplary Hindu, Tagore not only wrote in the Bengali language, but he translated many of his own works into English. In fact, his own translation of a Bengali poetic prose piece he wrote in 1910 called Gitanjali  won him the Nobel prize for Literature in 1913. 

Two years later Rabindranath Tagore was knighted by King George V of England; however, he renounced his knighthood after British troops massacred 400 Indian demonstrators in Amritsar, India.

His wife died at the age of 29 when he was 41. During her illness he gave her unstinting love and care up to the moment of her death.  Tagore and his wife had three daughters and two sons of which two daughters (Madhuri and Renuka) and the youngest son (Shami) all died of tuberculosis during Tagore's life. His daughter Mira and son
Rathendranth survived Tagore.

Rabindranath Tagore died in 1941 in Calcutta, the city of his birth.

From Chaitali (1896) 

The night is black and the forest has no end;
a million people thread it in a million ways.
We have trysts to keep in the darkness, but where
or with whom-- of that we are unaware.
But we have this faith that a lifetime's bliss
will appear any minute, with a smile upon its lips.
Scents, touches, sounds, snatches of songs
brush us, pass us, give us delightful shocks.
Then peradventure there's a flash of lightning:
whomever I see that instant I fall in love with.
I call that person and cry: `This life is blest!
For your sake such miles have I traversed!'
All those others who come close and move off
in the darkness- I don't know if they exist or not.

Translated from Bengali by Ketaki Kushari Dyson. 

The Kiss

From Kadi O Komal (1886) 

Lips' language to lips' ears.
Two drinking each other's heart, it seems.
Two roving loves who have left home,
pilgrims to the confluence of lips.
Two waves rise by the law of love
to break and die on two sets of lips.
Two wild desires craving each other
meet at last at the body's limits.
Love's writing a song in dainty letters,
layers of kiss-calligraphy on lips.
Plucking flowers from two sets of lips
perhaps to thread them into a chain later.
This sweet union of lips
is the red marriage-bed of a pair of smiles.

© All Copyright, Rabindranath Tagorie.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.