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Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), the first non-European to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature (1913), was a Bengali poet, novelist, musician, painter and playwright. Tagore modernized Bengali art and literature by rejecting classical forms, and produced strongly poetic and spiritual works. He spoke largely to political and personal topics as he rejected the British Raj and supported independence. His 1916 novel, «The Home and the World», illustrates a multitude of conflicts between tradition and the modern world, religion and nationalism, and the struggle Tagore felt within himself. The novel centers on the Swadeshi movement, and warns characters against the danger of such a movement becoming violent. Sandip, the spirited leader of the movement who strives for freedom at any cost, meets the passive, non-violent Nikhil and his young, unsuspecting wife, Bimala. A love triangle ensues amidst the turmoil of a revolution that may do the country more harm than good.

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"Sadhana: The Realisation of Life" is Rabindranath Tagore's excellent collection of essays on the subject of Indian spirituality. Tagore's objective in this work was to give the reader an understanding not only of the scripture but as to the practice, as he writes, «So in these papers, it may be hoped, western readers will have an opportunity of coming into touch with the ancient spirit of India as revealed in our sacred texts and manifested in the life of to-day.»

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Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), the first non-European to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature (1913), was a Bengali poet, novelist, musician, painter and playwright. Tagore modernized Bengali art and literature by rejecting classical forms, and produced strongly poetic and spiritual works. In addition to his original writings, Tagore's translations have been revered throughout both the Eastern and Western worlds, earning him the respect of such literary figures as W.B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, and Gandhi protégé, Charles F. Andrews. Tagore translated the «Songs of Kabir» in 1915; his poetic writing style and prophet-like persona contribute to the spiritual nature of the work. Kabir (1440-1518) was a mystic poet and saint of India who inspired the Kabir Panth, a religious community, one of the Sant Mat sects, of nearly ten million members. His poetry integrates the philosophies of Sufism, Hinduism and the Kabbalah, accepting the concepts of reincarnation and Karma, as well as the affirmation of a single god and the rejection of the cast system and idolatry.

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First published in English in 1912, “Gitanjali”, or “Song Offerings”, is a collection of poems translated by the author, Rabindranath Tagore, from the original Bengali. It contains over 100 inspirational poems by India’s greatest poet and earned Tagore the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Tagore, known as the “Bard of Bengal”, was born in 1861 to a wealthy family and started writing poetry as a child and began publishing critically acclaimed verses as a teenager. Tagore went on to write novels, stories, and dramas, work which would reshape Bengali literature and culture. He first published the “Gitanjali” collection of poems, widely considered to be one of his best works, in his native Bengali language in 1911. The original Bengali version contained over 150 verses and many were combined or edited out when Tagore translated them into English. Deeply spiritual and devotional, Tagore’s poems are primarily concerned with love and the conflict between earthly desires and spiritual passions and longings. Tagore also spoke eloquently and movingly of his connection to the natural world. This volume includes the introduction by William Butler Yeats that accompanied the original 1912 English language version. This edition includes a biographical afterword.

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THIS lyrical drama was written about twenty-five years ago. It is based on the following story from the Mahabharata.<br><br>In the course of his wanderings, in fulfilment of a vow of penance, Arjuna came to Manipur. There he saw Chitrangada, the beautiful daughter of Chitravahana, the king of the country. Smitten with her charms, he asked the king for the hand of his daughter in marriage. Chitravahana asked him who he was, and learning that he was Arjuna the Pandara, told him that Prabhanjana, one of his ancestors in the kingly line of Manipur, had long been childless. In order to obtain an heir, he performed severe penances. Pleased with these austerities, the god Shiva gave him this boon, that he and his successors should each have one child. It so happened that the promised child had invariably been a son. He, Chitravahana, was the first to have only a daughter Chitrangada to perpetuate the race. He had, therefore, always treated her as a son and had made her his heir.

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Civility is beauty of behaviour. It requires for its perfection patience, self-control, and an environment of leisure. For genuine courtesy is a creation, like pictures, like music. It is a harmonious blending of voice, gesture and movement, words and action, in which generosity of conduct is expressed. It reveals the man himself and has no ulterior purpose.<br><br>Our needs are always in a hurry. They rush and hustle, they are rude and unceremonious; they have no surplus of leisure, no patience for anything else but fulfilment of purpose. We frequently see in our country at the present day men utilising empty kerosene cans for carrying water. These cans are emblems of discourtesy; they are curt and abrupt, they have not the least shame for their unmannerliness, they do not care to be ever so slightly more than useful.

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Darkly you sweep on, Eternal Fugitive, round whose bodiless rush stagnant space frets into eddying bubbles of light.<br><br>Is your heart lost to the Lover calling you across his immeasurable loneliness?<br><br>Is the aching urgency of your haste the sole reason why your tangled tresses break into stormy riot and pearls of fire roll along your path as from a broken necklace? Your fleeting steps kiss the dust of this world into sweetness, sweeping aside all waste; the storm centred with your dancing limbs shakes the sacred shower of death over life and freshens her growth.<br><br>Should you in sudden weariness stop for a moment, the world would rumble into a heap, an encumbrance, barring its own progress, and even the least speck of dust would pierce the sky throughout its infinity with an unbearable pressure. My thoughts are quickened by this rhythm of unseen feet round which the anklets of light are shaken.<br><br>They echo in the pulse of my heart, and through my blood surges the psalm of the ancient sea.

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Song of the Bamboo<br><br>O South Wind, the Wanderer, come and rock me, Rouse me into the rapture of new leaves. I am the wayside bamboo tree, waiting for your breath To tingle life into my branches.<br><br>O South Wind, the Wanderer, my dwelling is in the end of the lane. I know your wayfaring, and the language of your footsteps. Your least touch thrills me out of my slumber,<br><br>Your whisper gleans my secrets.<br><br>(Enter a troop of girls, dancing, representing birds.)<br><br>Song of the Bird<br><br>The sky pours its light into our hearts, We fill the sky with songs in answer. We pelt the air with our notes When the air stirs our wings with its madness. O Flame of the Forest, All your flower-torches are ablaze;<br><br>You have kissed our songs red with the passion of your youth.<br><br>In the spring breeze the mango-blossoms launch their messages to the unknown<br><br>And the new leaves dream aloud all day.

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She dwelt on the hillside by the edge of a maize-field, near the spring that flows in laughing rills through the solemn shadows of ancient trees. The women came there to fill their jars, and travellers would sit there to rest and talk. She worked and dreamed daily to the tune of the bubbling stream.<br><br>One evening the stranger came down from the cloud-hidden peak; his locks were tangled like drowsy snakes. We asked in wonder, &quot;Who are you?&quot; He answered not but sat by the garrulous stream and silently gazed at the hut where she dwelt. Our hearts quaked in fear and we came back home when it was night.<br><br>Next morning when the women came to fetch water at the spring by the deodar trees, they found the doors open in her hut, but her voice was gone and where was her smiling face? The empty jar lay on the floor and her lamp had burnt itself out in the corner. No one knew where she had fled to before it was morning&mdash;and the stranger had gone.

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THIS was the time when Sandip Babu with his followers came to our neighbourhood to preach Swadeshi.<br><br>There is to be a big meeting in our temple pavilion. We women are sitting there, on one side, behind a screen. Triumphant shouts of Bande Mataramcome nearer: and to them I am thrilling through and through. Suddenly a stream of barefooted youths in turbans, clad in ascetic ochre, rushes into the quadrangle, like a silt-reddened freshet into a dry river-bed at the first burst of the rains. The whole place is filled with an immense crowd, through which Sandip Babu is borne, seated in a big chair hoisted on the shoulders of ten or twelve of the youths.<br><br>Bande Mataram! Bande Mataram! Bande Mataram! It seems as though the skies would be rent and scattered into a thousand fragments.<br><br>I had seen Sandip Babu&#39;s photograph before. There was something in his features which I did not quite like. Not that he was bad-looking&mdash;far from it: he had a splendidly handsome face. Yet, I know not why,…

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