India Post 150th Birth Anniversary of Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore

 

INDIA POST, along with Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, in 2011 issued a series of first day cover stamps marking the 150th birth anniversary of painter, poet and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Shown here is a souvenir sheet affixed to FDC envelope.

Rabindranath Tagore reshaped Bengali literature and music, as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse" of "Gitanjali," he became in 1913 the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. He is sometimes referred to as "the Bard of Bengal". And indeed the national anthems of Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka were based on writings by Tagore. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's "Jana Gana Mana" and Bangladesh's "Amar Shonar Bangla". The Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work.