Rabindranath Tagore was born in Calcutta on the 8th May, 1861 and died in Calcutta on the 7th August, 1941. The national anthems of both Bangladesh and India were composed by him. Tagore won the Noble Prize in Literature in 1913 for the English version of his collection of Bengali poems, Geetanjali. The University of Oxford held a special convocation in Calcutta in 1940 to honour him with the Doctor of Letters, honoris causa degree.
His philosophy and writings were extremely important elements in the renaissance of Bengal and India at large in the early twentieth century and shaped the Bengali literature and culture in a modern, progressive pattern. He founded a new school in Santiniketan, in West Bengal in 1901 to implement his idea of imparting education in a holistic way.
Most of his work was written at Santiniketan the small town that grew around the school he founded, and he not only conceived there an imaginative and innovative system of education, but through his writings and his influence on students and teachers, he was able to use the school as a base from which he could take a major part in India's social, political, and cultural movements. He was also a great short story writer, novelist, playwright, essayist, and composer of songs, as well as a talented painter.
Two of his works include “The Postmaster” and “Castaway”. “Castaway” is mainly a story about a poor young boy named Nilkanta and a married woman named Kiran. Kiran’s husband’s name was Sharat. This boy had been in a boat with his theatre troop and he reached near Kiran’s house because the boat capsized. Kiran pitied the boy and kept him in her house. Soon both Nilkanta and Kiran were very fond of each other. One day Sharat’s brother, Satish came to spend his college vacations. Kiran, being almost of the same age as Satish, started to spend more time with him and Nilkanta soon started to feel jealous. To take revenge he stole Satish’s precious inkstand. Kiran and her family was soon...