The 73rd death anniversary of Nobel laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore is being observed on Wednesday.
The death anniversary of the poet is observed on the 22nd of the Bengali month of Shraban.
Different organisations and television channels will hold special programmes marking the death anniversary of the greatest poet of Bangla literature, reports BSS.
In his long seven decades of endeavours in different genres of Bangla literature, the great poet enriched the Bangla language and literature and elevated their positions in the global arena.
Though recognised as one of the greatest poets in the world, Rabindranath Tagore was a rare man of multifarious merits.
He was an expert in music, a novelist, a dramatist, an artiste, a music composer, an essayist, a philosopher, an academic, a linguist and a social reformer -- all in one.
As author of Gitanjali with its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he was the first non-European and the first Bangla-speaking person to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.
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" still remain largely unknown outside the confines of 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.
Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to political and personal topics.
Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced), and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and contemplation.
Tagore was perhaps the only litterateur who penned anthems of two countries - Jana Gana Mana, the Indian national anthem and Amar Sonar Bangla, the Bangladeshi national anthem.
The youngest of 13 surviving children, Tagore was born in the Jorasanko mansion in Kolkata of parents Debendranath Tagore (1817-1905) and Sarada Devi (1830-1875).
His ancestral home was in Pithabhog village under Rupsha upazila of Khulna, then part of British India -- now Bangladesh.
Marking Tagore's death anniversary, Bangla Academy will hold a solo lecture and cultural function at Shamsur Rahman seminar room around 4pm on Wednesday.
Planning Commission Secretary Bhuiyan Safiqul Islam will deliver the lecture while Bangla Academy Chairman Prof Anisuzzaman will preside over the function. Director General Shamsuzzaman Khan will deliver the welcome address.
The lecture will be followed by cultural function.
