Rabindranath Jayanti 2023: Celebrating Rabindranath Tagore Birth Anniversary.
Rabindra Jayanti is an annually celebrated cultural festival, prevalent among Bengalis around the world, in the remembrance of Rabindranath Tagore’s birth anniversary. It is celebrated in early May, on the 25th day of the Bengali month of Boishakh, since Tagore was born on this day of the year 1268 of the Bengali calendar. Rabindranath Tagore was a Nobel laureate, great poet, and the man behind composing India’s national anthem. He is widely known for authoring Gitanjali which made way for him to become the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in literature. In 2023, the festival will be observed on 9th May (Tuesday).
He was even awarded a knighthood in 1915 by King George but renounced the title in 1919 after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. The day is elaborately celebrated in Santiniketan in West Bengal, in the Visva Bharati University which was established by him.
Rabindra Jayanti History and Significance
Rabindra Jayanti is an annual cultural festival celebrated in India and Bangladesh to commemorate the birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore, one of the most celebrated poets and cultural icons in Bengali literature. Tagore was born on May 7, 1861, in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India, and is known for his contributions to literature, music, and art.
The celebration of Rabindra Jayanti started in 1941, on the 80th birth anniversary of Tagore, and has been observed every year since then. It is a significant cultural event in West Bengal, where it is a public holiday, and is also celebrated in other parts of India and Bangladesh.
During Rabindra Jayanti, people pay tribute to Tagore’s life and work by organizing cultural programs, music and dance performances, recitations of his poetry, and discussions on his literary and cultural contributions. The celebration is marked by the singing of Tagore’s songs, which are known as Rabindra Sangeet, and the recitation of his poems, which are called Rabindra Rachanabali.
Rabindra Jayanti is a celebration of Tagore’s legacy and his contributions to Bengali literature, music, and culture. Tagore’s works have had a profound influence on Bengali literature and culture, and his poetry, songs, and writings continue to be popular and celebrated today. The festival is an opportunity for people to come together to appreciate and celebrate Tagore’s art and cultural contributions, and to reflect on the significance of his work in the context of Bengali culture and history.
How is Rabindra Jayanti celebrated?
Rabindra Jayanti is an annually celebrated cultural festival, prevalent among Bengalis around the world, in the remembrance of Rabindranath Tagore’s birth anniversary. It is celebrated in early May, on the 25th day of the Bengali month of Boishakh. In 2023, the festival will be observed on 9th May (Tuesday).
Several cultural festivals take place on Rabindra Jayanti. People recite his poems, stage his plays, and sing his immortal songs as a mark of tribute. In many places in Kolkata, dance performances on his songs are held, and other people get back his works and marvel at the genius that Tagore. Normally, the celebration of Rabindra Jayanti starts early in the morning and continues until late at the night. it’s celebrated with nice elegance in Bengal, and each nook and corner of the state reverberates with odes to Tagore.
The inspirational quotes by Tagore:
If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, your tears will prevent you from seeing the stars.
Love is an endless mystery, because there is no reasonable cause that could explain it.
The biggest changes in a women’s nature are brought by love; in man, by ambition
Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.
Let my thoughts come to you, when I am gone, like the afterglow of sunset at the margin of starry silence.
Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.
