Tagore's 69th anniversary of death today

The 69th death anniversary of Nobel laureate Rabin-dranath Tagore will be observed across the country today, paying due tribute to the most celebrated Bengali poet, playwright, novelist, composer and painter.
Tagore, who enriched the Bengali language and literature in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with his astounding talent, died on Sraban 22 in Bangla calendar at the age of 80.
Different social and cultural organisations have chalked out elaborate programmes to mark the day.
Tagore, popularly known as Biswakobi, dominated the Bangla literary scene with copiousness of works: over 10,000 poems, nearly two dozen plays and play-lets, 12 novels, over 100 short stories, more than 6,000 songs and a mass of prose works on literary, social, religious, political, and other topics.
His English translations, travels and lecture-tours in Asia, America, and Europe; and his activities as an educationist, as a social and religious reformer, and as a politician made him the most widely regarded literary figure in the subcontinent.
After having won world fame with the mystical-devotional poetry of the Gitanjali, he dug over much along that particular seam--a one-sided impression of his works. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1913.
Born to a wealthy land-owning family of Bengal, Rabindranath was initiated into art fairly late in his life and had close to 2,500 paintings to his credit.
In 1930, through a series of exhibitions in Paris, London, Berlin, Moscow and New York, the world discovered the poet as an important modern painter.
Politically active in India, he was a supporter of Gandhi, but warned of the dangers of nationalistic thought.
Unable to gain ideological support to his views, he retired into relative solitude.
Between 1916 and 1934, he travelled widely, attempting to spread the ideal of uniting the East and the West.
Only hours before his death in 1941, the poet dictated his last poem.
Bangla Academy organises a solo speech and a cultural programme on the occasion at its seminar room at 4:00pm today.