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Saturday 7 May 2016

Amidst the Rush and Roar of Life by Rabindranath Tagore

How many people have Wikipedia entries listing their achievements in music, painting, theatre, novels, stories and poetry?

Only one that I know of: the Bengali Nobel prize winner Rabindranath Tagore, who was born on May 7th 1861.

How did he get to be able to do so many different things? 

Good question. Rabindranath's mother died when he was very young and his father was away most of the time. This meant that Rabindranath was brought up by servants and siblings. 

He went to the local Presidency College - but only for a day. He loathed formal schooling, and spells at a school near Brighton, England, and then at London University, were short and largely unappreciated.

Tagore lived to the age of eighty, and kept up a relentless and sometimes inconvenient search for truth as long as he possibly could. 


Late-middle-aged bearded man in Grey robes sitting on a chair looks to the right with serene composure.

That's not easy, you know.


Amidst the Rush and Roar of Life

Amidst the rush and roar of life, O beauty, carved in stone, you stand mute and still, alone and aloof.
Great Time sits enamoured at your feet and repeats to you:
'Speak, speak to me, my love, my mute bride!'
But your speech is shut up in stone, O you immovably fair!

Word To Use Today: rush. This word comes from the Old French ruser, to put to flight, from the Latin recūsāre, to refuse or reject.



    


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