“His love for me seemed to overflow my limits by its flood of wealth and service. But my necessity was more for giving than foe receiving; for love is a vagabond, who can make his flowers bloom in the wayside dust, better than in the crystal jars kept in the drawing-room.”

Bengali poet and polymath

Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter. He lived from 1861 to 1941, and was one of the leading figures of the Bengal Renaissance. He shaped modern Bengali culture through a wide body of work that joined literature, music, and public thought. In 1913, he became the first Indian and the first non-European to win a Nobel Prize in any category, and the first lyricist to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. He also wrote and composed the national anthems of India and Bangladesh.