“The liberation that comes through sorrow is greater than the sorrow,” says Nikhilesh, in Home and the World. I quote from Penguin’s Modern Classics edition, in Sreejata Guha’s translation.

One does not need to remember Rabindranath on the occasion of the anniversary of his death—22 Srabon or August 7 to be precise.

His words convince the listener that the world is actually a beautiful place where truth, honesty, and simplicity are the quenching clouds above a desolate desert of dry despair and monotony.

From children’s books to internationally applauded films, from lyrical ballads to Netflix series, wherever we put our senses, they are filled with the legacy of the “Bard of Bengal”, Rabindranath Tagore. Do we ever ask ourselves what we would do without him? Do we wonder how the entire culture of the Indian subcontinent is wrapped around his existence?