With an aim to offer a better access to Rabindranath Tagore lesser-known work to the young generation, Purnendu Bikash Sarkar, a physician by profession has digitally achieved as many as 3,500 poems of Rabindranath Tagore. The digital archive has details like at what age the poem was written by Tagore and the place where it was penned.
About 15 recitations have been done by the poet himself and the rest by 245 elocutionists. Besides the recitals, 110 Rabindra Sangeets (Tagore songs) and 103 English recitations have also been included in the ‘Rabindra Kobita Archive’. Also, sixty most popular poems of Tagore have also been put separately in a gallery called ‘most popular poems’.
Sarkar told news agency PTI that he found during research that apart from 150 popular poems by Tagore, others are not much known. According to him, the number of such poems is much higher than the known ones. So, this digital initiative will now help the younger generation to know the lesser known works of the Nobel laureate.
The event was attended by key personalities including Visva Bharati University Vice-chancellor Sabujkali Sen, Bangladesh Deputy High Commissioner Toufique Hasan and Poet Sankha Ghosh among others.
Visva Bharati University Vice-chancellor Sabujkali Sen said Purnendu Bikash Sarkar accomplished a task which ideally should have been done by the Visva Bharati University. He asserted that it was undoubtedly a complete archive of Tagore poems and would guide future generations and initiate them with Tagore’s works.
Bangladesh Deputy High Commissioner Toufique Hasan said the archive would enable 25 crore Bengalis, living across the world, hear both the known and not-so-well-known works of Tagore.
Poet Sankha Ghosh said the archive was an important and unique initiative. Sarkar said the archive, which also contains brief notes of 52 books of poem by Tagore, is compatible on Android and Mac.
The archive was available for download from an online App launched on August 28 or can be bought as DVDs.
