Rabindranath Tagore

Hello, my name is Rabindranath Tagore. I grew up in a big, happy house in Calcutta, India. My home was always filled with the sound of music and the sight of beautiful art. I did not always like my school lessons inside. I loved to be outside much more. I would watch the rain fall from the sky and listen to the wind blow through the trees. Even when I was a very little boy, I loved to make up my own poems and songs about the wonderful world I saw all around me.

When I grew bigger, I wrote many, many things. I wrote stories that children could read, songs that people could sing, and lots of poems about my feelings. I made a very special book of poems called Gitanjali. The name means 'Song Offerings,' which is like giving the world a gift of music. In the year 1913, something very exciting happened. My book won a very important award called the Nobel Prize. I was the first person from all of Asia to win this award for writing, and it made me so happy to share my songs with everyone.

I always had a dream to create a special kind of school. I wanted a school where children could learn by being creative and spending time in nature, right under the big, open sky. I built that school, and it was called Visva-Bharati. I lived to be 80 years old. Today, my songs are still sung, my stories are still read, and my ideas about learning with joy and nature are still shared and loved by people all around the world.