Rabindranath Tagore, India’s first Nobel laureate in literature, will be seen in an English biopic titled Thinking of Him by eminent Argentinian filmmaker Pablo Cesar. He is the first English filmmaker to make a biopic on such a larger-than-life personality with numerous feathers in the cap as Rabindranath Tagore. Academy Awards winning Satyajit Ray was the first filmmaker to have made a documentary on the Bard of Bengal in 1961.

It is a herculean task to make a feature film on the eventful life of Rabindranath Tagore, who traveled across the world in the times where there was no airplane and who played a great role in the movement against the partition of Bengal during British Raj. That’s why the film Thinking of Him will capture Tagore’s life in the year 1924 when he was 63 and lived in Shantiniketan, which he founded after receiving the Nobel Prize for Gitanjali in 1913.

Shantiniketan, a short drive from Kolkata, houses Visva Bharati University, an international center of fine arts and social science studies. It is known for such events as Basanta Utsav and Poush Mela, which are major tourist attractions.  – Indian Eagle

You are restless to know who will play Rabindranath Tagore in Thinking of Him. Pablo Cesar has roped in Indian actor Naseeruddin Shah to portray the great persona of Tagore in his biopic. Naseeruddin Shah has seen the best of Indian Cinema during his acting career spanning from 1980 till date. He is an eminent theatre thespian too. He has won the National Film Award three times and several Filmfare Awards besides the Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan from the government of India.

Naseeruddin Shah himself is a great persona with a rich repertoire of feature films, documentaries and theater plays. He has acted in many critically acclaimed movies including Hey Ram, A Wednesday, Sparsh, Katha, and Maqbool, an Indian adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. He has also appeared in a few English language films like The Perfect Murder, adapted from a 1964 British crime fiction, and The League of Extraordinary Gentleman, a 2003 Hollywood flick starring Sean Connery.

Media quoted filmmaker Pablo Cesar saying, “I am a Naseeruddin Shah fan and have watched his Manthan, Bhumika, Junoon and Sparsh many times.” He unhesitatingly said, “Shah is an inspiring figure to me.” He will soon fly to Mumbai to discuss the project with the actor. Shantiniketan and Argentina will be the shooting locations of Thinking of Him, which will be filmed in color except flashback scenes in black & white. The shooting will begin in summer 2016.

Pablo Cesar is an eminent filmmaker and screenwriter. He is best known for his surrealist films like Fuego Gray. He has been a member of the jury for several film festivals including the Montreal Youth Film Festival, Canada. He directed and wrote the script of Blood, Aphrodite, the Garden of Perfumes; Grey Fire, and Equinox, the Rose Garden.

Superstar Amitabh Bachchan was approached to play Rabindranath Tagore in a biopic by some Indian filmmaker in 2010. But the project has not been executed till date. – Indian Eagle

Travel Beats is a Cultural Publication by Indian Eagle, a U.S. based international travel organization. Travel Beats publishes the latest news stories about India, USA and Canada.

Other Interesting Stories

• Shantiniketan and Its Folk Culture
• Uniqueness of Bengali Cuisine
• How Bengal Celebrates Kumari Puja
• Rabindranath Tagore as a Traveler

The post An English Biopic to Depict Life of Rabindranath Tagore after Satyajit Ray’s Documentary in 1961 appeared first on Travel to India, Cheap Flights to India, Aviation News, India Travel Tips.

The poems about life, the poems about death, and the poems about love by Rabindranath Tagore are inspirational poems, which are as eternal as Time. One of the most popular Rabindranath Tagore poems is “Ora Kaj Kore” in Bengali or “They Work” in English. As the title suggests, the poem celebrates the never-fading existence, tireless contribution and unfathomable labor of working people all over the world. The sun rises and sets; one year ends and another begins; tomorrow becomes today and passes into yesterday; empires rise and fall; monuments are built and ruined. But, the global community of working people never ceases to exist. They work endlessly in a cycle, live at the bottom of economic heaps and continue pushing the wheels of civilization forward. They count many times more than the people from other reaches of the socio-economic ladder. Be it a festival or natural calamity, nothing deters them from daily wage. They are never at rest. Men at work are the unsung heroes of the world for generations. Indian Eagle pays tribute to men at work on Rabindranath Tagore’s birthday through the best quotes about life.

PC: SIAphotography

“Do not say, ‘It is morning,’ and dismiss it with a name of yesterday. See it for the first time as a newborn child that has no name.”

“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”

“What is Art? It is the response of man’s creative soul to the call of the Real.”

“From the solemn gloom of the temple children run out to sit in the dust, God watches them play and forgets the priest.”

“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.”

“You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.”

“Let us not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless when facing them.”

“Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.”

“We live in the world when we love it.”

ALSO READ The Traveler in Rabindranath Tagore

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“Where the old tracks are lost, new country is revealed with its wonders,” writes Rabindranath Tagore, a Nobel award-winning renowned poet, painter, essayist, novelist, dramatist and song writer whose birthday is celebrated across the world today (May 7). He was a great traveler too, in the real and imagination. On the occasion of his birthday, we at Indian Eagle dig into how the Bard of Bengal relates travel to innocence, freedom and carefreeness in “I Travelled the Old Road”.

William Blake, a noted English poet, says in “Songs of Experience” that experience is the death of innocence. The more we are experienced, the more we lose innocence. Though an experience itself, travel is an exception to Blake’s view. Travel is the only learning experience that makes people as innocent, free and thoughtful as a child. Rabindranath Tagore has glorified travel as a breath of fresh air in a world beyond our known boundaries and as a relief from the killing monotony of daily life. In the poem “I Travelled the Old Road”, he presents travel as a way back to childhood when we are imaginative, innocent and free.

In the first stanza of the poem, the poet pictures the known world where daily life is bound to duties and cares. Man goes round in a circle from dawn to dusk every day. There seems no escape from the cares and worries of day-to-day life:

I travelled the old road every day, I took my fruits to the market,
my cattle to the meadows, I ferried my boat across the stream and
all the ways were well known to me.

Only the call of nature can set man free from the clutches of monotony and show the way to an unknown world where the air is eloquent with the buzz of bees and the chirp of birds, where the sky seems to be within reach, and where the mind feels as fresh as the morning. Travel is the only vehicle to transport you to this world beyond the common frontiers.

When the call of nature or an unknown world, symbolized by the longing for a fight from overwhelming monotony and the burden of toil & moil, is heard, a new avenue off the track opens up to welcome you. It feels like a fairyland where everything looks amazing. The path back to the toiling life and the care-ridden world seems to be lost. The way ahead travels to innocence, freedom and carefreeness – the natural traits of a child.

My everyday wisdom was ashamed. I went astray in the fairyland
of things. It was the best luck of my life that I lost my path that
morning, and found my eternal childhood.

We at Indian Eagle offer our earnest regards to Rabindranath Tagore, the greatest poet of India. We would like to conclude with a quote by him: “You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.”

READ MORE Rabindranath Tagore’s Best Quotes about Life

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Raksha Bandhan or Rakhi ceremony is a festive celebration of brother-sister relationship that is observed on a full moon day in the month of August every year. Like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Friends Day, Children’s Day and Teachers’ Day, Raksha Bandhan is a festivity that is observed in honor of love as well as affection between brothers and sisters in India. Rakhi Ceremony not only marks the brother-sister bond but connects NRIs with India too. Unlike other occasions, this festival has a multifarious association with the scripture, mythology, epic, history and the colonial past of India. Indian Eagle delved into different eras, collected the legends of Rakhi and pieced them together in this post:

Rakhi and the Colonial Past of India

Rakhi festival got a larger and higher meaning during the movement against partition of Bengal in 1905 when Rabindranath Tagore used Rakhi as a powerful thread of harmony as well as unity to tie the people of Bengal with. He universalized the significance of Rakhi beyond the celebration of brother-sister relationship to that of brotherhood among the people irrespective of caste, language and religion. In 1905, the Raksha bandhan ceremony was observed as a celebration of nationalism among the Hindus and the Muslims of the then undivided Bengal against the British Raj.

Rakhi and the History of India

It was Rakhi that made the history of Chittor in Rajasthan a chapter in the biography of Mughal Emperor Humayun. Rani Karnavati sent a Rakhi to Humayun along with a request to defend Chittor from Bahadur Shah, the Sultan of Gujarat. Touched by the love and affection that Rakhi stands for, Humayun set out to protect Chittor. However, Bahadur Shah seized the fortress by the time Humayun reached there. Rani Karnavati and other women of Chittor set themselves on fire, to avoid suffering dishonor in the hands of the invader. Out of his respect for Rakhi, Humayun restored Chittor and handed it over to Rani Karnavati’s son.

A deeper delve into the history of India explores Rakhi’s association with the Battle of Hydadpes between Alexander the Great and Porus in 326 BC. When Alexander came to invade India in 326 BC, his wife Roxana sent a Rakhi to Porus as an entreaty to take mercy on Alexander in battle. When Porus was to overthrow Alexander in the battlefield, the Rakhi on his wrist reminded him of the plea made by Roxana and stayed back from defeating Alexander.

Rakhi and the Epic of India

The origin of Rakhi is further traced back to the Mahabharata in the scripture of ancient India. In an episode of the epic, Draupadi tore a piece of cloth from her apron and wrapped it around Lord Krishna’s bleeding wrist. Touched by her care and affection, Krishna made her his sister and promised to protect her. Since then, Rakhi has symbolized sisters’ care for brothers, and brothers’ commitment to protect sisters.

Rakhi and the Mythology of India

Gods and Demons were always at loggerheads. Once, Demons overtook Indra in a war. Touched by the defeated condition of her husband, Indra’s wife Shachi brought a holy thread and tied it around his right wrist, amidst the changing of Veda Mantras. The holy thread was a thread of love and power which drove Indra to win victory over Demons.

To go by a mythological legend of Yama the God of death and his sister Yamuna in the scripture of ancient India, Rakhi blesses brothers with immortality. Yamuna’s Rakhi had endowed Yama with the blessing of immortality.

Indian Eagle, out of its commitment to connect NRIs with India, promises cheap flights from the US and Canada to India.

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