Kolkata: Commemorating the 100 years of the Bard penning the Gitanjali, an e-book containing the verses in 14 Indian languages were launched as the city artiste fraternity converged to raise a toast.
“We don't need occasion to remember Tagore. We don't need films to invoke his songs. He is entwined with our thoughts, he is embedded with our mindscape. His songs fit in with all our moods and situations, seasons, and change in colors of nature,” film maker-composer-singer Anjan Dutt said, Dutt, along with musician son Neel Dutta and friend
Amyt, rendered Tagore's timeless ‘Purono Sei Diner Katha' with instrumentation on the occasion.
Popular singer Raghab Chatterjee said, “His songs pour out as they are like the chip in my brain. I don't need to exert and think hard when I perform a Rabindrasangeet vocal.”
Painter Suva Prasanna recited a Tagore poem as singer Swagatalaksmi put that to music.
Footballer Barreto said he had often heard about the “Where the head is held high…..” verse and would like to read Tagore works.
“The translation of Gitanjali was not done with the aim to get the Nobel medallion but to let know the foreign friends of Rabindranath what he was composing those days,” a Tagore family descendant said.
The e-book, the first ever pan India version of Tagore's Gitanjali, has been translated into English, Hindi, Assamese, Bodo, Gujarati, Kokbarak, Lepcha, Malayalam, Manipuri, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi and Urdu, at the initiative of the Techno India group.
