Welcome to Smartindia Student's Blogall posts
MAHATMA GANDHI
Mahatma Gandhi is remembered in the world for four major virtues. They are non-violence, truth, love and fraternity. By applying these four virtues he brought freedom to India.
His full name was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. He was born in Porebandar of Gujarat on 2 October 1869. His father was an officer in charge of a Province. Mohandas married while he was reading in High School.
After passing the Entrance Examination he went to England to study law. M. K.Gandhi was not born great. He was an ordinary child like many of us. In the beginning he acted like a common child. He told lies only once in his life.
However, he corrected his bad habits very soon. He smoked cigarette only once. He took meat with his friend only once. All these things were done due to the influence of bad company in his childhood. One day he confessed all these bad deeds before his father and vowed not to repeat them.
M.K.Gandhi was much influenced by the character of the King Harischandra in the play entitled Raja Harischandra.
M.K.Gandhi completed his law in England and came back to India in 1893. He started his career as a lawyer. He supported the poor and truthful clients. He went to South Africa to deal with the cases of a famous merchant named Abdula Seth.
In South Africa he faced many hurdles. He discovered that the white men were ill treating the dark Indians there. He himself was tortured and insulted by the white often. One day, he was travelling in a first class compartment a train. He had booked a ticket for him. Still he was evented and punished out of the compartment by the white men.
On another occasion he wore a turban and attended the Court. But the judge who was a white man ordered him: to remove the turban because he was a coolie-lawyer. Gandhiji fought against this unjust and cruel treatment. He observed Satyagraha there and became successful.
In South Africa he built up his career as a Satyagrahi. He returned to India in 1915. In India he found similar unkind treatment by the white rulers. He started the Non-co-operation in 1930 and the Quit India Movement in 1942. During his struggle he applied no jealousy and violence against the rulers. Finally, he succeeded. The British Government granted independence to India.
Gandhi's style of living was very simple. He removed the caste barrier. He called the untouchables as the Harijan, the children of God. He was a reformer. He told the Indians to do manual labour. He advised the students of his time to read vocational subjects in order to be self-dependent. He also advised to introduce hand-spinning as a subject in educational institutions. He was a strong supporter of agriculture.
Gandhiji was a spiritual man. He spiritualised the politics. He was pained to find that many politicians had become greedy for power soon after independence. He earnestly appealed them to work for the development of the country. He also told the people to love and tolerate each other. He read the Gita, the Koran, the Holy Bible and all other scriptures.
The saddest thing for us is that Gandhiji died an unnatural death. He was shot dead by an Indian on his way to attend a prayer on 30 January, 1948. It was a cruel murder. His death was mourned all over the world. His body was cremated at Raj Ghat in New Delhi. We observe this day as the martyr day every year. Gandhiji was really a noble soul.
Rabindranath Tagore - biographical
The Nobel Prize in Literature 1913
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore - Biographical
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was the youngest son of Debendranath Tagore, a leader of the Brahmo Samaj, which was a new religious sect in nineteenth-century Bengal and which attempted a revival of the ultimate monistic basis of Hinduism as laid down in the Upanishads. He was educated at home; and although at seventeen he was sent to England for formal schooling, he did not finish his studies there. In his mature years, in addition to his many-sided literary activities, he managed the family estates, a project which brought him into close touch with common humanity and increased his interest in social reforms. He also started an experimental school at Shantiniketan where he tried his Upanishadic ideals of education. From time to time he participated in the Indian nationalist movement, though in his own non-sentimental and visionary way; and Gandhi, the political father of modern India, was his devoted friend. Tagore was knighted by the ruling British Government in 1915, but within a few years he resigned the honour as a protest against British policies in India.
Tagore had early success as a writer in his native Bengal. With his translations of some of his poems he became rapidly known in the West. In fact his fame attained a luminous height, taking him across continents on lecture tours and tours of friendship. For the world he became the voice of India's spiritual heritage; and for India, especially for Bengal, he became a great living institution.
Although Tagore wrote successfully in all literary genres, he was first of all a poet. Among his fifty and odd volumes of poetry are Manasi (1890) [The Ideal One], Sonar Tari (1894) [The Golden Boat], Gitanjali (1910) [Song Offerings],Gitimalya (1914) [Wreath of Songs], and Balaka (1916) [The Flight of Cranes]. The English renderings of his poetry, which include The Gardener (1913), Fruit-Gathering (1916), and The Fugitive (1921), do not generally correspond to particular volumes in the original Bengali; and in spite of its title, Gitanjali: Song Offerings (1912), the most acclaimed of them, contains poems from other works besides its namesake. Tagore's major plays are Raja (1910) [The King of the Dark Chamber], Dakghar (1912) [The Post Office], Achalayatan (1912) [The Immovable], Muktadhara (1922) [The Waterfall], and Raktakaravi (1926) [Red Oleanders]. He is the author of several volumes of short stories and a number of novels, among them Gora (1910), Ghare-Baire (1916) [The Home and the World], and Yogayog (1929) [Crosscurrents]. Besides these, he wrote musical dramas, dance dramas, essays of all types, travel diaries, and two autobiographies, one in his middle years and the other shortly before his death in 1941. Tagore also left numerous drawings and paintings, and songs for which he wrote the music himself.