World Poet Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath, the fourteenth child of Debendranath and Sarada Devi Tagore, went to school early and wrote his first verse at the age of eight. At the age of seventeen in 1878 he arrived in London on his way of Brighton, to join his bother's family and attend school there. London made a poor impression on him. He described it as a dismal city, smoky, foggy and wet, with everyone jostling and in a hurry.

Though he was happy in Brighton, a friend of the family persuaded his brother to send him to London in order to benefit from his education in the West. He was put up in a lodging house facing Regent's Park but later moved to the house of a professional coach, a Mr. Scott, as a paying guest.

Young Tagore joined London University, where he attended Henry Morley's lectures in English literature and read Religio Medici and Shakespeare with him. He often visited the Houses of parliament and listened to Gladstone and John Bright's debates in Irish Home Rule.

Away from the home of his brother's family, he was lucky to find a friendly English family with whom he spent some time, but not without some initial opposition from the two daughters in the family, who were rather taken aback with the presence of a 'blackie' in the house and went away to stay with relatives. They returned only after being reassured that the stranger was harmless. Dr. and Mrs. Scott, the girl's parents, in fact treated him like a son.

In 1880, Rabindranath was called back to India. His letters, full of admiration for English society made his family think again about the wisdom of letting him loose in England alone. He returned home without any qualifications of distinction (Source :The Graphic,23 June,1923).