The 150th birth anniversary of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore is being celebrated today. In West Bengal, various programmes have been organised to pay respect to Gurudev Tagore. Our Kolkata correspondent reports that streams of people have converged at the Jorasanko Thakurbari, the birth place of Rabindranath. A fortnight long programme organised by the State Government also began at Rabindra Sadan at Central Kolkata this morning.

Braving summer heat, tourists from India and abroad gathered to attend Rabindranath Tagore’s 150th birth anniversary celebrations at Shantiniketan today.

The day began early with students of Visva-Bharati University dancing in the campuses as they sang Baitalik, meditation prayer with songs. The ashramites woke up to the recorded rendition of one of Tagore’s famous songs ‘He more chitto’ while special prayers were held at Chhatimtola, the meditation place for Maharshi Debendranath Thakur, Rabindranath’s father, at 5.30 am. A special prayer was also held at Udayan, the house where the ashramites celebrated Tagore’s last birthday in 1941 inside the sprawling Uttarayan complex at 8 am.