First-ever audio-visual archive on Tagore's poems to be launched

In a unique attempt to present the immortal poems of Nobel laureate Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore to people, the first-ever audio-visual archive on his poems would be launched in the city in August, the organisers said here on Thursday.

Titled 'Rabindrakabita archive', it would contain 3,500 of Tagore's poems recited by 245 renowned poets and elocutionists from Bengal including the world famous poet himself.

Apart from the poems, the archive to be launched both in online and off-line formats, would also have detailed information about the poems' origin, time and anthology and also pectoral description of the elocutionists.

"The habit of reading books is redundant among today's youths. The archive has been made so that the poems of Tagore can reach those who are habituated in reading.

"Through this archive the subscribers would not only be able to find all of the Tagore's poems but would also be able to hear them recited by different elocutionists," Purnendu Bikash Sarkar, the researcher and compiler of the archive, said.

"While browsing through the poems of Tagore, I found that nearly 150 of his poems are not at all recited or quoted much.

"I did not want these poems to get lost in the oblivion. That's how came up with the idea of an archive of Tagore's poems," said Sarkar, who previously released another online archive on the songs of Tagore.

He revealed it took five years to assemble the poems and complete the entire process of putting them together in the audio archive.

The unique archive consists of 5,000 recitation audio files as some of the famous poems by Tagore are recited by more than one elocutionist. Dramatists Chandan Sen, Bratya Basu and poet Subodh Sarkar are among many of the popular literary faces who were part of the project.

"The archive would be available for downloaded from an online app from August 28 or can also be bought from the market as DVDs for approximately Rs 1,500-2,000," Sarkar added.

--IANS

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