বাংলা 
English 
Childhood and Adolescence (1861 - 1878)
Rabindranath Tagore was born at the Jorasanko Thakurbari in Calcutta on 7 May 1861. His father was the Brahmo religious leader Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905) and his mother was Saradasundari Devi (1826–1875). Rabindranath was the fourteenth child of his parents. The Tagore family of Jorasanko was an exponent of the Brahmo Adi Dharma doctrine. Rabindranath’s forefathers lived at Pithabhog in Rupsa upazila of Khulna district.
In 1875, at the age of only fourteen, Rabindranath lost his mother. His father Debendranath, addicted to travelling, spent most of the year outside Calcutta. Thus, though a child of a wealthy family, Rabindranath’s boyhood passed under the discipline of servants. In childhood Rabindranath studied for a few days each at the Oriental Seminary, the Normal School, the Bengal Academy and St Xavier’s Collegiate School in Calcutta. But as he was uninterested in school education, arrangements were made for his education at home with private tutors. In his boyhood Rabindranath felt most at ease roaming amid natural surroundings, either at the Jorasanko house or at the garden houses in Bolpur and Panihati.
In 1873, at the age of eleven, Rabindranath’s upanayan ceremony was held. Afterwards he set out with his father on a journey across the country for a few months. First they came to Santiniketan. Then, spending some time at Amritsar in the Punjab, he observed the Sikh mode of worship. Finally, taking his son, Debendranath went to Bakrota, near the hill station of Dalhousie, in the Punjab itself (located in present-day Himachal Pradesh state of India).
Sitting at the Bakrota bungalow there, Rabindranath began taking regular lessons from his father in Sanskrit grammar, English, astronomy, general science and history. Debendranath also encouraged him to read the biographies of eminent personalities, the classical Sanskrit poems and dramas composed by Kalidasa, and the Upanishads.
In 1877 several important works of the young Rabindranath were published in the Bharati magazine. These were ‘A Criticism of Michael Madhusudan’s Meghnadbadh Kavya’, the Bhanusingher Padabali of Bhanu Singha Thakur, and two stories named ‘Bhikharini’ and ‘Karuna’. Among them, Bhanusingher Padabali is especially noteworthy. These poems were composed under the assumed name of ‘Bhanu Singha’, in imitation of the Radha-Krishna Padabali tradition. Rabindranath’s story ‘Bhikharini’ (1877) was the first short story of Bengali literature. In 1878 was published Kabikahini, Rabindranath’s first poetry book and his first printed work. Besides, during this period he composed the poetry book Sandhya Sangit (1882). Rabindranath’s famous poem ‘Nirjharer Swapnabhanga’ belongs to this book.
