Rabindranath Tagore Vs Shivaji the Boss

To me Rabindranath Tagore is The greatest poet to have lived my country and I believe this solemnly. I even get into fights over this with people who might say that perhaps Galib or Tulsidas or even Thiruvalluvar was a greater poet to have lived. I have no hard feelings for anyone with such beliefs and they might even be true in their own ways but somewhere inside I am a very stubborn Bengali who would stand up to anyone when it comes to defending the Bengali valour. Moreover, Rabindranath and his wealth of works are by no means matched by anyone. His complete works would take years to just copy word to word, let alone match them with some original work. The varied themes and the various emotions exhibited by the writings of this great poet knows no limit. Every human emotion has been penned down by this great poet.

So, when Appu Rao spoke with the most indifferent and incredulous voice and with an expression of complete mistrust and disbelief and a shade of disdain on his face -

'Who is this chap Rabindranath?',

I could not take it any more. I bounced back with all the vengeance I had, giving him the facts and figures about the hero, I almost look up as a superhuman supreme being.

In the flow of this heated discussion I even pointed out the fact that Rabindranath Tagore was and is the only nobel laureate in the field of literature from India that he reluctantly accepted the greatness of RT. He left with a deep frown and I heard no more from him in a few days.
Almost 3 weeks later Anna, as we used to call him, came up to me and declared with a finality:

'I was indeed mistaken... Rabindranath is a great hero of our country and we should all salute him...'

Failing to see the ways things are scheming up I decided to be a bit content with my admonitions about Anna's ignorance. It seemed that Anna had said some wonderful words to make my day. Soon a feeling of deep suspicion overcame the feeling as I was dismayed as to how Anna had been so gracious on Rabindranath Tagore. As if in a reflex action, which I regret later, I asked


'How come this change of Heart Anna? You seemed pretty confident that Rabindranath wasnt so great after all.'

'Arrey yesterday I saw Rajanikant praying before a picture of Rabindranath Tagore...'

I did not hear the rest and walked off.