Somewhere, either in the black market of Bangladesh, or the display case or safe of a skilled thief, India’s first Nobel prize languishes far from its rightful place in a museum. Since it was stolen in 2004, the police have had few leads on where the award actually is.
It’s a stunning shame for a nation where over a billion people sing a tribute to the award winner every year. Rabindranath Tagore was the first and only Indian winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. The award is hardly the last of his accolades, but it’s a vital one for India’s place in the Literature world.
To fill in the gap at the Viswa Bharati University, the Nobel Foundation handed over two replicas of the original medal in 2005. Symbolically, nothing has been lost – as Tagore remains an irreplaceable great of English and Bengali literature.
After all, it is his Bengali verses, composed in 1911, that are behind India’s national anthem. Another of his poems also serves as the national anthem of Bangladesh. But neither of these nation-moving hymns earned Tagore the medal in 1913.
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