Last years

Even during the last decade of life, Tagore remained publicly active. He criticized Mohandas Gandhi, the Indian leader, for Gandhis comments about an earthquake on January 15 1934 in Bihar. Gandhi had commented that the earthquake had happened on account of Gods will to punish people for practicing casteism. He was also sad at the decline of Bengal and poverty in Kolkata. He wrote a poem of one hundred lines about the poverty of Kolkata. Later on, Satyajit Ray based one of his movies on this poem.During this period, Tagore wrote fifteen volumes of prose poems. They covered many aspects of human life. In his last years, Tagore took an interest in science, and wrote a collection of essays. These essays explored biology, physics, and astronomy.Tagore spent last four years (1937 1941) of his life in pain and illness. In late 1937, he lost consciousness. He remained in coma for a long time. Three years later, this happened again. During this period, whenever he felt better, he composed poems. These poems are his best poems. These poems deal with his close encounters with death. After a long period of suffering, Tagore died on August 7 1941, in the same large house in Kolkata where he was born and where he had spent his childhood.