Recently, actor and producer Anupam Kher took to Instagram to share the news of his forthcoming role as Rabindranath Tagore, his 538th project so far. While details of the film are not yet out, we reminiscence what makes Tagore’s writings so vivid for us. Here are five pieces of work one must read to know Tagore’s influence as a writer, poet, playwright, and social reformer.

Fruit-gathering

A collection of 86 short poems written under this title, Fruit Gathering is a tribute to the changing seasons of life, much like the phases between planting the seed and gathering the harvest. Tagore writes of life like a garden, where the flowers rise and fall back into the ground as their tenure on earth comes to an end: “My life when young was like a flower—a flower that loosens a petal or two from her abundance and never feels the loss when the spring breeze comes to beg at her door.” In another, he compares the exuberance of his heart to the blooming of a full-blown flower.