when he first came to bengaluru in 1919 poet and nobel laureate rabindranath tagore was yet another dignitary in the city attending events and giving lectures by the time his last visit happened in 1928 tagores ties to the city had deepened and he chose to finish two of his masterpieces while living hereon the 156th birth anniversary of tagore city historians recall that it was here that he chose to finish his novel shesher kabita which would later became a landmark piece of bengali literaturetagores first visit was on january 11 1919 as a chief guest at the all india festival of fine arts held from january 12 to 18 by the celebrated amateur dramatic association ada the poet who was on a tour of south india arrived here by train from madras a day earlier and stayed at the balabrooie guest housethe heritage structure was the official residence of kantharaj urs the diwan of mysorenewspapers reported that bengaluru was in festive mode awaiting the visit of r a bindranath tagore a large pandhal was erected on an open ground in front of the sln high school near kr market and crowds gathered from the morning of january 12 to catch a glimpse of the poet who arrived around 6pm and inaugurated the event says city historian and author vemagal somashekar at the venue tagore gave his famous lecture the message of the forest a centenary souvenir released by ada describes the weeklong event when tagore was treated with much fanfare he also visited lalbagh and attended other events in the city and left for mysuru by train on january 18 the balabrooie guest house still has a plaque stating that rabindranath tagore stayed here in 1919tagore returned to bengaluru less than two months later this time on the invitation of krishnaraja wadiyar iv the ruler of mysore on the evening of march 9 tagore gave a 90minute lecture at the mythic society on nrupathunga road on folk religions of india the quarterly journal published by the society describes the lecture as a gripping one for the esteemed attendees in cluding the maharaja who later spoke at length praising the poets knowledge on the subject the same night tagore left for madrastagore returned to the city in september 1922 to deliver a lecture on a vision of indias history june 1928 marked his final and longest visit to bengaluru when he arrived from madras after cancelling his trip to england due to ill health he stayed at the residence of the then mysore univer sity vicechancellor brajendra nath sealaccording to al roy founderconvener of tagore cultural centre in ulsoor his final visit was critical during his threeweek stay in bengaluru tagore penned shesher kobita and also completed his famous novel jogajog which he was working in instalments during his tours at the time says the chemical engineer who is also a tagore researcher