Never read Tagore? Good, you start fresh. Four steps, no skipping:
1. Read Gitanjali in translation first. The 1912 English edition won the 1913 Nobel, the first for any non-European. Poem 35 ("Where the mind is without fear") takes ninety seconds and stays with you for years. 2. Move to Sonar Tori in Bangla, even slowly. The 1894 collection is where his mature voice begins: river, harvest, loss. 3. Read aloud, always. Tagore's lines were built for the voice; silent reading loses half the music. 4. Listen to one recitation a week. Bratati Bandyopadhyay's Tagore recordings, from her 60 plus albums, are the gold standard. Sources: Banglapedia, Rabindranath Tagore - Wikipedia Do not start with his novels or essays. Do not try to read everything. One poem a day is the whole method, and KobitaDaily delivers exactly that: a daily Bangla kobita on your phone, free to start, $4.99/month if you want the premium tier with offline reading and no ads.