amitava word biswa-kobi poet laureate world world-class poet universal poet bengalees honorific title referring rabindranath thakur wondered championship baseball called world series tournament game played world population keeping baseball playing nations japan cuba claim world event likewise world game cricket played world countries raises question americans prone hyperbole describing coming overpowering nation rest world accepts claim world title dismissed arrogance novaeu rich record winner game played teams back crowned champion world continues americans world stops shore humanity world count realistically speaking matter hand game cricket claim distinction man-hours spent viewing public days long game man-hours instance number people multiplied number hours spent watching game understand number unsurpassed game world countries playing cricket inexhaustible supply unemployed bored flocks attending games lasting forty hours cricket championship appropriately called third-world biswa-kobi continues riddle rabindranath written profoundly upper middle class bengalee society deep hindu spirituality mysticism universal measure sonorous lyrics songs hugely popular bengal east west universally failed test time largely forgotten west rest world tagore life time graham greene famously wrote rabindranath tagore yeats poems erudite bengalee diaspora rabindranath songs dances evaluating rabindranath works point piece easily carried-away irrationally exuberant bengali emotion order call great tend canonize person turn icons garlanded worshipped understood english speaking world call shakespeare world-playwright point time bestowed rabindranath title biswa-kobi anointed position poet laureate world recognizing rabindranath proclivity self-aggrandizement inconceivable heralding birth momentous event human kind nutan dekhadik arbar janmero prothomo subhakhan proclaiming super-human stature mahamanaba ashe staking claim place greats jodi janma nitem kalidasher kale hotem tobe dasham ratna naba ratna male interesting find rabindranath referred biswa-kobi amitava 