Hundreds of children who could only listen to Tagore’s works can now read them as well, thanks to a gift on the eve of his 150th birth anniversary.

Nine city schools for the visually challenged on Sunday received two copies each of two volumes of Gitabitan in Braille along with 21 other Bengali and English storybooks to mark the occasion.

“Braille books are more voluminous than conventional ones. Gitabitan will be in three volumes. The first two volumes were distributed. We are working on the third,” said D. Vishnupriya of the Third Eye Charitable Trust, the NGO that distributed the books.

There is at least one more Braille edition of Tagore’s works but most of the students did not have access to it. The gift opened up a world for them.

Riya Naskar, a student of Light House for the Blind in Tollygunge, hummed a Rabindrasangeet, running her fingers over a volume of Gitabitan. “I had learnt this song in school. Now, I can learn many more songs,” said the Class VII student.

“We only had text books in our school library. Gitabitan is something all Bengalis grow up with and I am sure reading Rabindranath will be a great experience for the kids,” said Banani Dey, a teacher at Light House for the Blind.

Some of the other books Riya can now read in the school library are English Fairy Tales, True Animal Stories, Grimm’s Fairy Tales and Indian Folk Tales in English and Bramhar Projapoti and Putul o Susuk in Bengali.

Narendrapur Blind Boys’ Academy, Calcutta Blind School and Welfare Society for the Blind are three of the other schools that received the books.

Rotary Club of Calcutta granted Third Eye use of its Braille printing press and two computers at Rotary Sadan so that the NGO could bring out the books.

Sushil Bagla, president, Rotary Club of Calcutta, told Metro: “It’ll be great if the Braille printer in our children’s library is used more often.”

According to Vishnupriya, more books for the blind are in the offing.