The story behind this choice comes from this anecdote about Savitri Krishnan, one of what must have been the few South Indian students to go all the way to Santiniketan for their studies.
"A large part of the interview deals with the Carnatic tunes Tagore picked up from Savitri Devi to compose some of his most well-known songs. Even at the age of seventy, I think she did a great job in rendering the Tamizh and the Bengali versions.That brought me full circle to the original Thyagaraja krithi in Telugu (not Tamil as mentioned above) that was the inspiration for Baje Karuno shure, sung by Rabindrasangeet expert Swagatalakshmi Dasgupta , which she has sung quite creditably well. She is trained in Hindustani singing, and the influence shows in her singing.
There were two songs that she sang. The Bengali counterparts are "Basanti hey Bhuvanomohini" and "Bedona ki bhashaey re". I have cropped out the Bengali conversation from the interview and retained only the English words she used and the songs she sang (both in Tamizh and Bengali).
I have also added another famous Tagore song "Baaje karuno shurey". This was sung by Smt. Kanika Bandyopadhyay during Tagore's Birth Centenary Celebrations in 1961. The original Tamizh(sic) version "Nidu charanamooley" in the recording below was sung by Swagatalakshmi Dasagupta (1999)."