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Sourodipto Sanyal
No city immortalises Rabindranath Tagore as much as Kolkata, the birthplace of the great man. Three metro stations — Rabindra Sarobar, Rabindra Sadan and Gitanjali — pay tributes to the man whose songs went on to become the national anthems of India and Bangladesh. However, the greatest relic of Rabindranath Tagore in the City of Joy is the aristocratic mansion where he was born and breathed his last. Now, it stands as the Rabindra Bharati Museum, flanked on both sides by markets and houses that remind of Kolkata’s grand past. Earlier known as Chitpur road, it is now aptly called Rabindra Sarani — ‘Sarani’ is the Bengali word for road.
There is a shiny red-pillared entrance to the museum, with Jorasanko Thakurbari written on top. One has to walk a little before reaching the green gate, which leads to the official mansion of the Tagores, built in the late 18th century. It is a gigantic two-storeyed red-coloured mansion with green-coloured shutters, windowpanes and doors.
The mansion inside has been converted into a museum, offering a peek into the grandness of the Tagore family and the intellectual legacy that Rabindranath left behind, forever changing the cultural landscape of Bengal. The first room that one enters after climbing the stairs is the poet’s living room where the furniture he used is preserved. Right outside the room where he breathed his last on August 7, 1941, the story of his last few days, along with photographs, is meticulously recorded for the general public. One room on the first floor is devoted to the finest of paintings kept by the Tagore household, including many painted by his brother Abanindranath Tagore. A corridor is devoted to the paintings of Rabindranath, who started painting rather late at 60. On one of the walls is the complicated family tree of the Tagores, a royal family which branched out amidst a quarrel over property. Following the falling-out, the house of Jorasanko was built in the late 18th century.
The most exquisite chambers are the ones which feature Rabindranath’s trips abroad and the cultural exchanges and interactions he inspired around World War 1, the time of aggressive imperial expansion. Such was his impact on global consciousness that foreign governments fund the maintenance of certain sections in the museum. The Shanghai Municipal Archives funds the neatly earmarked rooms that celebrate his three visits to China. He visited the country once in 1924 and twice in 1929. Rabindranath’s translations in Mandarin are kept in bookshelves and his rare photographs in China and during his long ship voyage adorn two rooms. One room records the interactions between India and China since ancient times.
Another section documents his five visits to Japan — twice in 1924 and 1929 and once in 1916. A great collection of photos of Japanese painting and his photos with Japanese students and friends are showcased. His visits to Japan had had a lasting impact — Japanese is taught today at the Visva-Bharati University, which Rabindranath had helped set up. Rabindranath had visited Hungary in 1926, and to celebrate the 90th year of his visit to the country, the Hungarian government, in 2016, funded the setting up of a room which celebrates the time Rabindranath spent in that country when he was treated for heart problems. His photos against the beautiful Hungarian landscape remind the visitors of his relevance and influence world over.
Also, there are rooms which preserve the relationship of Tagore with the United States of America. There are his pictures outside the White House in 1930, his ventures in Illinois, where his son had gone to study, two years before the start of World War 1, and a copy of the letter sent by telegram to the then US President Franklin Roosevelt in 1940 in the hope that the country would oppose the War.
The Jorasanko Thakurbari is a living memory of a man whose impact and influence travelled continents and also reminds us why Bengali culture will always be indebted to Rabindranath Tagore.
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