Locks of Tagore’s hair on show on the Academy of High quality Arts, alongside together with his work and manuscripts.
| Photograph Credit score: Bishwanath Ghosh
When Rabindranath Tagore’s funeral procession moved from his dwelling to the cremation ghat, in August 1941, the highway was full of folks, all of them looking forward to a view of his mortal stays, some unruly ones even daring to pluck his hairs as a souvenir. That is one thing that nearly each Tagore devotee in Kolkata is aware of.
Not many, nonetheless, might know that the poet had himself handed over locks of his hair to Ranu Mookerjee — a younger patron of arts and believed to be his muse through the last a long time of his life — as a marriage reward to her in 1925. All through their affiliation, Woman Mookerjee (1906-2000) got here to obtain a lot of Tagore’s work — his personal creations — as presents, and, when he died, she additionally discovered herself within the possession of quite a few letters, manuscripts, and private belongings reminiscent of pen and pencils and caps.
The Academy of High quality Arts, arrange by her within the Nineteen Thirties, discovered a house of its personal within the Sixties and that’s the place Tagore’s creations and communications (together with 33 work) and belongings (together with the locks of hair) in her possession moved for a everlasting exhibition together with works of a bunch of different stalwarts reminiscent of Abanindranath Tagore, Gaganendranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, Asit Kumar Haldar, Kshitin Mazumdar, and their distinguished college students together with Benode Behari Mukherjee, Sarada Ukil, Sudhir Khastagir, Ram Kinkar Baij, and Satyajit Ray.
“In 1941 when Rabindranath left us, I used to be the recipient of quite a few requests from Santiniketan and Banaras to donate my private assortment of Rabindranath’s manuscripts and different mementoes. I declined to take action as I had all the time nursed an ambition to show my assortment in a everlasting gallery in Calcutta the place they might be accessible to the best variety of folks dedicated to the reminiscence of Rabindranath,” Woman Mookerjee had written on the time.
Right this moment, after a protracted hole of 9 years, when it needed to be shut down as a result of lack of funds prevented upkeep, the museum has reopened to the general public. The reopening passed off on Wednesday — Tagore’s dying anniversary — with well-known artist Jogen Chowdhury live-painting his creativeness of Tagore because the bard’s songs performed within the background.
Artist Jogen Chowdhury portray Tagore on the reopening of the Tagore museum on the Academy on Wednesday night.
“In 2015 the museum needed to be closed down as a result of it was in a really dangerous form. The roof was leaking, partitions had been crumbling. There have been no funds. Issues bought worse through the lockdown. Then the Techno India group prolonged a serving to hand. The Ministry of Tradition additionally helped; it funded the restoration of about 200 work from the Academy’s assortment completed by the Nationwide Analysis Laboratory for Conservation in Lucknow,” mentioned Gautam Mohan Chakraborty, a former Commissioner of Police and chairman of the board of trustees that runs the Academy.
He added: “Tagore is somebody who’s all the time with us — we all the time undergo his writings, take heed to his songs. However right here you discover unique work and letters and manuscripts. It’s some form of an expertise,” Mr. Chakraborty mentioned.
The gallery will stay open from Tuesday to Sunday from midday to six P.M. Entry prices ₹25 (₹ 10 for college kids), a greater than modest sum, contemplating that you’ll not solely get to see among the unique works of the Nobel laureate there but in addition locks of his hair. You may’t get nearer to Tagore.
