Tribute to Tagore,museum-on-wheels,reaches city

The second coach,Gitanjali,deals with the poet and songwriter in Tagore. It contains rare photographs of Jana Gana Mana drafts and Amar Shona Bangla. The coach also shows pictures of the Nobel certificate he won for Gitanjali besides Tagore’s pictures with Rothenstein,Hellen Keller,Subhash Chandra Bose,Einstein and Sylvain Levi. The coach has an interesting titbit about Tagore— whenever he made a mistake while writing a draft,instead of crossing out the mistake,he would sketch it into a beautiful drawing. The train has a photograph of one such document.

The third coach,Muktodhara,looks at his plays from Valmiki Pratibha,Visajan,all the way to Dakghar which was staged all over Europe including London,Paris,Berlin and Italy. The fourth coach,Chitrarekha,displays all the paintings and other artistic works of Tagore.

The fifth coach has a souvenir shop and deals with Tagore’s illness and subsequent death. It shows the last days of his life and is aptly named Sesh Katha. This segment has pictures of Tagore with George Bernard Shaw and Gandhi. It also shows scenes of a jam-packed city when Tagore’s body was taken to the cremation ground.

“I just wanted to know about his life. It’s amazing that the Indian Railways could come up with such a concept and more importantly,maintain it,” Renuka Chaube,a visitor at the museum said. “Tagore was so extraordinary in so many fields that even today nobody has come even close to match his brilliance. He was a visionary who created something like Shantiniketan when no one else could even think of such a plan of action. Its just unfortunate that people seemed to have lost his message,” said Nilesh Kavle,filmmaker.

B N Debanshi,who runs the souvenir shop and will stay on the train for the entire journey,said he is proud to be associated with the train. “People have actually come to me and said that this is a glorious achievement by the Railways. In fact,many people have expressed a wish that this trend should continue every year each with a different leader,” he smiled.