Poetic Justice

Whatever the reason, when I went to Calcutta recently, I ended up carrying Glimpses of Bengal by the poet author. Because, for a city like Cal, one needs a point of reference, a sense of purpose.

Leaving the purpose for later, I did the usual Victoria Memorial, Town Hall, Eden Gardens circuit. Though I believe there8217;s something seriously wrong when the Queen8217;s rooms are closed to the public, an uninterested guide rushes you through an unimaginative Kolkata Panorama and India loses to Australia.

Ah well, there were the joys of kullads of mishti doi and a magnificent crafts fair of the North East. And a well-maintained metro and a boat ride along the Hooghly, with the Howrah bridge bathed in the colours of the sunset. It wasn8217;t the Thames, but then again cruising down the Thames would certainly not bring back any maajhi re songs.

The Glimpses remained untouched while I checked out Jorasanko the Tagore home where Rabindrasangeet played in the rooms, students milled about in the rest of the premises now a college and a dhoti-kurta clad writer who wrote about Tagore8217;s books sat on one of the benches.

8216;8216;Tagore was a truant who used to sit here, where I sit, most of the time,8217;8217; he said. I smiled. 8216;8216;I spend most of my mornings here, getting inspired,8217;8217; he added as he handed me a volume of poetry and made me read a poem. I nodded appreciatively. The next poem he pointed to was a tad too romantic. I scooted.

On to Santiniketan then. For the record, there are two conveniently-timed trains that go to Tagore land8212;the Santiniketan Express and the Viswa Bharati Fast Passenger, one at 10 in the morning, the other at around 4 in the evening. How I landed up at the station to catch a passenger train that left at 11.30 am can only be explained by the railway enquiries person who answered my call.

It was my first time on a passenger train and I perched on the wooden seat squashed amid people carrying huge sacks. I tried to quell my uneasiness by telling myself that these were the folk the Nobel laureate wrote about. I don8217;t know how far that worked, but I do know that one of the thoughts was that Tagore was waiting where I was going, a thought I found reassuring.

The Viswa Bharati campus, spread over more than 30 acres, is covered unobtrusively and noiselessly sitting in an open cycle rickshaw that makes its way at a stately pace. Music floated out of little rooms and chatter from the open-air classrooms. 8216;8216;The main gate is opened only once a year,8217;8217; the rickshaw driver who doubled up as a guide said, 8216;8216;when the Prime Minister comes down.8217;8217; The Prime Minister is the Chancellor of the university and makes an annual visit on convocation day, held in an open air mango grove called Amrakunj. Which is also the setting for Vasanta Utsav, the welcoming of the season of colours which coincides with Holi. Popular with locals and people far and near, the celebration was initiated by Tagore.

Students in colourful dresses celebrate the festival with vegetable dyes, singing songs based on Holi and dancing their way through the grove where skits are presented.

I was thoroughly charmed but still restless. In and around Santiniketan I had met Tagore the zamindar, Tagore the educationist, Tagore the national leader, even Tagore the dramatist and actor. But where was the poet?

His houses were locked up but peering in through the window you could see the table, chairs, bed etc.

The houses had little porches and littler balconies. Standing on one, I looked out at the gardens and the trees, trying to see what he saw more than 60 years ago and hear the birds that sang in his verses.

I heard something else too8212;a young couple sitting under a tree, talking. I slipped away quietly.

And walking past the car Tagore had used, I found the poet waiting8212;in the museum. Amidst reams and reams of information on his life, amidst the photographs, paintings and gifts, there he was, peeping out from the year 1926 at a health resort in Hungary where he had been convalescing. Asked to plant a linden tree there before he left, Tagore wrote:
When I am no longer on this earth, my tree
Let the ever-renewed leaves of thy spring Murmur to the wayfarers:

This wayfarer finally did hear the murmurs.