Rabindranath Tagore Studies at Presidency College in the 20's, 30's and 40's of the preceding century...

In his essay ‘Rabindranath, Presidency College’, Nityapriya Ghosh makes use of the  Autumn Annual, (Volumes XXVII—VIII, 1998—2000), of the Presidency College Alumni Association, Kolkata), through which he gathers detailed reports of the Rabindra Parishad sessions during the years, 1927—41. Through these reports we learn that several intellectuals of the time, actively engaged in analyzing and discussing Rabindranath’s essays, during these sessions. Some of these intellectuals include Surendranath Dasgupta, Pramatha Choudhury, Kalidas Nag, Niharranjan Roy, Srikumar Bandyopadhyay, Somnath Maitra, Pearymohan Sengupta, Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, Biswapati Choudhury, Subodh Chandra Sengupta, Dhurjyoti Prasad Mukhopadhyay, Shailajananda Mukhopadhyay, Jatindramohan Bagchi, Kamakhhiprasad Chattopadhyay, Tarapada Mukhopadhyay, Bimal Chandra Sinha, Siva Prasad Bhattacharya, Atulchandra Gupta, Pramatha Nath Bishi, and others.

In April of 1928 and in April, 1931, Rabindranath invited members of the Rabindra Parishad to his residence at Jorasanko, and delivered two lectures during these two separate occasions. In the first meeting, he had sung his recently composed, ‘ektuku chonwa laage’. The poet participated in sessions of the Rabindra Parishad three other times, at Presidency College. These occasions were 18^th August, 1929, 1^st March, 1933 and 3^rd February, 1934.

Even before the establishment of the Rabindra Parishad, Rabindranth came to the college four other times. The first time was on 17^th September, 1917. In this first instance he gave a lecture at the Banga Sahitya Sabha. The second time was on August 21, 1922, when he was felicitated. The lecture that he delivered on this occasion was later published in the College Magazine, as recorded in writing by Pradyot Kumar Sengupta. Later this lecture was also published in Volume 27, of the Rabindra Rachanavali, published by Viswa Bharati. On January 4, 1924, he spoke at the Memorial Service of his friend Monmohan Ghosh. Once again, just before setting out for China, he had visited the college on September 10^th.

Recollecting, what was most likely the poet’s 1929 visit to the Rabindra  Parishad, Nikhil Chakrabarty writes:

Gurudev arrived. Amita Sen sang a song of his. However, the climactic moment of that evening’s session, was the recitation of some of his poems by the actor Sisir Bhaduri. When he finished, Rabindranath smiled at him and said, ‘ I did not know that my poems sound so good when recited’. The uninhibited Sisir Bhaduri replied, ‘Oh, that was because I recited them’! (no page reference provided).

In his reminiscences of Rabindranath’s visit in the third week of  February 1934, Ashok Mitra writes that Rani Chanda had

…decorated the floor of the Physics Lecture Theatre with exquisite alpana. Apart from an opportunity that I had in 1979, at Vienna,  of seeing an assemblage of  26 great scientists who had received the Noble Prize in Science, I have never seen a gathering of such stellar personalities, ever before. Among those who were present were Pramatha Choudhury, Surendranath Dasgupta, Indira Devi Choudhurani, Shanta Sen, Nirmal Kumari Mahalanobis, Rani Chanda, Atul Chandra Gupta, Samarendranath Tagore, Upendranath Gangyopadhyay, Sourindramohan Mukhopadhyay, Anil Chanda and Apurva Chanda. The latter always liked to claim that he was the real life model for the character of Amito in Shesher Kavita. The two of them had tried to get Professor Mahalonobis out of their way, by pushing him out. It was easy to see however, that Rabindranath had a greater inclination towards Professor Mahalanobis, for discussion and advice. The poet arrived at 6 p.m. It was here that I heard Amita Sen sing two songs. I had never heard such a sweet and clear voice before. It was like Shelley’s skylark that could ascend to higher and higher levels. Perhaps if there was a glass lamp, it would have shattered under the impact of her voice. Rabindranath read out from his Galpaguchha story, ‘Patro and Patri’.

However,  the Rabindra Parishad did not remain confined to studying Rabindranath alone. From Ashoke Mitra’s accounts we learn that Abanindranath Tagore delivered a lecture, which he read out, at the Rabindra Parishad on March 11^th, 1935. Dinendranath Tagore was also present on the same occasion. Amita Sen had also performed. Twenty years later, after the historic meeting of modern Bengali poets at the Senate Hall of the University of Calcutta, on the occasion of the college anniversary celebrations in the last week of January in 1956, the poets Sudhindranath Dutta, Buddhadev Basu, Bishnu Dey and Subhas Mukhopadhyay, had also read out from their poems. This took place at the Physics Lecture Theatre.

to be continued...