Tuesday, July 27, 2010

(Video) Descendants of Dwijendranath, eldest brother of Rabindranath


Dinendranath, son of Dipendranath, and grandson of Dwijendranath,was born  in 1882 at Jorasanko, Calcutta. Dinendranath was an excellent singer and his reach baritone, barely accompanied by any instrument, added unique dimension to Rabindra Sangeet. Inspite of being a skilled and talented musician, he is always remembered for the role he played in preserving the melodies of Rabindranath's composition. He could replicate accurately every tune in the form of notations even though Rabindranath might have forgotten his own tune. Rabindranath was in the habit of forgetting the tune of a song and he used to call Dinendranath to accurately reproduce the same after hearing once from Rabindranath. Dinendranath composed many songs of Rabindranath for future generations.he was equally adept of writing Western notations.
Dinendranath was the Pricipal of Sangit Bhavana of Shantiniketan from its very inception.. After a break of four years, 1923-27, he joined as principal again. Drama was another field he excelled in. He was an able director of Rabindranath's plays. He travelled with the Viswa-Bharati drama unit as Director on its tour to Bombay in Nov. 1933 for the staging of Taser desh.   
He was affectionately called Dinu Thakur.




Sung by Gnanprakas Goswami.


Soumendranath Tagore (1910-1974), son of Sudhindranath Tagore and grandson of Dwijendranath Tagore, was a great orator, writer and lyricist. His name was to reckon with in the cultural arena in the 1960s and 1970s. he was associated with the Communist Movement from his younger days. Revolutionary Communist Party of India was founded by Saumyendranath Tagore in 1934, breaking away from the Communist Party of India. During the period 1934-1938 the name of the party was Communist League.  The name RCPI was taken at the third party Congress in 1938. RCPI was against the new popular frontist politics of CPI and the cooperation with Indian National Congress.   During second World War, RCPI supported the Quit India movement and a large part of the leadership was imprisoned. After the war, RCPI statrted organising soviets (panchayats) amongst peasants and workers, as a first step towards the Indian revolution. Different views on the revolution led to a split in 1948, and Pannalal Dasgupta, the then General Secretary, broke away and formed his own RCPI. Dasgupta advocated armed struggle. The leadership of this party was later taken over by Sudhir Kumar. In 1960 the Trotskyist Revolutionary Workers Party merged with the RCPI of Kumar. In the state elections in West Bengal,  the RCPI of Kumar won several seats. But when the RCPI of Kumar supported Nehru's line in the war against China, many of the leading Trotskyists pulled out of RCPI. Ahead of the 1967 elections the RCPI of Tagore had been registered under the name BHARATER BIPLABI COMMUNIST PARTY where as Kumar's party had been registered under the name RCPI. What later happened to RCPI of Tagore is unclear. But If one studies the electoral  results from 1971 it appears that he switched over to Kumar's party (the election results shows a Soumendranath Tagore as an RCPI candidate, in the same constituency where Souymendranath Tagore stood for BBCP in 1969. It is also possible  that both merged at the instance of the election Commission.), at the same time BBCP lived on.
From the record of Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, Dept. of Humanities and Social Sciences it is seen that a Tagore Memorial lecture arranged on Communication Language lists several eminent speakers inlcuding  Prof. Nissim Ezkiel, Soumandranath Tagore, v.v.john, J.V.Narlikar, M.G.k.menon, Amlan dutta and William Radica  were present.  
Amongst the works of Soumendranath Tagore, 1. Intrduction to Rammohan Roy : His role in Indian Renaissance (Asiatic Society-1975, p-vii to viii) and 2. Chapter one : Rammohan and the Indian Renaissance are worth mentioning.
He mentioned that the excellence that the Bengali Prose achieved in literary form under Bankim Chandra and Rabindranath owes its beginning to the Bengali prose developed by Rammohan Roy. Though there are other opinions also.
Soumendranath also had some musical talent .