Saturday, July 9, 2011

Santiniketan (contd-34)

The Government reppresion  in different schools caused to increase the students in Santiniketan.Rabindranath wrote to
 Manoranjan Bandyopadhyay,
'Now there are  many students in our school and so responsibilities has also increased.We have to construct buildings over night . On the top of the laboratory another floor has been constructed. Still the space seems to be insufficient. Some more rooms to be prepared for different purposes. So many workers  have been appointed without   preparing a budget.
Now the number of students exceeds 80.
One student among the newcomers namely Saroj Ranjan Choudhury wrote to his classmate Sudha Kanta Roychoudhury as a memoir on 8 Feb 1964,
 "After the summer vacation of 1907, in  the month of July , myself and my elder brother (Manoranjan Choudhury) got the permission to enter Santiniketan Brahmacharyasram. The number of enrolment of student got its  top position of 72. In the north side of the present library there was a big hall for laboratory, and the room west of it was earmarked for teaching Sanskrit by the teacher Sashtri Babu, the room towards the east  with a  piano was alloted for Music, and  the long verandah in the south was for  shelter of 7/8 students who spread their beds on wooden plank. Satyranjan Basu of Agartala,Satyen Bhattacharya ( elder brother of  Kundu), my elder brother and myself, and Dhirendranath Mukhopadhyay were the students who took their beds in that verandah.  The first floor of the library was meant for the elders,   son of renowned litterateurs Akshoy  Baral, Amar Baral, Jyotirmoy Halder ( brother of Bipin Halder, Asit Halder), Sidharta Roy and others. They were the tallest among all and stood in the Que in the front and that was the reason for their prominence  ".    
The names of many students were revealed in this letter. There is another source of knowing the names of the student and that is the first Handwritten magazine, Santi, of Brahmacharyasram. Once Satish Chandra Roy took the initiative of publishing a magazine in the school. Rabindranath wrote to Manoranjan Bandyopadhyay on 22 March 1904,
'Satish had a strong passion of publishing a magazine from our school. He wrote some articles  for the magazine and made Rabindranath agreed. But the untimely death of Satish Chandra,  want of fund and want of fresh initiative could not materialize the plan.
In 1911-1914 Rabindranath took the responsibility of editing Tattwabodhini and made it a mouth piece and a really  printed mouth piece of Santiniketan since 1919.
Now by the inspiration of Ajit Kumar Chakraborty the students of the school took the responsibility of publishing a new magazine , a handwriting magazine, Santi in 1907 edited by Manoranjan Choudhury. Some few publications are still kept in Rabindrabhavan. Though Rabindranath and the teachers contributed to this magazine,  the students were all in  the magazine.Many important articles are found in the magazine  which reveal important informations about the school during that period.