Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Rabindranath won the Nobel Prize (contd-2)

The students and teachers at Santiniketan, all became happy and excited. The then student Pramatha nath Bishi wrote, "I observed that the movements of Ajoy Babu as gradually becoming rhythmic like dancing. and Kshitimohan Babu who  was sober in his attitude and restrained in his movement, he also seen to be restless". It was written on the notice board (Ashram Katha) that  the school will remain closed for 4 days because Acharya of our Ashram Rabindranath Tagore  won the Nobel Prize for literature this year (1913)."
The Bolpur Post Office remained busy for some more  days.Telegrams were coming from different parts of the world, within and outside the country, congratulating Rabindranath Tagore . Innumerable letters were also coming. to Rabindranath.  He was in  the habit of answering all the letters by his own hand but the volume of the work was so huge that it was essential to take some mechanical aid in answering the quarries and congratulations.
The letter containing the words, "I am offering my gratitude to those who have expressed their happiness in my honour of being Nobel Laureate this year. thanks , 1st Agrahayan 1320.", written in Rabindranath's own handwriting was cyclostyled and to all well wisher.
Apart from these he himself replied to some persons of importance in his own handwriting.He replied on that day to Ramendrasundar Tribedi;
" A spectre is haunting me and I am searching for a exorcist. I am unable to join in your joy.You may think that this is my exaggeration  but my inner self knows how much heavy is my mind. I have started translating my Gitanjali with the words,
' Kolahal to baran holo/ebar katha kane kane'
      But you see how far the success of prevention it may proceed."
Congratulating Rabindranath, Rothenstein wrote a letter and a telegram . In reply to that Rabindranath replied on 18th Nov.,
" The very first moment I received the message of the great honour conferred on me by the award of the Nobel prize my heart turned towards you with love and gratitude. I felt certain that of all my friends none would be more glad at this news than you. But, all the same, it is a very great trial for me. The perfect whirlwind of public excitement it has given rise to is frightful. It is almost ax bad as  tying a tin can at a dog's tail making it impossible for him to move without creating noise and collecting crowds all along. I am being smothered with telegrams and letters for the lats few days and the people who never  read a line of my works are the loudest in their protestations of joy."
Calcutta University had decided to offer honourable D.Lit to Rabindranath on 28th Nov and that was approved on 15th Nov.
In a special convocation in Governor House, Calcutta, on 26 Dec Rabindranath was awarded D,Lit .
The lovers and followers of Rabindranath had already started a big arrangement for celebrating  the occasion of winning the Nobel prize by Rabindranath. In a special hired train they would go to Santiniketan on 23rd Nov. to congratulate him. This news was circulated in  The Indian Daily News  on 19th Nov asking the willing persons to deposit Rs. 3.25 as a train fair. The news was signed by ; Surendranath Banerjee, Brajendranath Seal, Prafulla Chandra Roy, Satish Chandra Vidyabhushan, W.E.S., Holland, Nilratan Sarkar and Roy Jatindranath Choudhury etc. Another advertisement was published under the signature of A. Rasul, Hirendranath Dutta, Fazlul Haque, and C.F. Andrews.
Under these circumstances a notice was served signed by the Secretary, Bangiya Sahitya Parishad and countersigned by the President Haraprasad Shastri convening  a meeting of the Working Committee of the organisation on 21st Nov. The resolutions adopted in the meeting as recorded in the minute book was;
1. The letter of Ramendra Babu was read and it was decided to send a letter of thanks to the Swedish Academy,
2. Approving the proposal of Ramendra Babu the President send the Telegram to Rabindranath in the following lines;
"Hearty Congratulation on the Triumph of Rabindranath and the recognition of the Bengali literature through him by European nations. A deputation of the Bangiya Sahitya parishad will reach Bolpur on Sunday.
It was also decided after a lot of discussion that the would be team going to Santiniketan to hand over the resolutions would also invite him for a felicitation meeting of the Parishad.
3. President of the Parishad proposed to offer a golden ink-pot and a golden pen to the poet Rabindranath. The details of the programme would be decided afterwards.,
4. the following accepted proposals in this regard were as follows;
i) For whom the Bengal is proud to today, for whose genius the Bengali literature is glorified today, for whose creation the Bengali literature has got a seat in world's literature , for whose honour India is flooded with joy, as a mouthpiece of Bengali literature, the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad is joining the chorous of joy in the whole of Bengal,
ii) The Swedish Academy, after thorough reading of the creation of Dr. Rabindranath Tagore has conferred the best honour Nobel Prize to an important member of the Parishad and became thankful to the members of the Parishad,
iii)The Parishad would arrange for celebrating the felicitation of  the eternal friend of the Parishad Dr. Rabindranath Tagore in a befitting manner,
iv) The following persons be selected for inviting Dr.Rabindranath Tagore in Bolpur for this felicitation at Calcutta,
Haraprasad Shastri,Ashutosh Choudhury, Saradacharan Mitra, Roy Jatindranath Choudhury, Satish Chandra Vidyabhushan, Hirendranath Dutta, Ramendrasundar Tribedi, Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay, Panchkari Bandyopadhyay, Saileshchandra Majumdar, Manmohan basu, Kaviraj Durganarayan Sensashtri, and Byomkesh Mustaffi.
For arranging this  deputation, the monthly meeting of the Parishad was suspended.
Having  known the news of this deputation, Santiniketan was getting herself prepared for welcoming the guests  properly with fireworks and sweets.
The felicitation of the people coming from Calcutta in a hired reserved train was recorded in several documents written by different persons. 1. Punyasmriti by Sita Devi, 2. Bolpur-e Rabindrasambardhana by Fakir Chandra Chattopadhyay, 3. Santiniketan-e Ekdin by Krishnabehari Gupta, and in other books.. Apart from this Pulin Behari Sen in his book published in the issue of Rabindrajanma Satabarsha - 1368, wrote in details of the description of this felicitation.
The special train carrying the important persons from Calcutta started on 23rd Nov. at 10.55 AM for Bolpur.The train was decorated with flags and a band party also accompanied them. At about 3 PM the train reached Bolpur carrying 500 persons ( males and females) and they were welcomed by Andrews putting Dhoti and Chadar and students with Saffron coloured dress. The paper of ovation written by the poet Satyendranath Dutta which had been discovered recently.