Thursday, March 15, 2012

Bichitra and Rabindranath (contd-9)

(Abanindranath Tagore)
So long as Rabindranath was in India, Bichitra was functioning well since its establishment. But after his disappearance the function of Bichitra had been retarded .The situation changed again after his arrival in India. Kampo Arai, after coming from Japan, was drawing his own picture and at the same time teaching the students of Bichitra. Rathindranath, in a long letter, wrote to Seymour on 28th Aug the multifarious activities of Bichitra;
" Father with the help of an editorial board, is editing a series of books in Bengali somewhat in the line of Home University Series. I have been asked to write one and am reading up the literature on the subject....Amongst our own family members there were many private collections of books that were scattered in different places and of not much use to anybody. I have succeeding in inducing them to keep their books in one place and thus form the nucleus of a co-operative library ... this library is a new addition to the varied activities of vichitra, the whole ground floor of the building has been devoted to it. Our collection is already over 7000 and this is not a small number considering that all books that were common have been weeded out and sent to the Bolpur Library. We have kept two librarians  - who are now cataloging the books on the card index system. The membership is open to the pblic and from the last week we have started regular weekly meting in which papers will be read and discussed."
The biographer of Rabindranath Pravat Kumar Mukhopadhyay resigning from Brahmacharyasram joined City College of Calcutta. He was one of the two librarians.This experience helped him to get the job of Librarianship of Viswabharati University.
Rathindranath arranged a wwekly meeting in Bichitra. On 22nd Aug at 6 P.M., Rabindranath inaugurated the meeting by reading an essay " Sangiter Mukti" . Kalidas Nag wrote in his diary,
"  Today the poet read an essay on Music -- and many songs were sung."