Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Vichitra and Rabindranath (contd-20)

(Rabindranath Tagore with his children-(from left)daughter Mira, son Rathindranath, daughter-in-law Pratima, daughter Bela)
Sita Devi wrote , " Rabindranath couldnot stay in Shantiniketan because of a sudden information of deterioration of the condition of his elder daughter Bela suffering from TB. He came  to Calcutta on 30th Aug,1918. Rathindranth wrote a long letter to Mrs. Seymour 0n 28th Aug about  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 the 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 in the varied activities of Vichitra, the whole ground floor of the building has been devoted to it. Our collection already is 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 public and from the lats week we have staryed regular weekly meeti gs in which papers will be read and discussed."
Pravat Kumar Mukhopadhyay resigning from Brahmacharyasram had joined City College of Calcutta. Amongst the two librarians he was one of them and his knowledge in card index system of cataloging the books in a library gave him the opportunity to be appointed in Viswabharati University.
The weekly meeting arranged in Vichitra was inaugurated by Abanindranath on 6th Aug at 6 PM by reading the essay "History of Indian Art". On 5th Sept Rabindtanath read the essay "Saangeeter Mukti" . Kalidas  Nag wrote, " The poet read an essay on music . There were songs also.
Rabindranath was not well and he was under the treatmnt of Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy.