Saturday, July 28, 2012

Rabindranath and Raktakarabi ( contd-3)

The above two letters written by Rabindranath referred  to "Raktakarabi" and its English translation which would come very soon. Rabindranath informed Ranu on 6th Sept, " I am going on doing translation of "Nandini" with the help of Benoit (Fernand Benoit - author) Hope, it will be finished tomorrow."
[ A census report of 1940 in America shows about Fernand Benoit] 
On 5th Sept he rote to Ramananda Chattopadhyay , " The drama "YakshaPuri" it will be better if you make arrangement for publishing it in Phalgun or Chaitra issue of "Pravasi" instead of publishing it in Puja issue . I do not like to publish it before it is staged. I shall send you the copy in time."
This is to be noted that the name of the drama was still "Nandini" or "Yakshapuri". Though he didnot use the name Yakshapuri in any one of his manuscript. But it was so popular in the minds of public that it had automatically came out of his pen. The name Raktakarabi was not given to the drama even then. It was visible in 8th manuscript, when the use of the name of flower "Raktakarabi" was use sufficiently. The theoretical significance of the name began to explore. But the drama was going to be printed without assigning the name as Raktakarabi or the translation was going to be completed with the help of Prof. Ferand Benoit, a multilingual Swish-French writer.  Even it was thinking to stage it in an auditorium.