Early Education of Rabindranath (contd-1)

After some oral education of songs, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Thakumar Jhuli etc Rabindranah got his first lesson from "Barnaparichyaya" from his home tutor Madhab Pandit.Rabindranath had a good memory and quickly finished the spelling lessons of "KARA, KHALA , JALA etc and came to short sentences --Jala Pare, Pata Nare. By this time his imagination had sparked and he thought that he was gradually entering into the area of  "Adi kabita of Adi Poet" and the line was continually vibrating through his mind --Jala Pare Pata Nare. Rabindranath was getting his education at home but when he saw that his elder brothers (Somendranath and Satyaprasad) were going to School he began to cry and wanted to go with them. At this Madhab Pandit got angry and slapped him and said that now he was crying for going to school, a time would come when he would cry to avoid going to school. 
Rabindranath said in his old age that the forecast made by his home tutor was the most accurate that he had come across in his life.
He was admitted to the Oriental Seminary. (In 1823, Gourmohan Addya established the School. The school was running at that time in the house of Gorachand Basak of Garanhata). This was the first school he attended, along with his elder brothers Somendra and his nephew Satyaprasad. Rabindranath, Somendra (Rabindranath called him DADA) and Satyaprasad went to school together. He could not remember the lesson he got in the Oriental Seminary. He remembered only the punishment a student got for being unable to  answer any question about his home task. He was asked to stand up on the bench and extend both of his hands. Then slates, one after another, was kept on his extended hands.
After few days,  the guardians transferred  all the wards to Normal School, where the method of teaching was of European style. The school started after a prayer song.  One line in the song was -full of glee, singing merrily, merrily, merrily. This school was established under the guidance of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar in 1855. At that time the School was held in Jorasanko, in the house of Shyamlal Mallik, very close to the Thakur bari.
Rabindranath expressed in his " Jibansmriti" that he was not happy at the School because of the rough behaviour of the teachers. The behaviour of one of the teachers was so nasty that he refused to answer any of his questions.
But he secured highest mark in the annual Bengali Examination taken by his Bengali teacher Madhusudan Bachaspati . The Class Teacher could not believe this and he complained to the Headmaster that Madhusudan Babu might have been partial. At this, Rabindranath was re-examined and the superintendant became the invigilator during the examination. The second time also Rabindranath secured the highest mark.
This was the only known result of an examination taken by Rabindranath during his student life.
Rabindranath was admitted to the Normal School at the age of 7 years. Rabindranath wrote a short story, Ginni, remembering this school. After  one year when his age was about eight he was forced to write a poem by one of his nephews, Jyotyprakash Gangopadhyaya (1855-1919), son of Kadambini Devi (the eldest sister of Gunendranath). Jyotyprakash was six years older than Rabindranath. He was reading, at that time, English literature, especially Hamlet, and was always reciting the dialogues.
One day, in the day time, he called Rabindranath and said that he had to write a poem.  Jyotyprakash explained to Rabindranath the Payar Chanda containg 14 words in a line.
Rabindranath at that stage had seen poetry only in the books.  It appeared to him as neat and clean with no overwriting or scribbling in it. There was no hesitation. He could not imagine that he could write such a thing only by his mere will. However, he collected some blue papers with the help of an office staff of Tagore family, drew some lines, running in different directions, and tried to write something with his hand. Somendranath, the brother immediately elder to Rabindranath, became delighted with this and began collecting listeners for Rabindranath's potery. Somendra always encouraged Rabindranath to keep writing poetry and he acted as his oral publisher.  One day he caught Nabagopal Babu, the editor of "National Paper", and persuaded him to listen.  On hearing the poetry, Nabagopal Babu said it was alright but he could not understand the meaning of the word "DWIREF". Now the words  DWIREF and BHRAMAR,  in Bengali, both contained three letters, and why he used the former one and where from he got the word, Rabindranath could not recollect.
Govinda Babu was the superindentent of Normal School. He was short, fat and dark. His office room was on the first floor. One day, Rabindranath entered in his room fearfully to report torture by some of the naughty boys of the school. Govinda Babu took pity on him and one day he called Rabindranath to his room and asked that whether he wrote poetry. Rabindranath was pleased and confirmed the rumour.  He asked Rabindranath to write a poem on some difficult topic. Rabindranath did so and brought the poem the next day. Govinda Babu took Rabindranath to the class and told him to read it. Rabindranath recited the poem loudly.
In 1871, Rabindranath was admitted to the Bengal Academy, an Anglo-Indian School.  
In the year 1872 when he was about 11 years old, he got the opportunity of going out of town for the first time due to a Dengue (1872-1873) epidemic in Calcutta.

All of them went to a garden-house at Panihati near the Ganges. In front of the servant's quarter there was a  guava tree and through  two of its branches  Rabi could see large boats  sailing  in the Ganges.

That blue coloured copy book was gradually being filled up with poetry and he always welcomed the news of its circulation.
Satkari Dutta was not a teacher in the class where  Rabindranath was reading but he was sympathetic to Rabindranath. One day he asked Rabindranath that whether he wrote poetry. On hearing in the affirmative he gave him two lines and asked him to fill up next two lines; Rabindranath did this nicely. Thus he gradually became known as a poet and he got a new avenue in his life which he maintained till his death.  

This time his  third elder brother Hemendranath, a good student in Science, was in charge of supervising their all round development. He narrated a daily routine to be followed by every body from morning till night. In the morning , after rising from  bed, they had to practice wrestling with an one eyed wrestler. Then they had to take their lessons with all the muds and sands in their body. The   home tutors for Bengali, Mathematics, History and Geography would come. Then they had to go to school. After coming back from the school, at about four,  they had to attend drawing classes with the drawing-master and then Gymnastics. In the evening followed English lessons. At this time they were about to fall asleep and the elder Brother Dwijendranath on seeing this allowed them to go to bed. Rabi , at this opportunity, used to go to his mother's room.
Every Sunday, Science teacher used to come with the apparatus for demonstrations. Rabi happened to get interested The passion, Rabindranath had for science, was due to this. Moreover, for training in the Bengali literature Meghnadbadkabya was chosen. Rabindranath wrote a critical review of this book which was published in ".Bharati".
The boys had to leave Normal School and be admitted in Bengal Academy, an European School, for their training in English. Here Rabindranath  got a friend who knew some tricks of magic. Rabindranath has mentioned his name in his book.
The interest of Rabindranath Tagore developed in books rather than in his study materials. He took books from his elder brother, Dwijendranath's library e.g.,   "Abodhbandhu" and Bividharta Sangraha. Rabindranath beacame a fan of poet Biharilal Chakraborty.
In 1872, at the age of eleven, Rabindranath finished "Bangadarshan" from beginning to the end.

Early Education of Rabindranath

Rabindranath Tagore had a sweet voice from his childhood .Thakurbari was always full of literary activities, songs and dramas. But that was amongst the elders, children were not allowed to enter. Dwijendranath, the eldest son of   Devendranath, was then writing a Kabya, "Swapnaprayan", which he used to recite for others to listen. Rabindranath, standing by the side of the door, listened and learnt the verses by heart. Rabindranath said that he could not remember how he learnt to sing. Sreekantha Singh, a friend of Devendranath and el Singing was his passion. He was always absorbed in music. He was appointed for teaching songs but he did not teach songs, he gave them lessons only. Bishnu Chakraborty was a singer of  Adi Brahmo Samaj; he gave them the first lesson in how to sing. Rabindranath did not take regular tuition. Finally, Jadu Bhatta became their vocal music teacher. But Rabindranath  learnt singing in his own way- from servants, from gypsy women, from Bauls and from here and there, from whatever he heard. These were the first lessons of Rabindranath  before he went into formal education.
He and the other children had to pass most of their time with Ishwar or to be more precise,  Brajeshwar. Once he was a village-teacher. He was entrusted to train the children. At that time there was no electricity, there were Kerosene or other oil lamps. Childrens used to sit around him and hear the stories of Ramayana and Mahabharata in the dim light of the lamp. After dinner, when they went to bed, a maid told them bed time stories of galloping horses on vast stretches of land, till all of them were sound asleep.       
This was the beginning of his education before actually reading books.der brother of Lord Satyendra Prasanna, came from Raipur of Birbhum district to stay in Calcutta.

Palanquin, a spot for Imagination of Rabindranath

"The chalk line has been wiped away today, but the confining ring is still there. The distance is just as distant, the outside is still beyond me...." 

 In the time of Dwarakanath, grand father of Rabindranath, palanquins were in use. He had a big palanquin which required eight bearers to carry each pole. The bearers, their gold bracelets, their thick earrings and their sleeveless red tunics had gone with the wealth and glory of  Prince Dwarakanath. The body of the palanquin sans the decorations was left in a corner of the accounting-house as a piece of common-place lumber. 

It was to him an island  in the midst of the ocean, and he,on holidays, became Robinson Crusoe. He sat within its closed doors, completely out of sight, delightfully safe from prying eyes'.  

Hackney carriages

In the city of Calcutta, when Rabindranath was born, there was no trams,buses or motor cars. Only horse driven cars were available. The horses moved in the city raising dust all around and the coachman used to whip the horses to keep them on the right track.  The marks of the whip lashes became invisible in the bony recesses on the horse's back. Life was slow and leisurely and betel chewing clerical staff sometimes came to their offices in shared carriages. 

Jorasanko Thakurbari (Contd-2)

When Rabi was a child he was not allowed to go outside the house. So he peeped through corridors and windows and wanted to see beyond his reach. Sometimes he could hear whiffs of sounds coming from inside or outside, some scents which used to touch his mind and he felt that someone was around and would be  meeting and playing with him. The ways of such  a meeting of a bounded person with an unbounded entity (he wrote a poem, Dui Pakhi, in Sonar Tari) was unknown to him and the attraction of such a call gradually became stronger.  

Jorasanko Thakurbari (contd-1)

In childhood Rabindranath had two friends- Satyaprasad, slightly older and the sister of Satyaprasad, Ira (Irabati, 1861-1918), son and daughter of Soudamini, the eldest daughter of Devendranath- both of them always fuelled his imagination by telling peculiar tales about Thakurbari.
After the birth of the youngest child (Budhendranath), who died at the age of one, Sarada Devi's health  broke down and she could  devote even less time to her children. Other senior women of the family, elder sisters and sisters-in-law, were also very busy with their respective duties. Rabindranath Tagore had to  pass most of his time with a 'retinue' of servants and maid-servants from morning till night before going to  sleep. He was not allowed to move around even within the house. He had no ideas about the different rooms, corridors within the building. Only his imagination and the stories told by his two companions gave him what he called 'pictures of life's memories rather than life's history'. This he termed 'servocracy'. 'One of the servants would place him at a certain strategic point and draw a circle round him', warning him of dire consequences if he  crossed the border line. They always used to tell the story of the Ramayana, reminding him of the punishment that Sita received by crossing the line. The boy stayed well within the circle, imagining the worst possible perils if he disobeyed. There was a pond beneath the window. On the east side of the pond, by the side of the wall, stood a big banyan tree (Rabindranath wrote a poem on this Banyan tree, Purono Bat) and on the south there were rows of coconut trees. As a child Rabindranath used to pass his time looking at all these like 'Amal of Dakghar'.

Jorasanko Thakurbari

Nilmoni Thakur was the first person who in 1784, during the time of Warren Hastings, purchased a plot of land on the east side of Chitpur Road and constructed a building there. It was known as Mechhuabazar at that time, later it was renamed as Jorasanko.

Dwarakanath constructed another building by the side of his paternal house where he used to arrange dinner parties for his European friends, ladies and gentlemen.  Ganganendranath and Abaninidranth used to stay there.  The main portion of this building was damaged and the rest was utilized as a campus of the Viswa Bharati University.

The old house was not constructed all at a time, rather it was extended as and when required without having a definite plan. As a result it was built at various levels and made to bend according to necessity with staircases here and there, coming to look a bit like a jigsaw puzzle. It was a great wonder to Rabindranath when he was a child.  

Early life of Rabindranath Tagore (contd-1)

The first modern man of India, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, was a friend of the Tagore family since the time of Dwarakanath Tagore.  Under his influence Devendranath took to Brahmoism in 1848 much before the birth of Rabindranath. Rabindranath said in his autobiography that his father was fortunate to come under the influence of Ram Mohan Roy from his (Devendranath's) early years which helped him to free himself from the sectarian barriers, from traditions of worldly and social ideas that were very rigid in many aspects, very narrow and not altogether beneficial, and his family had given up "mainstream" Hinduism well before he was born. Devendranath was 45 years of age when Rabi was born.Their special Puja building was no longer in use and he had no idea about any rituals and practices of his ancestors. He did not see the "festival of wealth' of his grandfather (Dwarakanath) except the "black marks of the burnt lamps".
Rabindranath's  early life was  simple and modest. The only difference with other families was that the family home had a flow of cultural activities, and the cultivation of art and music had become a family tradition.
Organising the Hindu Mela was an annual affair of Devendranath and Babu Nabagopal Mitra was entrusted with the job.
When Rabi was born, Dwijendranath was 21 years, Satyendranath 19 years, Hemendranath 17 years, and Jyotirindranath 13 years.  There were other siblings, but the four elder brothers had a strong influence on Rabindranath. The daughters of Devendranath, who were married, lived with their husbands in Jorasanko. Sometimes the number of members of Jorasanko Thakur Bari exceeded 200. Devendranath's wife Sarada Devi, busy with such a large household, could not find time for her children. Rabindranath was brought up by the servants and taught by his brothers.

Pictorial representation of Calcutta in 1860-1887

Calcutta in 1860s

Calcutta 1864, cyclone

Calcutta 1870Calcutta 1875, Panaromic View

Calcutta 1878

Calcutta 1880

Calcutta 1887

Early life of Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore was born at No. 6 Dwarakanath Tagore Lane, Jorasanko, located in north Calcutta (Kolkata) near Chitpur Road on 7 May 1861. He was the youngest  son (eighth) among the fourteen children (Budhendranath,1863-1864, died at the age of 1) of his parents- Devendranath and Sarada Devi.
 He (called Rabi) was born in a family of mixed culture of East and West. He wrote in his autobiography - My life in my words -
    "there was something remarkable in our family. it was as if we lived close to the age of pre-Puranic India through our commitment to the Upanishads. As a boy, I grew up reciting slokas from the Upanishads with a clear enunciation. We had no experience of the emotional excesses prevalent in Bengal's religious life. My father's spiritual life was quiet and controlled."
They had a genuinely deep love of English literature. Shakespeare and Sir Walter Scott had a strong influence over their family.
There had been several changes, both nationally and internationally, in the second half of the nineteenth century. Rabi noted that a great fight ensued between the more prograssive people of his time and the orthodox, who became 'nervous and angry' when some lover of truth broke open their enclosure and flooded it with the sunshine of thought and life.
Rabi felt proud of having witnessed three revolutionary movements in his family during his father's time.
  1. He was proud, for his father was one of the great leaders of the movement, a movement for whose sake he suffered ostracism and braved social indignities.
  2. A literary revolution of which Bankim Chandra Chatterjee of Bengal was the pioneer.
  3. The third one was the emergence of nationalism. He was proud that the people of his country started asserting their own personality and began to raise their voice against the indignity and the humiliation imposed upon them by the British colonisers.

Devendranath (contd-3)

Hemendranath (1842-1923)
He was the third son of Devendranath,  a scientist and organiser of the family. He was a strict disciplinarian who was entrusted with the responsibility of looking after the education of his younger brothers as well as administering the large family estates. Like most of Devendranath's children, he had varied interests in different fields. On the one hand he composed  a number of Brahma Sangeets and on the other, wrote articles on Physical Science which he planned to compile and edit into a text book for school students.  If his untimely death had not prevented him from completing the project, this would certainly have been the first science text book to be written in Bengali. He was known for his physical strength and wrestling skills. Exceptionally for the times, he insisted on a formal education for his daughters. He not only put them into schools but trained them in Music, the Arts and European languages such as French and German. It was another mark of his forward-looking mentality that he actively sought out eligible grooms from different provinces of India for his daughters and married them off to places as far as away as UP and Assam.
He was a spiritual seer and Yogi of the highest order and he was responsible for the development of modern Brahmoism which is now the Adi Brahmo Dharma religion. He was a "doer" of his Tagore generation and worthy successor to the father and grand-father.
Jyotirindranath (1849-1925) was a scholar, artist, music composer and theater personality.

Devendranath's daughters were Soudamini, Saratkumari, Swarnakumari, and Brahmakumari. Soudamini was the first student of Bethune school and gifted writer. Swarnakumari was also a gifted writer, editor, song-composer and social worker. All of them were famous for their beauty and education.

Devendranath (contd-2)

Devendranath's spiritual prowess was of the highest order, even while he maintained his worldly affairs not renouncing his material possessions as some Hindu traditions prescribed but rather continuing to enjoy them in a spirit of detachment.His considerable material property included several estates spread over the districts of Bengal, most famously, the later acquisition Santiniketan Estate near Bolpur  in the Birbhum district  where his eldest son Rabindranath Tagore set up his school.
Devendranath was a master of the Upanishads and played no small role in the education and cultivation of faculties of his sons.

Dwijendranath (11 March-1840-19 Jan 1926) was a poet, a composer, philosopher, mathematician, and a pioneer in Bengali shorthand  and musical notations:

Sitting: Jyotirindranath,

Standing : (from right) Kadambari, wife of Jyotirindranath,Satyendranath and Jnanadanandini, wife of Satyendranath.

     Satyendranath (1842-1923) :
was the first Indian to join the Indian Civil Service.He was a great scholar with a large reservoir of creative talents.

Devendranath Thakur (contd-1)

In 1843, Devendranath started the Tattwabodhini Patrika as mouthpiece of the Tattwabodhini Sabha. In the same year, he revived the Brahmo Sabha fallen in vigour since the death of Rammohan (1774-1833) in 1833. The Brahmo Sabha was originally absorbed into the Tattwabodhini Sabha and renamed as Calcutta Brahmo Samaj. Devendranath took 20 of his young associates who joined him on 21 December 1843 (7 Paush, 1765 B.E.). This led the step for converting Brahmo Samaj into a spiritual fraternity. This day is still commemorated with the annual Paush mela at Santiniketan. The history of the place goes back to the 1860s, when Devendranath was struck by the beauty of the place of Shantiniketan, the western most corner of Bengal in Birbhum with red laterite soil, watered by several rain-fed rivulets. Passing through the village commons of Bhuvandanga (an area avoided by travellors because of dacoits), Maharshi was captivated by the beauty of two luxuriantly canopied Chattim trees, offering shade in that barren red land. To the Maharshi this was an idyllic venue for meditating. So he bought a large tract of land along with the two Chhatim trees and built a beautiful prayer hall with stained glass. Trees were planted all around to achieve the ancient forest-ashram look. In keeping with the spirit of the place, Maharshi named it "Shantiniketan" or 'the abode of peace'.
         

Devendranath Thakur

Devendranath Tagore (15 May 1817- 19 January 1905) was an Indian Philosopher in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries from United Bengal in British India.
He  was born in Jorasanko, Calcutta and was the eldest son of his father, Dwarakanath. Being the son of a person known as prince, he was brought up in the lap of luxury surrounded by pomp and power. But  early in his youth the family fell into misfortune due to the economic depression in the1840s and the life style of his father Prince Dwarakanath Tagore, who died on the evening of 1 August 1846 at the St. George's Hotel in London, leaving a huge debt. Devendranath, however, managed to repay all the loans and was, even, able to retain some of his property by intelligent management and a modest style of living.  He worled as a priest.
One day he came to learn a sloka from Ishaponishad written by Ram Chandra Vidyasagar which said  that "God is immanent in all things, in whatsoever lives and moves in the Universe, enjoy therefore without being attached, covet not wealth belonging to the others". From that day the course of his life was changed forever.
Tattwabodhini Sabha :
Along with the awakening of the soul, the influence of Raja Rammohan Roy was of immense significance. In October 1839, he, along with his friends, started the Tattwararanjini Sabha. Its object was the dissemination of the knowledge of the Upanishads and the promotion of religious enquiry.  In two years there were 500 members including rich and influential men of Bengal. Pt. Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar was for some time the secretary of this Sabha. It was the largest and most influential cultural organisation of Bengal and it lasted till 1854. It also had a printing press and Devendranath  started publishing the Tattwabodhini Patrika. This Patrika became the principal organ of the samaj for propagating its views. It taught men to think seriously and speak earnestly. It inaugurated the era of earnest journalism in Bengal. It was published in 5 different languages from five different centers- in  Bengali from Calcutta, in Tamil and English from Madras, and in Hindi and Urdu from Bareily.

Tagore Family