Saturday, September 3, 2011

Rathindranath and Santiniketan (contd-40)

On 24th Chaitra (6 April) Rathindranath and Dinendranath came back to Calcutta from Selaidah and both of them started for Puri on 27 Chaitra (9 April). rabindranath sent them to Badrikashram under the guidance of swami Sadananda of Ramkrishna Mission because he wanted to make his son hard working and diligent.  Rabindranath wired them to come to Mazaffarpur on their way back to home. They came to Mazaffarpur on 13 Asharh (27 June). Rabindranath taught Dinendranath the song constructed in the last month "Sabar majhare tomake swikar kariba he" and asked Mohit Chandra "to make arrangement so that the students of Santiniketan may learn Brahmasangeet.  the Ostadji will practice the students of sa re ga ma but he will not teach any unpleasant Hindusthani song rather the students may learn Brahmasangeet."
In the north wall of Prak Kuthir a table harmonium was kept and Rabindranath sung songs by bolwing that instrument. This was mentioned by Haricharan in his memoir. In this letter was given the responsibilty of teaching songs to the students. This was his first appearence as
an "anchor of drammas and store keeper of songs" of Rabindranath.
On 22 Ashwin (8th Oct) , in the afternoon of Mahalaya Rabindranath with a large team went to Budhagaya. The list of participants he submitted to Shrish chandra exceeded much. It was known from the memoirs of Brajendra Kishore that the team included Acharyya Jagadish Chandra Bose and his wife, Sister Nivedita, Historian Prof. Yadunath Sarkar, two daughters of Anandamohan Basu, Rathindranath, Santosh Majumdar etc. There were some misunderstandings between the Budhists and this was an attempt to settle the disputes.
Rathindranath put the details of this journey in his diary which were kept in the Rabindrabhavan.