" the autobiographer of Rabindranth informed that when Rabindranath went to England (3rd time) then many Bengali student were there. 1. Kalimohan Ghosh, 2. Narayan Kashinath Debal, 3. Arabinda Mohan Basu, 4. Sukumar Roychoudhury (Tata Babu), 5. Kedar Nath Chattopadhyay (Buba), etc.At that time some renowned persons of India were present there to whom Rabindranath was well known. Such as 1. Pramatha Lal Sen ( Naluda) of Nababidhan Samaj, 2. Philosopher Brajendranath Seal, 3. Acharyya Prafulla Chandra Roy, 4. Dr. Devaprasad Sarbadhikari. Among the students except Sukumar Ray, all of them came to London after a good number of days than Rabindranath. Hence the report of Dr. Ashru Kumar Sikdar does not bear relevant information.
Edward Thomson also created similar confusion. Quoting Rabindranath , he wrote;
" Then it occurred to me to try to get into touch with Rothenstein... So I looked up his telephone Number, and rang him up, and he came at once, and got me better lodgings. You know that Vale of Health [sic], in Hampstead --absurd name! Well, he got me a house there. He was my neighbour, and came often to see me. Then, one day he said he had heard I was a poet.Could I give him my idea of work?I told him I had some prose translation, but knew the English was not good.However, he took them. After a day or two, he came back quite excited, and said they were the most wonderful things he had ever seen."
That Tomson's representation was the vervatim one was difficult to say. But the words - " Original manuscript of Gitanjali which he brought from India on his initial visit to us at Oak Hill Park" written by Rothenstein did not tally with his description. He also wrote in his autobiography, " At last he arrived, accompanied by two friends ( Somendra Chandra Devbarma and Kedar Nath Dasgupta, not mentioned) and by his son. As he entered the room he handed me a notebook in which, since I wished to know more of his poetry, he made some translations during his passage from India ... That evening I read the poems. Here was poetry of a new order which seemed to me on a level with that of the great mystics.
The incident which followed was known from a letter written by Rabindranth dated 26 Nov 1932 reads as;
".... The next day you came rushing to me with assurance which I dared not to take seriouslyand to prove to me the competence of your literary judgment you made three copies of these translations and sent them to Stopford Brooke, Bradely and Yeats. The letter which Bradely sent to you in answer left no room for me to feel diffident about the merit of those poems and Stopford Brooke's opinion also was a corroboration. These were enthusiasticas as far as I remember."
