When Rabindranath Tagore’s funeral procession moved from his home to the cremation ghat, in August 1941, the road was packed with people, all of them eager for a view of his mortal remains, some unruly ones even daring to pluck his hairs as a keepsake. This is something that almost every Tagore devotee in Kolkata knows.
Not many, however, may know that the poet had himself handed over locks of his hair to Ranu Mookerjee — a young patron of arts and believed to be his muse during the final decades of his life — as a wedding gift to her in 1925. Throughout their association, Lady Mookerjee (1906-2000) came to receive many of Tagore’s paintings — his own creations — as gifts, and, when he died, she also found herself in the possession of numerous letters, manuscripts, and personal belongings such as pen and pencils and caps.
The Academy of Fine Arts, set up by her in the 1930s, found a home of its own in the 1960s and that’s where Tagore’s creations and communications (including 33 paintings) and belongings (including the locks of hair) in her possession moved for a permanent exhibition along with works of a bunch of other stalwarts such as Abanindranath Tagore, Gaganendranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, Asit Kumar Haldar, Kshitin Mazumdar, and their distinguished students including Benode Behari Mukherjee, Sarada Ukil, Sudhir Khastagir, Ram Kinkar Baij, and Satyajit Ray.
“In 1941 when Rabindranath left us, I was the recipient of numerous requests from Santiniketan and Banaras to donate my personal collection of Rabindranath’s manuscripts and other mementoes. I declined to do so as I had always nursed an ambition to display my collection in a permanent gallery in Calcutta where they would be accessible to the greatest number of people devoted to the memory of Rabindranath,” Lady Mookerjee had written at the time.
Today, after a long gap of nine years, when it had to be shut down because lack of funds prevented maintenance, the museum has reopened to the public. The reopening took place on Wednesday — Tagore’s death anniversary — with well-known artist Jogen Chowdhury live-painting his imagination of Tagore as the bard’s songs played in the background.
Artist Jogen Chowdhury painting Tagore at the reopening of the Tagore museum at the Academy on Wednesday evening.
“In 2015 the museum had to be closed down because it was in a very bad shape. The roof was leaking, walls were crumbling. There were no funds. Things got worse during the lockdown. Then the Techno India group extended a helping hand. The Ministry of Culture also helped; it funded the restoration of about 200 paintings from the Academy’s collection done by the National Research Laboratory for Conservation in Lucknow,” said Gautam Mohan Chakraborty, a former Commissioner of Police and chairman of the board of trustees that runs the Academy.
He added: “Tagore is someone who is always with us — we always go through his writings, listen to his songs. But here you find original paintings and letters and manuscripts. It’s some kind of an experience,” Mr. Chakraborty said.
The gallery will remain open from Tuesday to Sunday from noon to 6 P.M. Entry costs ₹25 (₹ 10 for students), a more than modest sum, considering that you will not only get to see some of the original works of the Nobel laureate there but also locks of his hair. You can’t get closer to Tagore.
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