Shantiniketan Bolpur

1.

I had hardly explored Kolkata beyond the internet of my relatives in Burra Bazaar. Time time around, despite the fact that I was visiting the city after close to two decades, I still decided to carve out two days to visit Shantiniketan. Moreover,  as I slip into the slowness of my forties, I have been trying to overcome my innate reluctance of solo travel. 

Solicited help from family to travel to Shantiniketan was available, however, my confidence to venture  grew deeper upon finding a friend Suryasarathi from Kolkata who enthusiastically signed up to accompany me on this overnight trip. We took off to Bolpur-Shantiniketan via a morning passenger train from Howrah during early January winter. Looking over the city landscape transform into red agricultural fields we caught up on our five years of recessed conversation over the journey while also munching upon  jhaal muri. Bolpur arrived pretty much on time, and greeted us rather graciously, in brightly painted murals over the asbestos-sheet canvases of the station platform, already announcing itself as the place of artistic thought. 

Suryasarathi had booked our stay closer to the Viswa-bharati campus. My boundaries of navigation in the limits of language only dawned upon me as Surya spoke to the rickshaw driver negotiating his way into Bolpur. We checked into our rather modest homestay by the afternoon, and rushed through lunch there so that we could catch a glimpse of the campus before the winter sun fell down. We walked our way to the campus through the quiet neighbourhood finally reaching the Upasana Griha in Sriniketan, and the concrete sculptures of  Ramkinkar Baij.

2.

Bolpur is a small town about two hours away from Kolkata in Birbhum district of West Bengal. In 1863, Rabindranath Tagore's father Debendranath Tagore purchased a large piece of land in Bhubandanga in Bolpur, where he established an ashram to preach the principles of Brahmo Samaj (founded along with Raja Ram Mohan Roy) - that he called 'Shantiniketan'. Brahmo Samaj was the defining institution of the Bengal Renaissance of the mid 18th century that was born in, and sought to bring a sociopolitical awakening in the fields of intellectual inquiry, aiding social reform in the light of modern ideals of secularism and humanism. While Kolkata remained the centre of British power, Bolpur went on to incubate the a spiritual retreat of Shantiniketan (the abode of peace) in the lap of nature that would emerge to be what is now the Viswa-Bharati University.

The reform movement of Bengal Renaissance was spearheaded by upper class Hindus and some notable Muslims, largely zamindars (Thakurs) with the ability to afford land holdings. The Tagore family also had a long standing relationship with the British, benefitting through economic and cultural exchanges since early 18th century. Tagore himself went to study Law at the University College London during 1878 and returned back to India  by 1883 without a degree. While at the UCL, he found himself indulging in English/Scottish/ Irish literature, music and the arts, and took up to studying plays of Shakespeare by himself. Tagore's aversion to rote learning is said to have inspired him to establish the Patha Bhavana at Shantiniketan in 1901 - where he founded the school with only five students.