A lanky, fair girl came to Shantiniketan holding a bed-roll in one hand and a suitcase in the other in 1934 to get admitted in the first year of I.A. to Viswabharati. She stayed at a women’s hostel: Shreebhaban; with thirty odd girls.
As per daily routine, she woke up four in the morning, rolled up her mattress, swept her room with a broom, took a bath in shivering cold water, washed her clothes, wore a coarse khaddar saree and went out in bare feet like other girls to participate in early morning ‘boitalik’ (a procession round the campus singing songs of prayer) and later academic classes. When her turn came, she cooked and supervised foods at kitchen for hostel inmates.
More often she would walk down to Kala Bhaban to watch with keenness Nandalal-Binodbihari-Ramkinkor trio busy at their art works. Nandalal Bose became her ‘mastermoshai’. So she started painting a lot. Shantib Ghosh became her ‘Shanti da’. She learnt rabindrasangeet from Shantideb. She danced in a chorus (she avoided solo performance with a rigidity, though she was a perfect dancer) to “Ke debe chnad tomay dola” and “Tomar bas kotha je pothik” in Basontothsab.
At Shiksha Bhaban, Indira stole the attention of Professor Kshitish Roy, who taught English. She would never come to class unprepared. She home-worked her lessons well. Her answers were precise; her handwriting similar to Jawharlal. Professor Roy said. From Tagore biographer Probhat Kumar Mukhopadhaya she would take lessons in Bengali at Amrokunj (mango groves) when the sun dropped down on the western horizon.
At Shantiniketan, I came into contact with Nature and solitude. Tagore was of greater influence on me not for being a poet, but for being a visionary. He started thinking about environment long before the world gave a thought to it through his Shantiniketan and Shriniketan project. Indira said.
How to remain calm and poised amidst earth-shaking crises was a great lesson I learnt at Shantiniketan. It was perhaps not that important for others; but for me it was of paramount importance. Indira further said.
During a preparation for celebration of Bengali New Year when Indira was getting ready to hit the stage with her fellow dancers, Tagore summoned her to inform her mother was seriously ill as Jawharlal sent him an emergency telegram. Indira left Shantiniketan within moments.
Indira was considered an asset to us. So we had to bid her adieu with a heavy heart. Tagore wrote to Jawharlal six days after Indira’s departure. He hoped that after Kamala’s treatment, when she would overcome her debilitating sickness, Indira would be back to Shantiniketan again to pursue her studies.
But Kamala Nehru died at a sanatorium in Switzerland. Indira got admitted to Somerville College in Oxford. In the busy life out there, Indira was reminded wistfully of her serene days at Shantiniketan, a sylvan pasture far away in the remote district of Birbhum. In a letter to Jawharlal, Indira wrote : ‘I was glad of my stay in Santiniketan: chiefly because of Gurudev…his spirit, I feel, has greatly influenced my life and thought.’ Jawharlal quoted Indira’s lines in a secret letter to Tagore. Tagore expressed his feeling of getting overwhelmed at Indira’s spontaneous love and respect for him in a reply letter to Jawharlal.
Before accepting the Chancellor’s chair at Viswabharati in 1982, Indira made a precondition to the university authority. She should be selected as an ex-student, not as a Prime Minister of India. Nandalal Bose’s piles of dumped paintings were auctioned to Lalitkola Academy, Delhi. India government bought all the unsold art works of Ramkinkor. It was not difficult to find out at whose bidding these phenomenal artists got centre stage of recognition at the national and international level.
As Indira fell down to earth in a pool of blood to bullet-happy rifles in 1984, 31st October in her Prime Minister’s residence, it was Shantiniketan whose soil was wet in red; So were its emotion and memory.