“Bhanusingher Padabali” at Chhayanaut

Indira Gandhi Cultural Centre (IGCC) celebrated 156th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore on 12 May at the main auditorium of Chhayanaut, Dhanmondi, Dhaka.

Pankaj Saha, a renowned poet, Tagore researcher and TV personality from Kolkata, delivered a lecture on Tagore while Bhabna artistes staged a dance drama “Bhanushingher Padabali” at the event. Samina Husain Prema choreographed and directed the production.

Pankaj Saha shared his diverse experiences and association with the students of several generations of Dartington. Reading out parts of many letters, poems, excerpts and allusions, Saha meticulously pointed out the intimate friendship between Rabindranath Tagore and Leonard Knight Elmhirst, a philanthropist and agronomist who worked extensively in India. He was the first secretary and director of Sriniketan. He was co-founder with his wife Dorothy of the Dartington Hall project, in progressive education and rural reconstruction. The philosophy of progressive education and the vision of reconstructing rural areas of Tagore inspired him to establish the Dartington in England, a replica of Shantiniketan and Sriniketan.

“Bhanushingher Padabali” is a book of poems in “Maithili” language written by Rabindranath Tagore at his young age. Padavalis are devotional genre of Vaishnava poems which narrate mythological stories about the eternal love between Radha and Krishna. On an esoteric level, Radha is understood to be the individual soul that petulantly feels abandoned by God, symbolised by Krishna, who loves all souls and is therefore accused of infidelity by Radha. Finally Radha overcomes her pain and rejoins her lover in passionate union which symbolises unison with the divinity. The artistes beautifully danced to the poems and songs of “Bhanushingher Padabali” at the programme.