A glimpse of Shantiniketan through the eyes of its students

To learn all about this 'abode of peace' (the English form of Shantiniketan), the Culture Desk of The Daily Star invited five leading Rabindra Sangeet artistes of the country who have had their education at Shantiniketan. The guests included Rezwana Chowdhury Bannya, who has won the hearts of Rabindra Sangeet lovers around the world. We had four more popular Rabindra Sangeet performers--Sadi Mohammad, Lili Islam, Aditi Mohsin and Sharmila Bandyopadhyay , a leading danseuse of the country.

According to the artistes, the most important characteristic of Shantiniketan's environment was the friendly teacher-student relationship. The teachers also had an especial affection for the Bangladeshi students. 'When I arrived at Shantiniketan,' recollected Sharmila, 'I couldn't get any accommodation in the hostel. It seemed I would have to come back to Bangladesh'. Sharmila did not need to take such a drastic step as Neelima Sen, a famous Rabindra Sangeet artiste and a teacher at that time, came to her rescue. She took Sharmila to her house where the latter stayed as a paying guest for some time until she got admission in a hostel.

Shantiniketan had many great artistes as teachers who had been there from the time of Rabindra-nath Tagore and thus were direct disciples of the legendary poet. The list had Kanika Bandyopadhyay, Arati Basu, Shailaja Ranjan, Subinoy Ray, Ashesh Bandyopadhyay, Nimai Chand Boral, Neelima Sen, Alak Chattopadhyay and many others. 'And they taught us exactly what and how they learnt from Gurudev [as Rabindranath was addressed by his followers]', said Bannya. 'The learning-teaching method was based on the idea of parampara in which the master teaches the students all about the traditions and rituals.

'Interestingly, there were no personality clashes among these great singers,' said Sadi. According to him, every one was respectful about the other's talent. 'Once on the occasion of Poush Mela, Mohor-di (Kanika Bandyopadhyay) was asked to sing the song Ami chanchalo hey', recalled Sadi. 'Mohordi refused to perform the song because she believed that the song could not be rendered any better than Debabrata Biswas'. Later she sang Praner pran jegechhe. The legendary singer, popularly known as George Biswas, was, not however, recognised by the Biswa Baharati Music Board which used to monitor the 'purity' of Rabindra Sangeet.

Aditi Mohsin, who went to Shantiniketan in 1993, said that many rituals have lost their value at Shantiniketan at present. 'We heard that everybody used to walk barefoot and girls used to wear sari at the ashram', she said, 'but when I studied there, these rituals had withered away'. Bannya also agreed that many old values have been replaced by new ones.

Now, how do these ex-students of Shantiniketan practise what they learnt at the legendary institution? Sharmila said that she always tries to follow the style of costume that she saw at Shantiniketan. 'I avoid using of a lot of zaree and rather put emphasis on colourful costumes for my compositions'. The singers too try to teach their students what they learnt about the philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore's songs.