Govt mulls Nobel-like Tagore award
The government is seriously mulling over a proposal to institute a Tagore Award to rival the Nobel Prize in Literature. The institution of such an award is being considered as part of the 150th birth anniversary celebrations of Guru Rabindranath Tagore which will commence next year.
The award, of course, will be just a small part of the extensive swathe of celebrations being planned for the sesquicentennial year of poet, painter, playwright, philosopher Rabindranath Tagore. On the anvil also is an exhibition of Tagore’s original paintings at the Petit Palais museum in Paris next year when the celebrations begin.
Apart from this, the Indian government is also considering requests sent by several countries seeking to mark Tagore’s 150th birth anniversary with celebrations in their own countries. New Delhi isn’t too surprised by this keen interest being shown by other countries given that not only was Tagore a multi-faceted talent but also because during his extensive travels abroad he had touched a chord many in so many regions. India hopes to leverage this “cultural diplomacy” with other nations.
Bangladesh, with whom India had agreed on joint celebrations for Tagore’s sesquicentennial, is set to host a nine-member Indian delegation for four days next week to fine-tune and finalise the celebrations.
A significant item on the agenda when Indian and Bangladeshi officials meet will be discussions on the proposal to introduce “Rabindra Tirtha”, which envisages taking a traveller to places associated with Tagore. So in Bangladesh it will mean travelling to places like Shilaidaha, Shahzadpur and Kushtia while in India Jorasanko and Visva-Bharati will be part of the circuit.
The Paris exhibition will also be significant in that Tagore’s paintings will be travelling abroad for the first time after 80 years, according to culture ministry sources. After Paris, the exhibition is slated to travel to Berlin, London and the US. Incidentally, Paris was the city where Tagore’s paintings had been exhibited abroad for the first time ever when the Gallerie Pigalle hosted them in 1930.
Tagore’s muse, the noted Argentine writer and intellectual Victoria Ocampo, was the one who had played an important role in arranging this exhibition. Most of the 100-odd paintings that the Indian government hopes to display in Paris next year are part of the collection of the institution he founded, Visva-Bharati. Russia and Asia are two other circuits that are currently being explored for the paintings exhibition, said sources.
Having started paintings quite late in life, when he was in his late 60s, Tagore would describe them as “my versification in lines”.
As for the joint celebrations with Bangladesh, on the cards is an exhibition of Tagore’s paintings, a joint seminar in collaboration with Dhaka University, workshops and publications on Tagore, among other things.
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