Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Rabindranath and Nagendranath Gangopadhyay (contd-2)

Rabindranath was anxious about the future of Mira Devi which was evident in letters to his friend Andrews while he was in abroad in 1920s.he wanted his son-in-law (Nagendranath) to be employed in Santiniketan but it was not acceptable to him - but he could not find a job for him outside Santiniketan. That was the reason of his anxiety for his daughter Mira Devi to find a suitable place for her and her children to live in and a befitting livelihood. He wrote his daughter on 15th May 1920 just before he left for Europe in 1920;
" I am very busy as i have to board the ship within a few hours. It is revealed from a letter of Andrews that you will be living in Bolpur till the house is ready for your living in Calcutta. Your house at Calcutta will be very close to that of Ramananda Babu . ....Our sorrows and happiness are not within our control. But we can make by our austerely practice with the help of our inner strength what happens in our fate into a prosperity. My blessings are  for you so that you can only achieve successes to over come the sorrows  into your greatness.      
(L to R, four of Tagore's five children, Samindranath, Renuka, Madhurilatha and Mira).
The situation of the family affairs remained unaltered and for which Rabindranath was very much worried. He tried his utmost to employ Nagendranath in the works of the estate of Rabindranath or in the Brahmacharyashram of Santiniketan  but that was not possible. At present Nagendranath was working in an English  mercantile farm, namely, Grace Brothers. But Mira Devi was unable to maintain her family life peacefully with him and wanted to live in Santiniketan with her kids. But Nagendra wanted to keep his son with him frequently just to enhance the sorrow of Mira Devi. As a result Mira Devi had to go  to Calcutta and stay with Nagendranath for well being of their son. 
Nagendranath paid some respect to Andrews and hence he had to take the responsiblity of arbitration between the two. He mentioned these,  many times,  in letters written to Rabindranath. he repeated again in the letter written to him on 20th Feb 1921;
" I am anxious about Khoka next time ; and it may be difficult for me to keep him away from Calcutta. The difficulty is that he will be obliged to go to Calcutta for the holidays and then will come the tug of war. But we have had more than I could have hoped hitherto and I shall not lose heart about it. I know how Mira dwells upon it and how everything in her now is in that one thing - to keep Khoka at the Ashram. She knows that she cannot hope any great change in her own life, but she has never been wrapt up in that, because she has always been absorbed in her children. And if Khoka can be here, she can have a comparative relief to her own mind.  But Nogen has been finding every excuse to take him away and I know and he will try to do so after the vacation is over."
In the mean time, the other problems cropped up when Nagendranath had given up the service in Grace Brothers and joined the Non-cooperation movement. He engaged himself to organise the labour movement  of India.He had to shift to some remote village in Behala anf hired a room with low rent. The situation has sometimes turned to such crossroad that Rathindranath proposed to come from abroad with Pratima to stand by the side of Mira Devi and Andrews would be called for looking after Rabindranath to Europe. Any way this proposal was dropped."