Last remnant of Tagore's literary visits brought down

8 July 2010, 18:00 PM

Our Correspondent, New Delhi

At a time when India is celebrating the 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore, a key testimony to the poet's last visit to Shillong, where he had penned some of his important works, has been razed to the ground. Sidhli House, where the Nobel Laureate had stayed in 1927, has been demolished over the last few days by the owner of the house who is the sibling of Federal Minister of State for Water Resources and Shillong MP Vincent Pala. Tagore had visited Shillong thrice--the last time at the house located on Upland Road in Laitumkhrah of the city. "Here lived Rabindranath Tagore in May and June, 1927. His famous novel 'Yogayug' and poems 'Susamay' and 'Debdaru' were written here," reads a plaque that still stands at the lawn of the demolished house. As per records, the house originally belonged to an Italian, Louis Joseph Dalingrad, who had played host to the poet during his two-month stay in Shillong. The royal family of the former princely state of Sidhli in Goalpara district of Assam later purchased the house. The queen of Sidhli, Rani Manjula Devi, wife of Raja Ajit Narayan, had later resided in the house where she had set up the Jayanta Academy of Indian classical music, dance and art in memory of her son. The current owner's family said the memorial plaques would be retained and embossed on a portion of the wall of the new structure that would come up. In 1919, Tagore had stayed at the Brookeside Bungalow in the Rilbong area here where he composed his famous novel 'Shesher Kobita'. In 1923, the poet was in Jitbhumi, also in Rilbong, where he wrote 'Raktakarabi'.