Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, the eminent statistician and founder of Indian Statistical Institute, first met Rabindranath Tagore in 1910, at Santiniketan, when he was 17, finishing college. The poet, then 49, at the pinnacle of his glory, must have struck a chord in young Mahalanobis’ formative mind. Thus began the saga of a lifelong relationship of mutual admiration, love and respect.
In a letter to his future wife Rani, Mahalanobis wrote, “It will be wrong to say he is my Guru…, ‘I love him’ is the right expression.” Tagore found in Mahalanobis, a confidant, friend and a companionship where he could share a lot ranging from his creative work to his personal matters.
Among many other associations, perhaps most important was Mahalanobis’ role in making Tagore’s dream of founding VishwaBharati, a reality. Much before its inception, Tagore was nurturing the idea of expanding Santiniketan to a wider horizon, to go beyond nationalism and to build friendship with all nations.
Mahalanobis was an office bearer of VishwaBharati from the very first day. The memorandum of association that was adopted at the first meeting, not only mentions him as the joint secretary along with Rathindranath Tagore, but also a member of the governing body, executive council, academic council and the agricultural board. Mahalanobis was instrumental in giving shape to various aspects of this newly formed university during its most difficult formative years.
More than once, during Tagore’s trip to Europe for long stretches, he had the sole responsibility of running Vishwa-Bharati by himself. Even after his tenure as joint secretary, he continued to hold several offices in Vishwa-Bharati from 1931 to 1945 and continued to be involved in taking crucial decisions.
Tagore shared a unique relationship with the Mahalanobis couple as well. After a rather complicated and long courtship, Mahalanobis finally married Rani on 27 February 1923. Rani’s parents did not approve of this marriage; the simple Brahmo ceremony took place at Mahalanobis’ maternal uncle Nilratan Sarkar’s residence. Dinendranath Tagore’s nephew Suprabha Devi (Satyajit Ray’s mother) Sahana Devi, were among those who sang the hymns.
The same day Tagore’s dance drama Basanta had a premier at Calcutta University Institute Auditorium. Tagore joined the couple after the show. Right from their day of wedding, Tagore became an indispensable part of the Mahalanobis household. They played hosts to Tagore in their homes starting from the days of Alipore Meteorological office and later on in Baranagar, at Gupta Niwas and Sashi Villa.
There are many songs and poems which Tagore composed during his stay in the Baranagar houses. He wrote a considerable portion of his novel Malancha in Shashi Villa. The lush green trees and picturesque garden mesmerised Tagore and these kept coming back in many of his other writings. The Mahalanobis couple accompanied Tagore on many of his trips.
During one such trip to Coonoor, Rani requested Tagore to tell them a story. Thus the seeds of the famous novel Shesher Kobita were sown and finally written at Rani’s persistence. Rani wrote several memoirs depicting their associations with Tagore. ‘Kobir shonge Europe-e’, ‘Kobir Shonge Dakhinatye’, ‘Baishe Srabon’ are household names in Bengali literature.
In 1926, Tagore was scheduled to embark on an European tour and he invited the Mahalanobis to join him. He set sail for Italy from Mumbai on 15 May 1926 and was accompanied by his family. Tagore had been invited to visit Italy as a state guest for the Italian government.
Mussolini’s attempt to use a world renowned figure like Tagore for propaganda of his fascist government was sensed by none other than Mahalanobis. So he was determined to protect his beloved poet from false propaganda. Unfortunately, the couple could not travel with Tagore due to manipulations by the Italian government.
But such was Mahalanobis’ indomitable spirit that they managed to reach Naples on 2 June 1926 and joined the poet in Rome. Despite his strong faith in humanism and internationalism, Tagore fell into Mussolini’s trap. Mahalanobis single handedly took the task of collecting all press reports which appeared everyday about interviews and speeches by Tagore and had them translated into English and made an account of the exaggerated distortions.
Eventually, Tagore broke out of Mussolini’s spell when he got the chance to have private conversations with Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce and Duke Scotti in Milan. Tagore finally left Italy for Switzerland on 22 June 1926 and his fascination with fascism ended after he met the eminent French personality Romain Rolland in Villeneuve, Switzerland.
Tagore met exiled Professor Salvador’s wife in Lucerne, his next destination and got to know about the torture and humiliation of her husband by the Mussolini administration. This triggered the much awaited protest by the poet, which was published in the Manchester Guardian. On 10 July, Tagore and his troupe reached Geneva and met more exiled leaders from Italy.
Tagore’s next stops were Paris, London, Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Hamburg Berlin, Prague, Budapest, Belgrade, Sofia, Bucharest, Istanbul and Athens. The Mahalanobis accompanied the poet throughout this memorable trip. The Bengali readers in the early 1920s were not particularly interested or aware about Tagore’s early works. It was Mahalanobis who carefully sifted through them and wrote a series of essays in the prestigious Probashi Magazine entitled “Rabindra parichay”.
He was instrumental in recovering and including many of these in Rabindra Rachanabali. He also laid out a structured field of research on Tagore’s literary works. The proposal of Tagore’s collected works in English was initiated by Mahalanobis’ urgings as was Tagore’s autobiography. Mahalanobis played another important role in Tagore’s life.
The first recording of Tagore’s poetry and songs in his own voice was done at the studios of Hindustan Music Syndicate in 1932. He actively participated in the selection of the pieces to be recorded and supervised the whole recording process. He had a big contribution towards the publication of Tagore’s book Lekhan in his own handwriting.
This book was a collection of short poems like Haiku very much inspired by his trip to Japan. During their European trip, Mahalanobis got to know of a brand new printing machine called ‘Rotar’ print in Berlin, which could reproduce handwritings and thus emerged Lekhan. Edward Thompson was the first western biographer of Rabindranath Tagore.
His seminal work Rabindranath Tagore: Poet and Dramatist was first published in 1926. When young Thompson arrived in India, Tagore was at the peak of his creativity. Young Thompson, only 24, had come to Bankura as a professor of English at Wesleyan Missionary College and developed a keen interest and love for the natural surroundings and the Bengali culture. In 1913, he met Tagore in Jorasanko.
“It is no exaggeration to say that I loved him before the evening was done” he later wrote. When Thompson embarked upon the task of writing Tagore’s biography, he got an immense support from Mahalanobis. He was an authority on Tagore’s work and had the highest regard for the poet, yet was objective in his assessment of the poet’s literary works. He wrote to Mahalanobis “I have stolen your brain shamelessly, yet have acknowledged as often as I could without becoming monotonous.”
Thomson’s biography raised a storm of controversy in the Bengali literary world; Tagore himself was also displeased by certain observations. Perhaps, Mahalanobis through his objectivity looked beyond the controversy and immensely appreciated the book.
In 1940, the couple bought an old garden house in Baranagar and were very keen to have Tagore as one of their first guests. Tagore christened their new house ‘Amrapali’ —the name derived from the classic Buddhist literature. These rooms in the eastside of the house, was specially built to host the poet. Unfortunately, Tagore did not live long to be in this house after the renovation was completed in 1942.
His towering impact on the couples’ lives left an indelible mark on the architectural finesse of their new home. Amrapali, with its different levels, angles and cornices along with its aesthetic interior, is reminiscent of the poet’s home Udayan in Santiniketan. Mahalanobis shifted his institute from the premises of Presidency College to Amrapali. It continued to function from Amrapali until 1951 when the Research and Training School building was constructed. During their stay in Amrapali, the couple played hosts to some of the greatest minds of the world. Among them were, RA Fischer, Norbert Weiner, JBS Haldane, The Curie couple and Julian Huxley to name a few.
Tagore took a deep interest in Mahalanobis’ work and visited the Statistical Laboratory several times. From their first meeting in 1910, the relationship which spanned three decades grew deeper every day.
On one hand, Tagore inspired Mahalanobis to reach new heights, on the other hand he took it upon himself to promote Tagore’s ideal and his work all around the globe and inculcated many of Tagore’s ideals when he founded Indian Statistical Institute which continues to thrive as a premier institute of India to this day.
The writer is a mathematician and alumni of Indian Statistical Institute and teaches mathematics at George Washington University, Washington DC, USA.