Tagore birthday celebrations: CM breaks away from tradition

Making a break with the established tradition, the Mamata Banerjee government has decided to inaugurate the Tagore birthday celebrations on May 8 in the odd hours of afternoon. Every year people in Bengal observe Tagore's birthday with much fanfare with songs, dance, dance drama and poetry recitals etc. and beginning on the poet's birthday it continues for at least one month.

On the designated day the celebrations used to begin at early morning simultaneously at Tagore's ancestral home at Jorasanko and Rabindra Sadan, while the former is organised by the Rabindra Bharati University, the latter by the state government. But, in a preparatory meeting for holding Tagore's birthday celebrations, which was attended by a good number of people from the cultural world, the chief minister decided to start the state government's function at 2 pm. When it was pointed out to her by the senior artists like Sumitra Sen that traditionally the function begins around 6 am in the morning, the chief minister asked them to change the schedule. The reason was also made clear to them—the chief minister would not be able to attend that early morning programme to inaugurate it, as she used to keep late hours. Moreover, she also decided to change the venue of the government programme.

 

Instead of holding the function in the precincts of Rabindra Sadan, it has been planned to hold it on Cathedral Road. For that, a huge shamiyana would be erected on the road and entry of cars would be closed to it and on that day. Last winter the venue of the inaugural function of the state film festival was shifted from the traditional Nandan auditorium to Netaji Indoor stadium with the aim to accommodate the common people, this time also the plan to hold Tagore's birthday celebration on an open forum reflects the same mindset of the chief minister. The celebrations will begin at 2 pm and continue till 10 pm in the night. The meeting which took all these decisions was held at Town Hall on Tuesday last.

In mid-April people at Kolkata are suffering from intense sultry weather when the maximum temperature is wavering around 37 degrees Celsius and the humidity has peaked at 87 per cent. The Regional Meteorological Centre, Alipore has issued a heat wave warning in districts like Bankura, Birbhum, Burdwan and two Midnapores of south Bengal. The situation is likely to continue to be so till Monsoon hits south Bengal in mid-June, though some relief might come in the form of occasional nor'westers. Now that the central function of Tagore's birthday celebration is to be held at 2 pm, both the artists and the audience would be put through a severe test.

However, the change in timing of the government function has put the Rabindra Bharati university people in a fix. They are not sure if they go ahead with their own Tagore's birthday celebration programme starting from early morning on May 8, if that would liked by the chief minister or not. No one is willing to make any comment on this. Last year the nation started celebrating with a number of programmes to observe Tagore's 150th birth anniversary.

The celebration would come to an end with this year. Mamata Banerjee became the chief minister of the state after all that celebrations began. So at her instance the state government tried to make the most of the poet's death anniversary, which falls in August, and announced a holiday for the school children in the state. Also, she had instructed her MPs to impress upon the Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar to declare a holiday on that day, which she declined to make.