There is a thread of communication on Facebook involving ex-students efforts to bring a unit of the Visva Bharati University back to health. I had a role to play. There were multiple requests to write this story and to highlight the people involved.

I write this blog to preserve that story, from my personal angle.

I was one of the two persons involved in the helping out of Silpa Sadan. Although I am a Bengali by birth and able to comment here in Bengali, I chose to type in English because a) one of the key persons in this story is not Bengali and although he can speak the language, he may not read or write Bengali as fluently, and b) this is a story that involves Visva Bharati, that belongs to the world, and not just to Bengal. Also, I might enter my whole comment on blog, so that it does not disappear. One day, it might appear as a chapter in a book of essays.

I do not get much time to spend on Santiniketan related pages on Facebook. That is one reason I did not comment here before.

A long time ago, around 2008, ex-students of Santiniketan that were based in North America had formed an organization that eventually got to be called SASI (Santiniketan Asram Sanmilani International). The decision was taken during a meeting of a few of the ex-students as a side event within the North America Bengali Cultural gathering, in Toronto, Canada. One of the key persons was Mr. Lee Tan. He was an ex-student of Patha Bhavana. being born in 1934 in China and having come to Santiniketan at the age of four, he is one of the last ex-students alive today that had personally seen Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore and had some exchange with him that involved being influenced by newly made Bengali friends and trying to steal some fruits from Tagore’s residence as a child and getting caught. 

He grew up to be the first batch alumni of IIT Kharagpur as an engineer that got his degree from the hands of Pundit Nehru, and became more Bengali than a Bengali and more converted admirer of Tagore’s view on life than most Tagoreans.  He is the only person I know that has practiced calligraphy in Bengali fonts, typing Tagore poems and songs. He was stationed in Vancouver. He and his wife Leena Chatterjee went to attend the Toronto event in 2008 and coaxed me and my wife to also go since I was born in Santiniketan and went to school at Patha Bhavana. Consequently, we went to Toronto in the summer of 2008.

There, other older ex-students such as Anandarup Ray, son of writer Annada Shankar Ray as well as Bheltu da (late Subroto Roy) joined hands to propose that the ex-students should form an official organization. SASI was formed. Tan Lee da because the President, others were in various important roles. I was made the secretary for the first year. It was SASI that first attempted to start a dialog and open a channel of communication between the ex-students and the University of Visva Bharati in the current context.

That winter, Anandarup Ray wrote to the Governor of West Bengal, asking for the Governor to see the ex-students to discuss ways the ex-student body could establish a working relationship with the University. The Governor, Sri Gopal Krishna Gandhi, had already been invited by the president Abdul Kalam to visit Visva Bharati and prepare a document on what needed to be done to bring the institution back to good health. The Governor Mr. Gandhi had already done that and prepared a hard cover book of his findings and suggestions. The book was called the HLC report or the High Level Committee Report, on Visva Bharati. It was published both as a printed copy and also online, and was available at the University web site.

Governor Gopal Gandhi, who was the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi agreed to see the ex-students at Raj Bhavan, Kolkata. I was part of the team. That was a few days before Poush Mela, winter 2008.

We went to the Raj Bhavan and met the Governor. But there was unfortunately some emergency for which the Governor had to leave immediately and could not spend time with us. So he told us that he is instructing the Vice Chancellor of Visva Bharati, Mr. Rajan Kanti Roy, to arrange for this meeting just after Poush Mela, when the Governor was planning a visit to Santiniketan. We could then have this discussion in presence of the Vice Chancellor too.

This meeting took place in Santiniketan. The Vice Chancellor was present along with the Governor. Also, the Registrar, Mr. Manimukut Mitra was present in the meeting.

Myself and Piyali were the youngest of the ex-students. Everybody else were senior to us. I was mostly silent. The talks were not focussed on Silpa Sadan, but the Vice Chancellor did bring up the topic of Silpa Sadan. He did mention that the department was hobbled, financially strapped and dying because it was unable to function freely due to bureaucratic red tape from the University clerks that followed UGC guidelines that imposed impossible delays and fiscal restrictions on Silpa Sadan. This resulted in lost production and inefficiency. Earnings of the handicrafts from the department were  going into the University accounts but Silpa Sadan was not allowed to have a free hand in using funds earned from its own sales.

The Vice Chancellor suggested that we the ex-students come up with five lack seed money to be given to Silpa Sadan in a special account that the department would then be free to spend, roll and rotate. Since the money did not come from the Government, the UGC and the VB accounts department would have no control nor power to restrict its flow. The Vice Chancellor and a few other senior ranks would have access to the account and be able to ensure that the funds were not misused, while Silpa Sadan was to be given the free hand in deciding how to spend it to purchase timely and high quality raw materials using this seed money and also from its own sales proceedings. It was expected to be self sufficient and growing from that point on, without involvement from UGC.

That was the first time I opened my mouth, and offered another alternative to the Vice Chancellor and Governor – asking that the University hands over Silpa Sadan to us, some of the ex-students, completely for two years, and we turn the institution around to progressive profit making unit that actually benefitted the rural artisans of Birbhum district and makes their craftsmanship appreciated and recognized around India and beyond. Then, when the unit was financially self reliant, standing on its own feet, and bringing benefit to the rural artisans of Birbhum, we would hand it over the VBU for continuation.

This proposal was not accepted by the Vice Chancellor nor the Governor. But the primary reason was that this was never going to be approved by the Government or UGC in the first place.

So, the offer for ex-students to donate the seed money of Rx 500,000.00 to a special account in Silpa Sadan was placed again to the ex-student body. The ex-students agreed to the proposal and did not refuse the offer. There were other issues discussed, such as establishing a line of communication between ex-students and the University. The Registrar was to set this up involving some senior staff of the campus. Eventually there were pleasantries and tea and snacks offered by the University, to all attendees. The meeting ended on a pleasant note.

I was at no time either the leader of the group, or its spokes person, or in charge in any way to collect the funds and channel it to the University.

However, I had a very strong passion and feeling about the main reason why Rabindranath had created these institutions, which primarily was to help in all aspects of rural reconstruction and to bring economic and cultural vitalism back in rural Bengal. One of the issues in all this was to uplift the farming economy through Sriniketan. The other was to bring up the rural craftsmanship so that they continue to make beautiful handicrafts and the affluent urban India begins to appreciate and support this tradition, creating a more equitable and less exploitative economic relation between the city and the village. It was in this aspect of helping rural economy and craftsmanship that Silpa Sadan was to play a key role.

This is my interpretation, and I was personally keen to help in this unfinished work that was being stifled by bureaucratic red tape through UGC guidelines that were never designed to assist rural socio-economic self-help enterprises such as Silpa Sadan.

Since the ex-students, far as I could fathom, had agreed to fund Silpa Sadan with the five lacks as agreed in the meeting, I naturally took it for granted that the ex-students would promptly arrange to find ways to either fund it by contribution from the attending members, numbering a dozen, or cast their net wider and seek contribution from other ex-students that did not attend the meeting, but were represented by the smaller group.

Anyhow, to understand the issue of Silpa Sadan better, I stayed back, and informed the Vice Chancellor of my wish to visit, inspect and investigate the Silpa Sadan’s activity and finances better, in order to have a better understanding of the need for help. Vice Chancellor agreed and his wife, who I met again in Rabindra Bhavan, Uttarayan, asked me to contact Mr. Vishal Bhand, in charge of Silpa Sadan. She tole me I would be more than satisfied if I took the time to visit the place and hear Vishal Bhand and check out everything.

I did. I was very happy with Vishal. I was sure that the institution had the potential to stand on its own feet if given a free hand to do so. Most importantly, I thought it would not only benefit some modern urban designers, but would also help rural artisans to begin to improve their earning, and thus have a trickle down economic improvement of rural Bengal through promotion of artisanship and craftsmanship.

However, back in Kolkata, when I tried to initiate/attend follow up ex-student meetings to figure out how this fund was to be raised, I got a rude shock. The ex-student body apparently had no intension of donating anything to Silpa Sadan. Even worse, it had no intension of even telling the University that the ex-students had changed their mind and were unwilling or unable to fund the Silpa Sadan project.

That was beyond shocking for me. To me, a promise made, especially to people like the Vice Chancellor and the Governor, had to be followed through even if the deal was to be cancelled. One just did not suddenly decide to forget it.

As a result, I decided to single handedly do my part of the duty, i.e. help out Silpa Sadan within my personal capacity, and apologize to the University and the Governor on behalf of the ex-students for the group’s failure to follow through.

I went back to Santiniketan to talk things out with the University to find out how this help could be arranged. At that point of time, I was acting all by myself, for myself. I was not rich and had no idea how much I was going to be able to help. But I was determined to help whatever little I could, to fulfil a promise and to also see that Silpa Sadan does not die.

Eventually, I got to speaking with the University on formation of the special account where we could send funds. In that regard, Vishal Bhand took me to speak with the Registrar, Manimukut Mitra, at his residence in Ratan Palli. The Register’s quarter was where Rathindranath Tagore’s adopted daughter Pushu di and Giridhary Lala used to live, along with their son Sunondan. 

Manimukut Mitra offered tea and discussed the issue with both of us. He thought the funds should be given as a loan, to be returned by Silpa Sadan in say ten years time, without interest. I felt otherwise. I said if Silpa Sadan was able to stand on its own and same time succeed in popularizing rural handicraft among the urban buyers, and succeed in bringing some financial benefit and relief to the artisan community and help arrest their decline and bring the tradition back to vibrancy and health, I shall consider my loan to Silpa Sadan to have been fully paid back with interest.

All talks at that time was primarily between myself and the University staff. I did not know if anybody else would join up. As it happened, two others were to try to join in near future. But that is into the future.

Eventually, my time came to an end in India. The new account was not set up yet. It was apparently going to take time since this proposal had also to be approved by the UGC or the central Government.

I departed for Canada and left the matter for the Vice Chancellor, Registrar, and Vishal Bhand to sort out. Vishal became my point of contact, and was to inform me when the account has been set up and activated. He was to pass me the account details.

At that time, I started engaging with a few like minded exstudents that wanted Visva Bharati to do well and understood the reason why Silpa Sadan was created and the reason its very existence was now threatened.

We started engaging often on telephone based conference calls. I used to initiate the conference call. People that often joined me are:

• Dr. Tapas Basu from UK
• Piyali Palit from Kolkata
• Tamojit Ray from Bangaluru
• and late Debadyuti Chakraborti (Sotu da) from Kolkata

During those months, I was conducting conference calls frequently, perhaps a few times every month, involving multiple parties in multiple regions of the planet. I was usually in Canada, but a few times I was at work in other parts of the world, such as in China or Europe. Almost constant companions in the talks were Piyali Palit from Kolkata, Tamojit Ray from Bangaluru, and Tapas Basu from England. Occasionally, Debadyuti Chakraborti (Sotu da) used to join up from Kolkata.

Sotu da had a distinction. He was a regular visitor of Santiniketan, as he had a home in Purva Palli, Santiniketan. Once while in India, I had travelled to Santiniketan with Sotu da in his own car, with Piyali Palit as the other companion.

Sotu da used to speak with many other ex-students in an effort to bring some solution to pressing issues for the University. For example, the school Patha Bhavana had a peculiar problem where children were no more going to the play ground in the evening, due to various reasons, one of which was there were no good sports coaches to supervise the children. Sotu da had gone to many of the retired resident ex-students near Santiniketan who were in their time good soccer players, requesting them to consider attending the play ground, voluntarily and free of charge, once a week, to help the children. Unfortunately, not body agreed to come forward.

Regarding Silpa Sadan, Sotu da tried to find local investors from Kolkata. IN his working life, he worked in the sales of big corporations and travelled abroad to get overseas contracts for the products that his employer made, such as heavy duty polypropylene ropes used to tie up large ships to docks. Anyhow, he knew some investors. So he tried to get them to take interest in investing in Silpa Sadan, whereby they could supply the raw materials that Silpa Sadan often needed, and then buy the final products off Silpa Sadan at a discounted price that would offset the cost of the raw materials they had supplied. Silpa Sadan could make a profit and also have fast supply of high quality raw materials such as ink and colour etc.The investors could then sell it to the wider world after adding to the cost to make a profit themselves.

The investors did visit Santiniketan, and I believe visited Silpa Sadan and spoke with Vishal Bhand. Anyhow, the effort failed since the investors did not find the idea appealing or financially viable.

Somewhere around that time, the special bank account for Silpa Sadan was in the pipeline and it became clear that private donation towards seed money for revival of Silpa Sadan would be a reality. Apparently, the Vice Chancellor (Rajat Kanti Roy at the time), the Registrar (Mitra at the time) and the head of Silpa Sadan (Vishal Bhand at the time) would have rights to sign and operate the account as well as check its status.

Doctor Tapas Bose, ex-student of Patha Bhavana, alumni of the Kolkata Medical college and a surgeon in the UK, was a die hard supporter of Santiniketan, Visva Bharati, and to my knowledge, perhaps the largest philanthropist for all kinds of projects in and around Santiniketan where people benefitted from his large hearted donations.

He lived in England but visited India every winter for several months. He liked to stay in Santiniketan for long stretches, including during Poush Mela. For many years, his home in England was open to many artists and visitors from Santiniketan and Kolkata.

I had gotten to be a very good junior friend of his though I had never visited him in UK. He and his wife had visited me in Canada and we had gone sight seeing while he stayed at our place for a week or so.

During Poush Mela, Tapas da had offered financial assistance for some of the stalls to be set up by ex-students.

He owned a nursing home in Kolkata and many ex-students had their check up and even surgery performed there at concessional costs. He even provided jobs to some of the pass out students from a few private schooling education centres for the destitute often adivasi children set up by other senior ex-students and past officials of Visva Bharati or Patha Bhavana.

I have rarely met another person that so whole heartedly believed in Rabindranath Tagore and his institution and was so large hearted in offering financial help in many efforts directly or indirectly involving Visva Bharati or people around it.

Tapas da had by then learned that I was beginning to save money, cutting down on my vacation travel and purchase of this or that items to help Silpa Sadan. I was an avid nature and bird photographer, and spent some of my spare money in buying camera and lens for bird photography. I had stopped some of that expenditure, in order to save something to send to Silpa Sadan in small instalments. Tapas da was himself an avid photographer and had an unbelievably large and fancy collection of photographic gear. It was at his residence in Kolkata that I first got to see and handle large format field cameras of the kind that past greats like Ansel Adams used for his groundbreaking landscape images of United States of the nineteenth century.

When Tapas da learned of my efforts to help Silpa Sadan, to partly fulfil the promise that I felt the ex-student body had made to the Governor and Vice Chancellor but did not wish to follow up on, along with my wish to see Silpa Sadan do well anyhow to fulfil the extremely relevant issue of bringing economic viability to rural India as envisaged by Tagore, he joined the effort and informed me that he too would make contributions when the time came.

I knew Tapas da enough to understand that his words were worth more than gold and that I now had a very good partner in my effort to help Silpa Sadan.

It was many months till the Visva Bharati special account for Silpa Sadan was opened and made active. I got an email notification of the account number and other details from Vishal Bhand. I had by then almost one lack separately saved for Silpa Sadan. I do not remember the exact amount in Indian Rs sent so long ago, but it was somewhat close to one lack on that first instalment. It took a few days for Vishal Bhand to confirm that the money had been deposited in that account.

This news was shared in our conference calls or other communications. Sometime after that, Tapas da made the second instalment of somewhere around sixty, or seventy or eighty thousand Rs. I do not remember the exact amount. In any case I did not send it. Tapas da, the best I remember, arranged the payment through the local bank of the Kolkata Nursing Home he was operating. Anyhow, this amount too had subsequently been debited into the Silpa Sadan account.

Vishal Bhand should be in the best position to tell the tale of what happened when these funds were made available for Silpa Sadan. Other than getting note of profuse thanks personally from Vishal Bhand, we did not receive any further official note of acknowledgement or further communication from Visva Bharati or the Governor’s office or anybody else anywhere.

I was intending to visit Santiniketan within a few days in this month of June, 2018. Perhaps I should ask Vishal to sit before a Camera and tell us his side of the story on record, on what he did when these funds started trickling in. By now he had, I think, almost a lack fifty thousand of so, or about a third of the funds originally requested by the Vice Chancellor.

From my side, it took many more months to save some more money to send to Silpa Sadan. But I had not forgotten my duty. I had no idea how long it might take to save enough to make up five lacks. Anyhow, it was perhaps about a year after I made the first wire transfer, that the second one was made. This time it was perhaps around sixty or seventy thousand Rs. I do not remember the exact amount any more, since it is so long ago. But I did send emails of the remittances to Vishal Bhand. I thought the total amount, with two instalments from me and one from tapas da, totalled upwards of two lacks, perhaps closer to half the money requested.

Anyhow, I again received a note of profuse thanks from Vishal Bhand. He used words that I remember till today. He said – I can’t thank you enough.

Also, he did mention that Silpa Sadan was already self sufficient in funding requirement and he had managed to turn the institution around already. Therefore, there would no more be any need to send further donations.

I have my own way to making judgment of people’s character. I have come across hundreds of organizations across the world that take donations from people for this or that cause. I have been around the world and visited and temporarily worked in dozens of countries and almost all continents except for Antarctica.

I had never ever come across one that halfway through the process or receiving free donations, decline to take any more because they already had enough. I have never seen anybody refuse freely donated money, in my entire life.

I had already formed a very good opinion of Vishal Bhand, from my own visit of Silpa Sadan and working with him. But now I came to understand that he not only was quick, efficient and able to take reasonable risk in financial decisions that a commercial enterprise must take every day, but on top of that he was efficient, he was honest and he had integrity, along with sympathy for those that were trying to help him and his institution.

I do not easily give high compliments to people, but I had no hesitation is stating that I had not met another person before who told donors – do not send any more because we already have enough, even when what he received was only half of what was promised.

I am now told that, although we donated barely a little more than two lack Rs, Silpa Sadan’s coffers now have over twenty five lacks. by rotating that money, and earning from its sales. But more importantly, it has expanded its operations to benefit high end modern designers from the urban community while same time brought in greater visibility, recognition and financial gain to the rural artisans.

Bravo.. Vishal Bhand and Silpa Sadan.

I consider this note to be primarily a thank you note for Vishal Bhand, to Silpa Sadan, and most importantly, to Rabindranath Tagore for conceptualizing and starting this grand project a century ago.

I intended to hear from Tapas da for his version of the story, which has now been included in the short video talk through long distance telephony. Tapas da is getting along in years, as we all are. I feel sad that, as his direct involvement with philanthropy is going down, people might be beginning to ignore him because he is not as useful to them as he was in his younger years – a kind of selfishness that I find abhorring.

Anyhow, I await personal input from Vishal Bhand, without which this tale will not be complete. Unfortunately, it is too late to ask Sotu da for his efforts.

In my view, the greatest credit for the revival needs to go, other than to Rabindranath himself, to Silpa Sadan and Vishal Bhand, for succeeding in the revival of the institution and reestablishment of the tradition. They made the success possible. They needed tools, in way of seed money, to make it work. We merely provided the tools. What we did, i.e. saved some money to pass it to Silpa Sadan was a minuscule part of our repayment back for everything that Santiniketan and Rabindranath has given us. That was easy. What Silpa Sadan and Vishal did, was the hardest of all tasks – to make it work and to succeed in having Silpa Sadan fulfil its socio-economic and cultural function for bengal handicrafts and for the benefit of local artisans. Credit needs to go where it belongs.

As it happened, I was severely criticized recently at kalor dokan in Santiniketan by some new age ex-students and ex-staff for helping out Silpa Sadan. They implied that I had lots of money to throw away and I had donated some to Silpa Sadan primarily to paint myself in good light, but that the money was wasted. It did nothing to help either Silpa Sadan or Visva Bharati. They even addressed Vishal Bhand as a Khochhor খচ্চর।

I got so upset with it that I have developed a seriously negative view of some of the ex-students that seem forever eager to criticize anybody that ever tries to do anything constructive. As a result I find it a waste of time to interact with them any more.

I still visit Kalor Dokan because I knew Mr. Kalo, who used to take care of school kids when my mother was a school kid in Patha Bhavana, apart from being the goalkeeper in the University football team. Kalo da is no more. But I know and respect his son Madan da and still go to see him. He is well over 70 years old. Once he stops coming to run Kalor Dokan, I believe the tea stall will permanently shut down, lowering curtain on one more chapter of Santiniketan.

Then all that remains might be just fading memories.

Tonu.