With time, their friendship became stronger and Birchandra invited Tagore as Guest of Honour on many occasions. Birchandra was pained at the ruthless criticism that Tagore’s early literary works drew from critics at the time. He at one point of time expressed his desire to purchase a printing press for Tagore so that his works could be published.
KRC TIMES Desk
Nobel-laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore was strongly connected to the state of Tripura in northeast India.
Maharaja Birchandra, who himself was a superb painter, an excellent photographer, a great composer of music, a profound scholar of Vaishnav literature and a connoisseur of all creative activities created a stir in the literary world by conferring the honour of the ‘best poet” in 1882 upon the young 21 years old Rabindranath Tagore.
He had conveyed a message to the poet that he could foresee a great future in the poet.
Rabindranath was so moved by Birchandra that he had mentioned the event in his autobiography Jiban Smriti. This saw the beginning of a lasting tie between the poet and the grand ruling house of a princely state.
With time, their friendship became stronger and Birchandra invited Tagore as Guest of Honour on many occasions.
Birchandra was pained at the ruthless criticism that Tagore’s early literary works drew from critics at the time. He at one point in time expressed his desire to purchase a printing press for Tagore so that his works would be published.
After the death of Birchandra, his son Radhakishore extended the hands of friendship to Tagore. Radhakishore sought Tagore’s help in dealing with complicated problems of statecraft.
This friendship strengthened the ties of Tripura with Bengal. Once when Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose who was in England and in a dire financial state, Tagore sought financial help from Radhakishore.
Radhakishore also sanctioned an annual grant of Rs. one thousand for Tagore’s Viswa Bharati which was continued for nearly fifty years till the death of the last ruler, Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore.
Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore, the last ruler of Tripura, respected Rabindranath. He conferred on Tagore the honorific “Bharat Bhaskar” just three months before the death of the great poet.
The famous works like “Bisharjan”, “Rajarshi” and “Mukut’ are based on the events of the Royal family of Tripura. Rabindranath is still an inspiration for both tribal and non-tribal residing in Tripura.
The people of Tripura feel blessed when they remember the immortal line of Tagore “when the woodlands of Tripura have sent out invitations to their floral feast through their courier of the south wind, I have come as a friend”.
