By its very name, Rabindranath Tagore had articulated his vision for Visva Bharati University. It was to be an institution of education that would uphold values of a borderless world. It would attract students from across the globe to enable better understanding among citizens of the world.
Unfortunately, within a century, Tagore’s vision seems to have been obfuscated, with students now coming to Visva Bharati from West Bengal’s districts. Although it is a central university, the academic standards have plummeted to such depths that it no longer commands a premium position in the academic space. Nor have the teachers of the Visva Bharati School, college or university been successful in maintaining the academics-plus aura that set the University students apart from others.
But what is amazing is that despite its dwindling status as a university town, brand Santiniketan has tremendous global recall among those who do not measure life in terms of purchasing power alone. A lot of world citizens are attracted by the fact that in Santiniketan one can still find studio apartments for Rs 2,000 or less, hire a cycle for Rs 500 a month and pretty much stay afloat at around Rs 5,000. There is little doubt that there is something about Santiniketan that still upholds what Tagore envisioned.
As I sit in the small cafe run by my partner and I, the kind of people we meet amazes me — they are not only from India but also the rest of the world and have various passions. Recently, we met two coffee drinkers sitting at separate tables, both over 70 years of age, one an Indian resident of Santiniketan and the other an American, who suddenly discovered that they had been to jail for anti-nuclear demonstrations under the umbrella of the same activist group in the 60s. With whoops of delight, they started ringing up other associates who are now settled all across the globe.
Then there is this Korean poet who is such a patron of the arts and aesthetics that he not only pays for parties held by art students at our cafe, but regularly buys their work to encourage them. And this Spanish lady, who is studying philosophy and sculpture, knows more about yantras than I will ever be able to learn. On her esoteric pursuits, all she says is, “They are all related.”
A Swedish gentleman, who ran a world music store in Stockholm, now lives in Santiniketan and is trying to infuse into the youngsters some interest in world music, while a Polish girl spends her years between Europe and Santiniketan. A computer engineer by profession, she was in Santiniketan to learn Sanskrit and Tibetan. A research scholar from Slovenia is doing a PhD on the influence Tagore had on a Slovenian poet. An Australian whose mother is Iranian is a Sai Baba devotee and lives in Puttaparthy — she was in Santiniketan checking out how she could work in textiles. Then there is this lady from Vietnam who is translating children’s stories in Bengali into her language. A gentleman from Spain has the largest collection of Tagore books outside India. And the list goes on. The attraction to Santiniketan so real, yet so difficult to comprehend.
This young man from Malta, who is translating Geetanjali into Maltese, dropped by at the cafe looking up some references and people in Santiniketan. The T-shirt he was wearing had some inscriptions in Chinese. Even as he sat talking to us, the adjoining table was taken by a tall, thin foreigner. Soon the newcomer, a Briton, was participating in our conversation. He surprised us by asking the guy from Malta where he had got his T-shirt from. It was bought in Rio, Brazil from a convention centre that was hosting a Chinese delegation. The Briton then proceeded to read the Chinese script on the T-shirt and said it was the name of a book by Camus. So where did he learn Chinese? He was in Hong Kong for six years. And what brought him to Santiniketan? He was here at the University to learn Hindi!
