Recreating Rabindranath Tagore's first visit to China in 1924, his great grand nephew today met the grandson of the legendary Chinese poet Lu Xun who hosted the Nobel laureate over 90 years ago in China's Shaoxing city.
The meeting of Prof S N Tagore with Lu's grandson, Zhou Ling Fei was a symbolic attempt to recreate the Gurdev's first visit to China, Indian Consul General in Shanghai, Prakash Gupta who was present during the event said.
"It was also a unique occasion today, as ever since the meeting of Tagore and Lu in the 1920s, it was for the first time that after over 90 years, their direct relatives met," Gupta told PTI.
Tagore, who had visited China thrice, has a fanatical following in the country with several devoted their lives to learn Bengali and English to translate his works.
Considering his popularity, China last month released the first collective works of Tagore in Chinese language, a rare honour to the Indian poet who enjoys an iconic status among generations of Chinese people.
In all 33 volumes containing 16 million words covering his poetry, essay, novel and drama sections were released coinciding with Tagore's 155th birth anniversary.
His great grand nephew Prof Tagore was on a visit to China on the invitation of the Lu Xun Cultural Foundation with the support Indian Consulate in Shanghai.
Other delegation members included, Dr Indra Nath Choudhuri, eminent Tagore Scholar and author of book on Tagore's vision of contemporary world, Dr Sanghamitra Basu of Indira Gandhi National Centre and Dr Avijit Banerjee of Cheena Bhavan.
They also met Tan Zhigui, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Shaoxing Municipal People's Government.
A series of events celebrating the friendship between Chinese poet Lu and Tagore are being held in the city.
These included a panel discussion at the Shaoxing University titled 'A dialogue beyond Time and Space' which was held today.
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Another key event planned for tomorrow includes a lecture on Tagore and readings of his works at the Zhejiang YueXiu University of Foreign Languages, followed by a dialogue between literary masters of Shaoxing city with the visiting delegation, Gupta said.
Shaoxing city leadership also evinced strong interest in hosting a bust of Tagore at a prominent location in Shaoxing city.
It was also proposed to organise an India Culture Week towards the end of the year in Shaoxing, which would feature an Indian film festival, an exhibition of Indian paintings and Indian food festival.
Local city leadership intends to launch the India Culture Week with the inauguration of the installation of the bust of Gurudev Tagore in Shaoxing city.
Since Shaoxing is also the home town of late Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, during the India Culture Week, two dialogue forumsfocusing on the friendship between Tagore and Lu andon the exchanges between Zhou andformer Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru are proposed to be held.
Given the long history of association between Lu and Tagore, Shaoxing leadership also proposed setting up of sister-city relations with Kolkata, Gupta said.
Shaoxing located in China's highly industrialised Zhejiang province has one of the largest concentration of Indian community.
Shaoxing is home to some 2,000 Indian textile traders.
