Tagore treasure trove at Mahalanobis home

KOLKATA: In his last few years, Tagore sought the company of Prashanta and Rani Mahalanobis, the two persons known to be closest to him. They would often host him in their rented premises, but they felt Tagore deserved a more sprawling, natural environment. So Mahalanobis built an expansive two-storey bungalow, complete with a garden all around and a pond.The house was ready in 1941, but the couple could never host Tagore, who was by then, too feeble to move.
But Amrapali, as Tagore named the house even without seeing it, has always pulsated with the memory of Tagore and Santiniketan before it became the hub of mathematical, scientific and planning activities. On Wednesday, as the country celebrated National Statistics Day to mark Mahalanobis's 123rd birth anniversary, Indian Statistical Institute, which houses Amrapali, threw open a recently restored wing where the special relationship that the Mahalanobises shared with Tagore has been documented. The gallery is set up in the rooms that were designed for Tagore to stay.
ISI has done this at the behest of the ministry of statistics and programme implementation, as part of a process of converting Amrapali into a museum of Mahalanobis memorabilia. The ground floor traces the roots of the family - the Bandyopadhyays - from the time they migrated from Vikrampur, now in Bangladesh, to Kolkata in the 1850s, getting the Mahalanobis title, their involvement with the Brahmo Samaj and Debendranath Tagore. A large number of research papers of Mahalanobis relating to the phenomenon, "Malanobis Distance", or the first-generation computer that he got designed at ISI in 1953, is al so on display.
Despite his busy schedule as a statistician trying to find solutions to climate vagaries, floods, flushing and irrigation schemes and sample survey, Mahalanobis helped Tagore set up Visva Bharati, chronicle his works, take him to the world through his articles in magazines, such as 'Probasi', and accompany him on his tours, such as the one to Europe, where he assisted Tagore escape Mussolini's spell.
Rare letters between the two, Tagore's poems for the couple, photos of the three together have all been chronicled at the first-floor gallery. One cannot miss the lifesize 'Pratyagata', a pencil sketch by Nandalal Bose; Tagore even wrote his famous poem of the same name. The museum displays restored furniture, clothes and utensils of the Mahalanobises. Even the European style bathroom built with green Italian marble, which Mahalanobis gifted his wife, the refrigerator they used, are showcased.