My foster father, my glorious friend, Rathindra Nath Tagore

My foster father, my glorious friend, Rathindra Nath Tagore
My foster father Rathindra Nath Tagore, with his father Rabindra Nath Tagore. Calcutta. (West Bengal) Circa 1935.

My foster father Rathindra Nath Tagore, with his father Rabindra Nath Tagore. Calcutta. (West Bengal) Circa 1935. Image & Narrative contributed by Jayabrato Chatterjee, Kolkata My earliest memories were borne back in Dehradun (now in Uttarakhand), where I spent my childhood with my mother, Meera Chatterjee, my maternal grandmother, Kamala Bisi and my Jethu, Rathi Jethu (Bengali term for father's elder brother), Rathindra Nath Tagore. Jethu was Rabindra Nath Tagore’s second child & eldest son. Those were the first eleven and most impressionable years of my childhood. I still remember the rattle of the Dehradun Express that would carry us back to our home in the valley, away from the bustle and noise of Calcutta (now Kolkata). Jethu had left his home in Calcutta to come and live in Dehradun with my family. It was Jethu, who had allotted me a garden patch in Mitali, our home at 189/A Rajpur Road, Dehradun and asked me to tend it with care. He even bought me gardening tools, a pair of sears and a watering can. And as I had held his finger tightly, he had led me through the nursery, pointing out names of flowers usually associated with an English garden – Phlox, Larkspurs, Hollyhocks, Ladies lace, Nasturtium, Sweet-peas, Crocuses, Azaleas and Narcissi. Mitali our home was sheltered by the Himalayas, by the Shivalik ranges that were a riot of Mary Palmers, Crimson hibiscuses and sprawling lawns flanked by flower beds down five cobbled steps. I remember watching the shooting stars that raced across the sky at twilight. Mitali was Ochre in colour, with six large bedrooms, two kitchens, garages, servants’ quarters and a tin shed near the Mango and Lichi orchards where…

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The Wild Parties of JJ School of Art & Architecture

The Wild Parties of JJ School of Art & Architecture
Dance Party. 'Saawan' Architecture festival-C.J. Hall, Colaba, Bombay, Maharashtra. September 25, 1980

Dance Party. 'Saawan' Architecture festival - C.J. Hall, Colaba, Bombay, Maharashtra. September 25, 1980 Image and Narrative contributed by Charu Walikhanna, New Delhi This was a hot day with a baking hot floor. I was in 4th yr of Sir JJ School of Applied Art. And the same campus housed disciplines of Fine Arts, Textiles and Interior Designing. This dance party was an event organised by JJ School of Architecture during their annual festival SAAWAN. The dance party in the image was not in our campus but in a hall in Colaba. I wonder if it still exists. We used to then dance like mad, to songs of ABBA and other such English bands. There was no Punjabi rock or rap in those days and there were definitely no intoxicants or alcohol. Nor did anyone have bottles stashed away in their car like today in Delhi. Some people were into soft drugs though no one ever experimented openly and definitely not at college functions. We lived, ate and dreamed of Art & Design. Our heroes were Picasso, Salvador Dali and Charles Correa. We were so absorbed in our passions, that failure or success was not the ultimate goal. A well known joke was that if one failed at JJ and was yet successful, it may be better because Charles Correa, one of India's most famous architect was JJ drop-out too. In those days, film stars like Parveen Babi flocked to our college to hear J Krishnamurti's lectures on Philosophy, on campus under the huge banyan tree while the sun set and the crows cawed. I was a boarder in Bombay. JJ did not have a girls hostel so we girls…

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