Rabindranath Tagore is remembered for his poetry, paintings and music, but a private collection preserved by a family close to him is set to reveal a lesser-known side of the Nobel laureate. The archive offers a glimpse into a personal chapter of his life that has remained largely away from public view for decades.
The collection will be presented at Christie’s in Mumbai from November 10, giving visitors a chance to explore a different side of the celebrated writer and artist. (Also Read: Italian chef in Australia fired after refusing to put pineapple on pizza, calls it ‘insult to culture’ ) The archive comes from the family home of Maitreyi Devi, a writer and close associate of Tagore, in Mungpoo, a village in Darjeeling. He visited the family between 1938 and 1940, during the final years of his life. Tagore died in 1941. The collection includes 10 complete manuscripts, hundreds of letters, artworks and personal belongings, according to a report by The Guardian . One of the notable documents is a 1940 manuscript believed to be a draft of his memoir, Chelebela, also known as My Boyhood Days. Tagore was the first non-European to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, which he won in 1913 for Gitanjali. Titled Rabindranath Tagore and Mungpoo, the exhibition will run at Christie’s space in south Mumbai from November 10 to December 18.
The collection contains copies of his publications signed for her, along with correspondence exchanged first with her father and later with Devi herself. Because it was dictated to Devi, reflecting the trust he placed in her, one manuscript is particularly significant. Because major institutions such as Visva-Bharati in Santiniketan and the National Gallery of Modern Art already hold substantial collections of his work, the newly revealed archive is particularly valuable.
The manuscript reflects on his childhood in Calcutta, now Kolkata, and the changes he witnessed as electricity and motorcars became part of everyday life. It also offers insights into his thoughts on education. His ideas about freedom and curiosity were closely connected to the learning environment he created at Santiniketan, where students learnt in the open, often sitting under trees with their teachers. The archive also reveals the closeness Tagore shared with Maitreyi Devi and her family. There are also small doodles among the corrections in his manuscripts, offering clues to how his writing and visual art influenced each other. Among the personal belongings preserved at the family home are a kurta and a lungi that Tagore had left behind. The artworks include a portrait of Devi and a landscape depicting the forests of Mungpoo, which had become a retreat for the poet. His legacy extends beyond literature, with his compositions including the national anthems of India and Bangladesh.
Nishad Avari, head of South Asian modern and contemporary art at Christie’s and the exhibition curator, told The Guardian that Tagore compared restrictive education to being in prison.
