Save-heritage cry in Pandua

KENDRAPADA: Villagers of Pandua, where Rabindranath Tagore wrote dance-drama Chitrangada' over a century ago, are on a mission to preserve the poet's dilapidated house.
The people of the nondescript coastal village in Jagatsinghpur district urged West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and chief minister Naveen Patnaik to build a memorial of Tagore, whose 150th birth anniversary celebrations are being observed worldwide.
The villagers on Sunday also formed a Rabindranath memorial committee to make their mission realistic. "For umpteenth times, we urged the district administration and the state cultural department to help us build a memorial in Gurudev's memory. But they did not pay any heed to it. Recently, some persons from West Bengal visited Pandua village and were shocked to witness the neglected and dilapidated building of Rabindranath," said Sarat Das, the president of Rabindranath memorial committee. "Recently, we wrote letters to the chief ministers of West Bengal and Orissa to help us preserve the old house of Gurudev and to build a hall in the village in the poet's memory," added Das.
At present, Tagore's house is a place of haunting silence with overgrown weeds wrap it around due to government negligence for years.
Tagores were the zamindar of Pandua and nearby 30 villages, said octogenarian Baishnava Sahoo, who heard from his father about the visit of Rabindranath along with his family members to the village each summer. The coastal village was being used by Tagore to spend some days in serenity.
In his autobiography, Tagore mentioned that he wrote Chitrangada' in the calm environment in Pandua. Prabhat Mukherjee, who wrote Tagore's biography, also mentioned that the poet wrote Chitrangada' in his zamindari house in Pandua.
Once or twice a year, Tagore used to visit the village, which was then covered with mangroves. "Tagore used to sit under a bakul tree in his house," said Sarat Das, who like many veterans in the village had a glimpse of the renowned poet during their childhood.
Some villagers installed a half bust statue of the poet in Pandua in 1998. Former chief minister Harekrushna Mahatab visited Pandua in 1961 during the poet's birth centenary celebrations and promised to build an auditorium in the poet's memory but he could not keep it, said Das.