BASHABI FRASER tells me she flew from her home in Edinburgh, where she has long been an academic working on the poet Rabindranath Tagore, to Kolkata to be with her “critically ill” father Bimalendu Bhattacharya (whom I have met on one of his annual trips to be with his daughter in Scotland).
But Bashabi returned home for a few days for the unveiling of a Tagore bust in Edinburgh, which has long been one of her ambitions. Following the unveiling of the bust in the garden of Sandeman House near Edinburgh’s historic Royal Mile, Bashabi went back to Kolkata to be with her 96-year-old father.
Bashabi Fraser with the new Tagore bust in Edinburgh
Tagore’s bust has been placed facing that of his longtime friend, Sir Patrick Geddes, a Scottish biologist turned innovative town planner.
Edinburgh University has published a book on the correspondence between Tagore and Geddes, who held the chair of sociology at the University of Bombay from 1919 to 1924. Bashabi, who is professor emerita of English and Creative Writing at Edinburgh Napier University, compiled and edited the correspondence.
The Tagore bust, sculpted by Ram V Sutar, was gifted by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations to the Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies, where Bashabi is director. It was unveiled by Indian high commissioner Vikram Doraiswami and Lord Provost of Glasgow Robert Aldridge.
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