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Tagore Lodge drifts into oblivion

RAHAT AHMED, Kushtia
Tagore Lodge, the ancestral house of Rabindranath Tagore in the Kushtia town, loses its past glory because of the government's negligence to its preservation.
The 141st birth anniversary of Rabindranath will be celebrated tomorrow across the country. Many will join the function at Kuthibari in Selidah. But no cultural function will spur Tagore Lodge to life.
The then state minister for youth and cultural affairs Obaidul Kader in the Awami League government assured the local people of its preservation.
Also, the Kushtia Municipality took the charge of preserving the lodge, though in name only, on January 26, 2002.
The municipality also hung on the lodge a signboard that reads "Proposed Municipality Tagore Museum".
The municipality took up a project to reconstruct it as Rabindra Museum that will also house a library, sources said.
One Abdul Gofur owned Tagore
Lodge by auction. Although Gofur died many years ago, his successors are still residing in the lodge. The lodge, being a personal property, no longer draws visitors. The Kushtia chapter of the Tagore family is drifting into oblivion.
Situated at Amlapara near the old railway station in the town, the lodge greets people on the way to Rabindranath's Kuthibari in Selidah.
The Tagore family owned a piece of land near the old railway station in the Kushtia town where the poet's ancestors built a house and named it Tagore Lodge.
Rabindranath's elder brothers Bolu Tagore and Surendranath Tagore decided to run their business with its office in the lodge. Rabindranath was also engaged in business at the time and named their business venture "Tagore and
Company".
The use of Tagore Lodge as a branch of the Tagore and Company dates back to 1895. The company dealt in various raw goods, including jute. Later, the company's main office was shifted to Kolkata. The Rainwick and Company established in 1891 by William Rainwick was the only competitor of Tagore's.
As Rabindranath lost his interest in business, he handed over the company to an employee, Jogeshwar Roy, and the company was renamed the Jogeshwar and Engineering Workshop.
Frontline cultural activists and the local people urged the government to take over Tagore Lodge under the Ministry of Youth and Cultural Affairs like Kuthibari in Selidah.