THE BEGINNING

During the later half of the 18th century, a Brahmin by the name of Panchanan Thakur, used to supply goods and items of daily necessities to the British ships which used to dock in the seaports of Bengal. Although he was a Brahmin, but due to his immense wealth and influence, he was called Thakur.

The ancestors of Panchanan Thakur had settled down in Kannauj about a thousand years back. They were Daksh Brahmans but a member of the family had smelled the aroma of mutton being cooked in the house of one Pir Ali. From then onwards, the family started being called as Pirali Brahmans. This was a type of social ostracisation of the Thakur clan. Englishmen could not pronounce Thakur properly, so they used the more pronounceable word “Tagore” instead.

The extremely wealthy Thakur family were quite influential in Calcutta of the 19th century. Rabindranath, the fourteenth son was born in this family to Debenndra Nath Thakur and Sharda on 7th May 1861 in the palatial house of the Tagores’ in Calcutta.

Debendranath’s father, Dwarkanath had earned a lot of wealth during his lifetime. His lifestyle was no less than a king because of which he was called Prince Dwarkanath. He had thousands of acres of land, sugar mills, tea factories, jute mills, coal mines and hundreds of cargo ships and boats. He cultivated silk, spices and indigo in his estates. All these businesses were conducted under the banner of Carr, Tagore & Co.

Prince Dwarkanath had visited Europe on his own ship. He was the first Indian to have met the Queen of England. He founded many well known institutions in India like the National Library, Kolkata; and the Union Bank of which he was a founder Director.

It was a period of Renaissance in Bengal dominated by many well known social reformers like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. Dwarka Nath Thakur was a close friend of Raja Ram Mohan Roy.

Dwarkanath’s son, Devendranath did not have any interest in expanding the vast commercial empire of his father. He was of saintly nature and became the chief patron of the Brahmo Samaj after the death of Raja Ram Mohan Roy.

Having given birth to fourteen children, Sharda Devi used to maintain indifferent health. Consequently, Rabindranath was brought up mainly in the hands of servants. Rabindranath felt the loss of mother’s affection throughout his life. The servants used to be quiet perturbed due to the daily mischiefs of Rabindranath. In order to control him, one of the servants narrated the story of Sita haran to him and drew a circle with a chalk around Rabindranath. The servant told him that if you come outside this circle, Ravan will take you away.