Sunday, March 12, 2017

Talent of Rabindranath (contd-8); Malati Punthi

The first manuscript of Rabindranath was blue coloured papers got from the office. Though nothing from this manuscript came out as a printing material.The second manuscript was a hard bound Khata known as "Letts' Diary" where he wrote Prthirajer Parajay. probably, Abhilas, Hindumelar Upahar etc poems  were  written in that diary. The third manuscript of Rabindranath was Malati Punthi , the oldest Manuscript of Rabindranath received.
In the first part of 1943 Prof. Malati Sen of Lady Arwin School, Delhi, gifted the  manuscript to Rabindrabhaban through the hands of ex-Principal of Rabindrabhaban Dhirendramohan sen. The name of the manuscript , Malati Punthi, was given after her name. Sudhindra Kumar Sen [died 1919], brother of Mrs.Sen, was an admirer of Rabindranath. After his initiative a Literature Forum was created at their former residence at Lahore. After many days of his death the manuscript was discovered at his library. Pravat Kumar Mukhopadhyay , biographer of Rabindranath, inferred how the Manuscript came in the hands of Sudhindra Kumar Sen. It may be that Rabindranath once have given the manuscript to Saratkumari Choudhurani, resident of Lahore and wife of Akshay Chandra Choudhury. She was one of the associates of Sudhindra Kumar and he got it from her.
After  few days of its inclusion in the library of Rabindra Bhavan Prof. Prabodhchandra Sen in an essay titled "Rabindranather Balyrachana" wrote in a short description , "the manuscript was really a big bounded khata. But now the stitching of it had turned to be broken and the pages were damaged. The hard coloured cover of one side is still there. the cover of the other side along with some pages were lost. Now the pages recovered had been laminated and kept in the library of Rabindrabhavan with 231 memoirs. The size of the cover of the newly bounded book is 9 &1/2 by 6 & 3/4 and the size of the pages is 8 &1/2 by 5 & 1/2 ". At present the manuscript is preserved by Microfilm. The manuscript obtained are of 76 pages.                        

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