Slice of Tagore's Santiniketan on Gujarat campus

KOLKATA: Many of Vadodara's colourful roads lead to Santiniketan. It is an old bond that has grown stronger by the year and remained sturdy even as one of the strongest links in the chain, K G Subramanian, better known as Mani da, passed away on June 29.At his memorial service at the fine arts department of MS University , Vadodara, on July 2, it was clear that Tagore's little Santiniketan was there to stay.
The connection was forged with Shankha Chowdhury , the sculptor who was a favourite student of Ramkinker Baij in Santiniketan's Kala Bhavan and a stalwart of cubism.Chowdhury joined MS University as a facuilty member and went on to become one of its most famous deans.It was Chowdhury who invited Subramanian, then a student-turned-teacher at Santiniketan, to join MSU.Even before this, though, Bengal's Nandalal Bose was invited by the Gaekwads of Vadodara to paint mam moth murals like Natir Puja, Gangavataran, battlefield from the Mahabharata and Life of Meera on the walls of the Kirti Mandir.

With Mani da started a new epoch in the history of the faculty of fine arts as he ushered in the Gouash style and took paper cutting collage to the level of art. Around him developed the Santiniketan school of thought that flows, after him, through Indrapramit Roy and Debraj Goswami, both prominent faculty members in the department. Roy , son of Kolkata thespian Kumar Roy , shot to fame with his mammoth murals at the Mumbai T2 terminal.
The Santiniketan influence, however, does not end with art. It has branched out to music and theatre too. One of them is Srotoshwini, a Ra bindrasangeet group founded by Jui Dutta that usually performs at the open air theatre of Camati Baug. The popularity of the group transcends the Bengali community there and has enthusiastic participation from Gujaratis as well. Subramanian was enthusiastic about the dissemination of Tagore's music in Vadodara.
“In appreciation of his involvement, we had Rabindrasangeet renditions at the memorial service at the faculty of fine arts where some of his favourite songs were sung,“ Roy said from Vadodara.
Mani da, Roy and others also promoted theatre through the Sanskritik Samanway Mancha. Kallol Bandyopadhyay has directed plays staged in Vadodara starring Soumitra Chatterjee, Bibhas Chakraborty and Rudraprasad Sengupta, who are quite popular there. The Gujarat-Santiniketan connect even has a celluloid touch with a film based on artist Benod Behari, Satyajit Ray's teacher at Santiniketan. The as-yet-unreleased movie has been directed by Vadodara-based Pronab Purokayastha.