When Rabindranath Tagore’s funeral procession moved from his home to the cremation ghat, in August 1941, the road was packed with people, all of them eager for a view of his mortal remains, some unruly ones even daring to pluck his hairs as a keepsake. This is something that almost every Tagore devotee in Kolkata knows. Not many, however, may know that the poet had himself handed over locks of his hair to Ranu Mookerjee — a young patron of arts and believed to be his muse during the final decades of his life — as a wedding gift to her in 1925.
Throughout their association, Lady Mookerjee (1906-2000) came to receive many of Tagore’s paintings — his own creations — as gifts, and, when he died, she also found herself in the possession of numerous letters, manuscripts, and personal belongings such as pen and pencils and caps. The Academy of Fine Arts, set up by her in the 1930s, found a home of its own in the 1960s and that’s where Tagore’s creations and communications (including 33 paintings) and belongings (including the locks of hair) in her possession moved for a permanent exhibition along with works of a bunch of other stalwarts such as Abanindranath Tagore, Gaganendranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, Asit Kumar Haldar, Kshitin Mazumdar, and their distinguished students including Benode Behari Mukherjee, Sarada Ukil, Sudhir Khastagir, Ram Kinkar Baij, and Satyajit Ray. “In 1941 when Rabindranath left us, I was the recipient of numerous requests from Santiniketan .