Jora Sanko Thakur Bari History and how it was established in RBU.
By Sk Noor
Rabindranath was born on Monday, 25th Baishakh, 1268 BS, at 2:26 pm (according to English, 7 May 1861) in the house of the Jorasanko Tagore family, at the house of Dwarkanath Tagore Lane. Eighty years later, on 22 Shravan, 1348 BS (August 7, 1941), he passed away in the same house .
According to ancient history, in the middle of the fifteenth century, the first two Muslim rulers, Kamdev, Joydev, Ratidev and Shukadev, the four sons of Dakshinanath Roychowdhury, the zamindar of Chengigutia in Jessore district, converted to Islam through the conspiracy of Pir Ali. According to the social policy of the time, although the other two brothers maintained their own religion, they were excluded from the society and became known as Pirali (or Pirali) -Brahman. Due to their exclusion from the society, their marriages with other Brahmin families came to an end and they resorted to various tactics to get their sons and daughters married. In the same way, the younger Shukadev Roychowdhury married his daughter to a high-class Brahmin named Jagannath Kushari, the zamindar of Pithabhog. Despite being a zamindar, Jagannath abandoned the society for the crime of marrying Pirali-kanya and settled in Baropara village with the help of Shukadev.
This Jagannath Kushari is the ancestor of the Tagore dynasty. At the time of Job Charnock’s arrival in Calcutta, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, Panchanan, a descendant of Jagannath, and his uncle Shukadev came to Calcutta in search of fortune. Calcutta was then only a pargana but became a major center of trade and commerce thanks to the Dutch and Portuguese merchants. Hatkhola-Sutanuti region was one of his bases. Uncle-nephew came to Calcutta and started supplying goods to foreign merchants. After that he bought land at Gobindpur, south of Calcutta village and built a house. The fellow villagers used to call them Thakuramshai as Brahmins in caste. Seeing that, the masters also used to call them that Tagore. In time, that Thakur Sahebi was transformed into Tagore in pronunciation.
A short view of jorasanko Thakur Bari:
After the battle of Palashi, the English had to move to Tagore along with many other families to build a new fort in Gobindpur area. Panchanan’s grandson Nilmoni bought land in Pathuriaghata and built a house with the compensation money — the beginning of the Pathuriaghata-Thakur family. But after some time, due to a dispute with his brother Darpanarayan over property, Nilmani left Pathuriaghata with his family goddess Lakshmi-Janardhan. Nilmoni Kushari, the northern male of Panchanan Kushari, built a house of one bigha land in Sanko area under Uttar Mechua Bazar. The sin of Vargharg Lakshmi-Jordan. The land was given by Vaishnav Charan Seth. Jora Sanko Thakur Bari was established in June 1784 .
The golden age of this family started from the time of Neelmani’s grandson Dwarkanath Tagore. Apart from the original house made of sapphires (now known as ‘Maharshi Bhavan’) among the old traditional houses, the premises now have parts of ‘Ram Bhavan’, ‘Bichitra Bhavan’, ‘Bakultala Bhavan’ and the unnamed house built by Jyotirindranath Tagore. Jorasanko Thakurbari was in the possession of the Tagore family till the early sixties of the last century.
Some members of the family lived in the dilapidated house and the rest were shops and warehouses. The state government acquired the house after independence. Rabindranath Tagore University and an exhibition were established .
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On BT Road there is ‘Marakat Kunj’ by Jatindra Mohan Tagore of Pathuriaghata Thakurbari. The second campus of the university was built here in the seventies. With the removal of various divisions from Jorasanko, Jorasanko’s house became fully used as a Rabindra-exhibition hall (there is also another Rabindra-exhibition hall at Rabindra Bhavan in Santiniketan).
Although occupied by the university, the complete renovation of Jorasanko Thakurbari was never done. In the mid-seventies, when the house was on the verge of collapsing, the state government initiated a minor renovation. That’s the end. After that, for more than three decades, no initiative has been taken for maintenance.
https://www.thedailystar.net/in-focus/the-fabulous-tagores-pathuriaghata-calcutta-1540138
On the occasion of the 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath, initiatives have been taken by the Central and State Governments to renovate the entire house. The renovation project, called ‘Heritage Preservation’, seeks to restore the lost architectural and cultural heritage of the entire Thakurbari Chattar.
Houses like ‘Administrative Building’ and ‘Music Building’ were built in modern architectural style next to the old houses at one time for the needs of university studies. Attempts have also been made to renovate older buildings, with the exception of seemingly old ones.
Art and tradition are scattered in every brick, wood and stone of this traditional house. The wooden furniture, cast iron, porcelain tiles, and other artifacts acts scattered in different parts of the house were ruined due long-time time neglect.
In addition to the architectural maintenance of the house in the project, various walls of the house, architectural inscriptions, railings, ceiling gardenfurnitureture, stairs, etc. have also been renovated and preserved. At the same time, a visual look is being given to the old tradition of Thakurbari, so that visitors can enter this house and feel the old tradition of Thakurbari flowing from Dwarkanath to Rathindraath .
