SHILLONG: It has been nearly four years now since the historic Sidley House at Upland Road in Laitumkhrah area of the city was razed to the ground after it was sold to a Jaintia Hills based coal baron but there is no sign or effort to put in place a Tagore memorabilia with the old plaque that once adorned the entrance of the erstwhile heritage Assam type bungalow.
Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore stayed in this bungalow in May-June 1927 on his third visit to Shillong.
This house was earlier known as Solomon Villa owned by a European D. Lanagard and was later purchased by the king of Sidley and renamed Sidley House.
Tagore’s stay here was arranged by his ardent admirer and an Ahmadabad-based business tycoon Ambalal Sarabhai – who hired this house exclusively for Tagore’s stay then. It was here that the poet laureate gave shape to his famous novel Teen Purush later known as Yogayog and poems – Susomoy and Debdaru.
During the spot visit on Sunday, it was found there was no plaque at the site of the new building.
Shillong boasts of several such princely estates like Mayurbhanj, where the Rajiv Gandhi Indian Institute of Management is functioning temporarily today besides Bijni- where the National Institute of Technology is located and Tripura Raja Bari near Golf Links.
Sidley House was kept intact by the daughter of Sidley’s king till her last days but it was her stepdaughter who sold it allegedly in a clandestine manner since it was always in the limelight for being associated with the memoirs of the Nobel Laureate.
Many say that the stepdaughter even prevented tourists and visitors who went there with an aspiration to know more about the historic house and always tried to thwart the nostalgia associated with the property.
Many tourists from the country and abroad visited this important bungalow.
Stuart Allan, a researcher from UK, told this reporter in 2013, “I learnt that Tagore stayed in Jit Bhoomi when he was ill while his stay was arranged by a Gujarati friend of his in Sidley House. I was sorry not to find the latter.”
Tagore stayed in Brookside Mansion during his maiden visit in 1919 and Jit Bhoomi in 1923.
When the news of Sidley House being sold and razed to the ground spread, sparking widespread anger and protest, Tagore lovers from the city rushed to the location only to find that the picturesque cottage has gone into the pages of history.
They then approached the new owner, who has built a mammoth RCC building in its place, and was assured that the plaque with a bust of Tagore along with the
attached locale will be reinstalled at a site inside the property in a memorial befitting the Bard of Bengal with the right environment.
But, now nearing four years there is no sign of the memorial as was promised by the new owner.
The group of Tagore lovers looking after the restoration of the plaque and memorabilia work consists of Naba Bhattacharjee, JL Das, Bangiya Sahitya Parishad secretary Shyamananda Bhattacharjee, Basu Chakraborty among others.
City based educationist and author of “Tagore and Pineland Shillong”, Uma Purkayastha, also a member of the group fighting for the plaque reinstallation, reiterated only what she has said in August, 2013 that the new owner had promised a bust of Tagore with the plaque to put up at a suitable memorial in one corner of the property once the construction of the house is over. She also informed then that the bust has already been sculpted.
Tagore lovers, for whom this property is dear, are rightly questioning the efforts in this regard.
They are of the opinion that the house construction was over months back and the memorial is long overdue.
They even alleged that those who are overseeing the plaque restoration work are going too slow on this matter where public sentiments are involved.
It may be mentioned that the new owner of this house acknowledged then that he wasn’t aware about the heritage status of this plot when he bought it and took all responsibilities, amidst public sentiments associated with the property, to preserve it.
