ABODE OF PEACE

A visit to Shanti Niketan in West Bengal is truly peaceful, highly artistic and enriching.

- Aruna Rathod Feature Writer | Travel, Food & Lifestyle

My memory of Shanti Niketan was revived when a friend from Mumbai decided to relocate there. I recalled the history text book, where we had studied about Rabindranath Tagore's school with classrooms under trees, in West Bengal. That's all I knew about the place. Almost forty years later, curiosity led me there.

From Howrah Station, there are a good number of trains to Bolpur (the train stop for Shanti Niketan). Some trains take three-and-a-half hours, while the express trains take two hours. I decided to take the Shatabdi Express at 2.15 pm, and was pleasantly surprised at the wholesome lunch served on the train.

Serenity Abounds

Shanti Niketan is situated just three kilometres away from Bolpur Station. While pulling out of the station in an electric rickshaw (called Totos), I see a modern two storey building called Gitanjali. This is a museum dedicated to Rabindranath Tagore, featuring rare photographs, his family's property papers among other historical artefacts. The special railway coach is also preserved in which he was transported to Kolkata from Shanti Niketan before he passed away. It is also known as the Gitanjali Rail Museum.