Chair used by Tagore to be displayed at Canning station
The Statesman | 30 March 2025
The upcoming building at Canning railway station is set to carry a slice of Bengal’s glorious past. A chair, used by the Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore will be displayed at the station. This piece of history will add a charm to the station complex for the visitors.
A throwback from the British period, the chair made of teak wood is estimated to be around a century old, and carries with it, a story of the ‘Bard of Bengal.’ As history goes, a Scottish businessman, Sir Daniel Mackinnon Hamilton came to Kolkata as the chief of Mackinnon Mackenzie in the early 20th century and chose the place as his second home. A contemporary of Rabindranath Tagore, he established zamindari in Gosaba, taking measures for rural and social upliftment in that pocket. He introduced the cooperative system in Gosaba, and in all of Sunderbans, aiming to educate people to share responsibility.
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Being a contemporary of the Nobel laureate, he is said to have exchanged several letters on the need for village reconstruction and cooperative societies.
As his Gosaba project came closer to completion in the early 1930, the Scottish businessman, hailing from the Isle of Arran, off the West coast of Scotland, invited Tagore for a visit to Gosaba. Responding to the invitation, the poet and writer decided to pay a visit to Gosaba. The teakwood chair, now kept at Canning Railway running room, shares an anecdote at this point when the poet visited Gosaba. The then railway authorities arranged for a special coach for the author of Gitanjali. Rabindranath Tagore travelled to Gosaba in the special coach and arrived at Canning railway station, which is the gateway to Sundarbans.
He reached the station around 10.30 a.m. on 29 December, 1932. During his visit, the poet saw the development initiatives taken by Sir Hamilton and exchanged ideas on rural upliftment. It was during his return journey, when Rabindra Tagore sat on the teakwood chair while waiting for his train at the station.
Given the historical importance of the arm chair which is presently kept in a glass chamber of the railway running room, the Eastern Railway is now putting efforts to preserve it. Plans are also underway to display it at the station building, under the Sealdah Division that has been picked up for redevelopment as a part of Amrit Bharat Station Redevelopment Scheme of the Indian Railways.