Residence 1
📍64 Dwarkanath Tagore Lane, Jorasanko, Kolkata 700007, West Bengal, India
1861 – 1901“Jorasanko was never merely a house — it was a civilisation in miniature. My grandfather Dwarkanath had built it as a centre of Bengali Renaissance culture, and by the time I was born the walls had absorbed decades of music, poetry, and philosophical argument. I wrote my first poem at eight, my first play at sixteen. My family staged theatrical productions in the inner courtyard. The house gave me the conviction that art and thought were not luxuries but the truest form of patriotism.”
👍 LovedThe inner courtyards where my family held theatrical performances under the open sky
👎 DislikedThe grief that accumulated in these rooms — the deaths of my wife, two children, and a niece before I turned fifty
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today
Residence 2
📍Uttarayan Complex, Rabindra Bhavana, Visva-Bharati University, Shantiniketan 731235, West Bengal, India
1901 – 1941“I founded Shantiniketan as a school in 1901 with five pupils beneath a tree. Twenty years later it had become Visva-Bharati — the university where East and West would meet as equals. I designed the five houses of Uttarayan myself, building them as the university grew around me. I wrote Gitanjali here, taught here, and received visitors from across the world. What I valued most was seeing a student from China study beside one from Germany beneath the open sky.”
👍 LovedThe open-air teaching — the refusal of walls between student and nature that defined everything we were trying to do
👎 DislikedThe bureaucratic resistance from those who wanted examinations and buildings rather than the exchange of ideas
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today
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