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The Santiniketan Environment
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When,
in 1901, Rabindranath started his Brahmacharyasrama, he found the asrama
"flanked on the south by a sal avenue and an entrance gate covered by
a canopy of
Madhavi creepers. To the east was an orchard of mango trees. Towards the
west were
a few palmyra palm, jamun, casuarina and, here and there, some coconut
palms.
Standing on the north-western outskirt of the old asrama were the two
ancient
Chhatim trees." Rabindranath's choice of Santiniketan for his school was
definitely because of its environment. In "My School", he has written:
"I selected a beautiful place, far away from the contamination of town
life,
for I myself, in my young days, was brought up in that town in the heart
of India,
Calcutta, and all the time I had a sort of homesickness for some
distant lane somewhere, where my heart, my soul, could have its true emancipation...
I knew that the mind had its hunger for the ministrations of nature, mother-nature,
and so I selected this spot where the sky is unobstructed to the verge
of the horizon.
There the mind could have its fearless freedom to create its own dreams
and the
seasons could come with all their colours and movements and beauty into
the very heart of the human dwelling."