Chinese Tagore expert on Kol tour goes pandal-hopping

Kolkata: A delegation of Chinese scholars led by Dong Youchen, a Tagore expert and executive director of the China Society of World Ethnology and director of the China Beijing Translators Association, experienced Kolkata’s Durga Puja on Tuesday. Though Prof Dong had visited Kolkata several times before, this was his maiden trip during the Durga Puja festival.And he was simply blown away by the experience.
“I am amazed by the turnout of people, the festive spirit all around, the gaiety and pomp and the beautiful artwork in pandals that I have witnessed from outside. At 87, it has made me feel young as I joined thousands of people in enjoying the Durga Puja,” Prof Dong said after a tour of some pujas in the city by heritage enthusiast Samrat Chowdhury.
The other members of the group who did the tour on Tuesday evening were Li Jinyun, Chen Ming, Wang Qingang, Zhu Xuan and He Xiaoxuan. They returned to Kolkata on Tuesday after a trip to Santiniketan on Monday where they participated in an event at Cheena Bhavan, the school at Visva-Bharati that Tagore had founded to promote friendship between India and China. They also visited Khanjanpur village to see a rural village and a simple Durga Puja being celebrated there.
This is the centenary year of Tagore’s first China visit. Tagore had visited China in 1924 and 1928. Tagore’s works left a lasting impression on the Chinese. The first translator of Tagore into Chinese was Chen Duxiu, the first general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. Chen translated four poems from ‘Gitanjali’ from English into Chinese in 1915.
‘Noukadubi’ was Prof Dong’s first translation of a Tagore work, followed by ‘Ghare Baire’, ‘Bou Thakuranir Haat’, ‘Rajarshi’, ‘Megh Roudra’ and several books of poems and essays. In 2005, he published a biography of Tagore. Prof Dong is also the chief editor of a project of translating the complete works of Tagore in 24 volumes.