{"id":111,"date":"2014-09-16T12:20:57","date_gmt":"2014-09-16T06:50:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cynthiasiegel.net\/?p=111"},"modified":"2015-04-25T04:09:11","modified_gmt":"2015-04-24T22:39:11","slug":"shantiniketan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cynthiasiegel.net\/?p=111","title":{"rendered":"Shantiniketan"},"content":{"rendered":"

In between my first and second visits to the image-makers of Kumartuli, I spent some time in Shantiniketan. \u00a0It’s a small, quiet (compared to Kolkata!) town about three hours by train from Kolkata, and it has become something of a second home destination\u00a0for people wishing to take a break from the faster pace of the\u00a0city. \u00a0There is a university there that was founded by the much-revered\u00a0poet Rabindranath Tagore and his family.<\/p>\n

As Santiniketan increased in size, \u00a0it grew up and around the beautiful villages of the indigenous Santhal people (one of the largest tribal groups throughout India). \u00a0 Some\u00a0of my favorite memories of my time there are of wandering around the small streets and alleys, discovering sculptures and murals covering\u00a0houses, garden walls, and other structures, made of\u00a0local terracotta clays, concrete, and tile mosaics.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1761\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"IMG_1765\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"IMG_1770\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"IMG_1767\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"IMG_1815\"<\/a>\"IMG_1816\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"IMG_1773\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Another favorite place nearby is the \u00a0Amar Kutir Society for Rural Development<\/a>, which is a cooperative employing more than 450 people in the production of leather craft, batik textiles, and bamboo crafts. \u00a0 You can check out their website here:\u00a0http:\/\/amarkutir.com\/<\/a>\u00a0.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1712\"<\/p>\n

I visited Amar Kutir with the kind and generous Dr. Prasanta Ghosh, who besides being a former Fulbrighter to Washington D.C., is also the head\u00a0of the Deparment of Social Work at Visva-Bharati University, Sriniketan, and a very active board member for\u00a0Amar Kutir. \u00a0The Amar Kutir objective is the reorganization and rejuvenation of cottage and rural industries in handicrafts in the light of the ideals of self-help outlined by Rabindranath Tagore. \u00a0Tagore’s\u00a0statue at the cooperative\u00a0is below.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1740\"While I was in Shantiniketan, I purchased a book by Tagore called On Art & Aesthetics<\/span>, a\u00a0selection of his essays, lectures and letters. \u00a0I’ve been enjoying his manner of expression, and his ideas. \u00a0I’ll leave you with one quote from an essay entitled, “What is Art?,” to chew on before I head back to Kolkata for the next visit to Kumartuli.<\/p>\n

“For Art, like life itself, has grown by its own impulse, and man has taken his pleasure in it without definitely knowing what it is. \u00a0And we could safely leave it there, in the subsoil of consciousness, where things that are of life are nourished in the dark.”<\/em><\/p>\n

I welcome your opinions and comments!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In between my first and second visits to the image-makers of Kumartuli, I spent some time in Shantiniketan. \u00a0It’s a small, quiet (compared to Kolkata!) town about three hours by train from Kolkata, and it has become something of a second home destination\u00a0for people wishing to take a break from the faster pace of the\u00a0city. … Continue reading Shantiniketan<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,14,31,6,26,9,24,21,32,12,30,13],"class_list":["post-111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-amar-kutir","tag-httpwww-cynthiasiegel-com","tag-dr-prasanta-ghosh","tag-fulbright-scholar-program","tag-fulbright-nehru","tag-india","tag-kolkata","tag-kumartuli","tag-rabindranath-tagore","tag-shantiniketan","tag-sriniketan","tag-west-bengal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/cynthiasiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/cynthiasiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/cynthiasiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cynthiasiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cynthiasiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=111"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/cynthiasiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":223,"href":"http:\/\/cynthiasiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions\/223"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cynthiasiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/cynthiasiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cynthiasiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cynthiasiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}