While resting in the lap of the Ganges, Tagore also composed some prose pieces quite distinct from his usual prose works: “Gangar dhare bosia Sandhya Sangeet chara kichu-kichu godyo O likhitam. Seo kono bandha lekha nohe—seo akrakom ja-khushi tai lekha…” (‘Rabindra Rachanabali’, Vol IX, 491) 

[Coupled with Sandhya Sangeet I also wrote some prose by the Ganges. Those were not structured pieces, organized or framed—those were random delightful records]. 

‘Bibidha Prasanga’, written during 1883, is a reservoir of precise and succinct passages numerous in number and diverse in thoughts. In chronicling the short essays, Pal in Rabijabani, allocates a specific course of time to these prose pieces; “Ei sankhipto prabandhaguli srabon 1288 theke suru kore kartik o agrahayon chara proti mas e koekti kore mudrito hoe boisakh 1289-sonkhyay sesh hoy arthat moran shaheb er bagane sutropat o sadar street er bashay abosthankaler kichudin porjonto ei rachonar dhara probahito hoe choleche”(‘Rabijibani’,Vol II, 155) 

[These short prose pieces started coming out in pages from July 1288 (English 1881), appearing almost regularly, one or two each month, except for the period of late October to early December, culminating in the issue of April 1289 (English 1882), which means, it all began at Moran Shahib’s Bungalow and went on continuing till some days after they shifted to the house at Sadar Street]. 

Incidentally, Jyotirindranath and Kadambari moved to a house in Sudder Street, Calcutta, from Chandernagore. From the conversational tone of the essays and the short and pithy style, the interlocutor’s presence can be sensed and Tagore had later acknowledged the anonymous participant in the conversation is none other than his sister-in-law, Kadambari Devi. 

Thus the Palace of the Moran Sahib acted as the necessary catalyst in the alchemic transformation of a young, sensitive soul into a creative artist par excellence. The garden house at Telenipara, sadly enough, could not withstand the ravages of time and Moran Saheber Kuthibari became a prey to growing urbanisation at Chandernagore. Tagore’s creative palace, pregnant with memories, was demolished, for areas adjacent to the Ganges were conducive to the establishment of Jute mills. As a great amount of water was needed in the processing of Jute, Moran Shahib’s Kuthi by the Ganges was bulldozed to make way for the Gondalpara Jute Mill. When Tagore came back to Chandernagore after many years of his stay at Moran Sahib’s, in 1935, his treasured Palace had disappeared. His lament, recorded in Harihar Sett’s ‘Rabindranath O Chandannagar’, is a pertinent observation of the inroads of industrialization. He sighs that his treasured house “louhodantur kabale kabalito”  (“crushed and swallowed” by the “iron jaws of the Dundee Mills”).

Though the concrete structures no longer exist, yet the memories of those days recur directly in three of his short stories, ‘Apod’, ‘Adhyapok’ and ‘Pragati Sanghar’. While in the first two stories, written in 1894 and 1898 respectively, Tagore focuses primarily on the houses he stayed at Chandernagore, the last one, though episodically, is a critical evaluation of the French rule at Chandernagore. ‘Apod’ (Galpoguccho, 239-246), set in a garden- house by the Ganges in Chandernagore, is reminiscent of a young Tagore wandering and relaxing in the garden house of the Banerjees at Telenipara. 

Moreover, the story begins on a stormy evening with the heated conversation between a couple, Sarat and Kiran, who have come to Chandernagore for a change of place – as Tagore’s family members often came for a change of air – prescribed by a doctor with a view to improve the health of Sarat’s ailing wife. Though Chandernagore is the locus standii, ‘Apod’ is basically an intricate story of relationships which has no traces either of French education or of colonial-native dialectics. However, the descriptions of the stormy night and of the natural ambience in the short story are partly autobiographical. ‘Adhyapok’ (Golpoguccho, 322-334), which preserves an episodic chunk of Chandernagore, has a direct reference to a garden house at ‘Farashdanga’ where the protagonist, Mahindrakumar, a student of Arts, comes with an ambition to write something marvellous. The vivid description of leisurely afternoons spent by the Ganges is partly autobiographical. The ‘bagan’ of ‘Adhyapok’ in ‘Farashdanga’ is an unmistakable reference to Barujyeder bagan. The third and fourth chapters contain glimpses of Moran Shaheber Kuthibari. One sultry afternoon rejuvenating his mind in fresh air, blowing from the Ganges, Mahindrakumar’s attention was drawn towards his neighbour, Kiranbala’s residence. 

The description of Kiranbala’s house is that of Moran Sahib’s Bungalow. The author’s imagination overcasts a film of unfamiliarity around the house making it strangely intimate to the readers. Although in reality the two houses were not so near, in the short story, Kiranbala’s dwelling palace, resembling Moran Sahib’s Bungalow is the next neighbour of Mahindrakumar’s place of stay. Though set in Calcutta, ‘Pragati Sanghar’ (Rabindra Rachanabali, Vol XIV, pp 67-75], written almost at the end of his life, in between 11-21 June 1941, Calcutta has an episodic reference to Chandernagore. The protagonist, Niharranjan, is born and brought up at French ruled Chandernagore. His knowledge of the French language offers him a scope to address the visiting French scholars at his University: “Niharranjaner bari Chandannagare. Pratham boyesh e Forashi school e tar bidyasikkha, shekhane or bhashar dakhol niye khub khyati peyechilo, e-sob katha or kolkatar bondhumahal keu janto na…ki aschorjo, abhinandan jakhon porlo tar bhasar chhotay forashi pandit ebong tnar du-akjon anuchar aschorjo hoe gelen. Tnara bollen – erakom marjito bhasha Francer baire kakhono shoneni. Bollen, e cheletir uchit Paris e giye degree arjon koreasha”(73)[Niharranjan lives in Chandannagore. In the early years, he got his education in a French school, there he received acclaim and praise for acquiring the language so well, he never talked about these to his friends in Calcutta…to a great surprise, when the welcome note cascaded down gently, the splendour of his expression left the French scholar and his one or two companions speechless. They remarked – they had never come across such marvellous rendition of French beyond the boundaries of France and agreed in unison that the boy must come to Paris to get a degree]. The excerpted passage unearths the fissure, latent in the discourse of colonization, which is potentially prone to disruption. Niharranjan went to a French school at Chandernagore and learnt the language so devotedly, that his proficiency surprised a Professor from the Sorbonne. Nihar’s perfect acquisition of a foreign language and culture, subverts the authority of the colonizer over the native rather than reinforcing it, for the native, by imitation, has now created a third space of resistance and contest. Education, the colonizer’s tool for disseminating their culture and thereby manoeuvring the ideological genesis of the native, was a facile method of spreading Orientalism. But in this colonial encounter, the native intellectual surpasses the structure provided by the  authority, creating  a fracture  in the  colonial discourse, where predominance of plurality essentially erases the leverage of the ruler. Not only that, the French Professor and his acquaintances in the short story even suggest Nihar to come to Paris to get a degree. It shows the great leap the native has made. He is able to speak in the tongue of the master and his identity becomes the sign of deference and difference. 

The quoted passage is also slightly revelatory in the attitude of the French towards the native. They seem to have a catholic mind to appreciate the other: “amra bideshi, jodi ba amader bhashay kimba boktritay kono truti hoy ta forashi adhyapak nischoi hashimukhe mene neben. Onra to ar Ingrej non, Ingrejra bideshider kach thekeo nijeder adobkaydar skhalan soite paren na,  emon onder ahankar. Kintu forashider ta noy, barancha Jodi kichu asampura thake seta heshe graham korbe”(72). [The language is not our own, if there is any mistake in the way we want to convey our thoughts in the language, the French Professor would surely take that with a smile. They are not like the British, the British never tolerate a single flaw in the imitation of their etiquette, even from a person who is foreign to their language and culture, such is their pride. But the French are different, even if there is a sense of incompleteness in the expression, they would accept that ungrudgingly and wholeheartedly]. In this speech of an anonymous Bengali girl, who is  Niharranjan’s  classmate, Tagore points  out the difference between the linguistic tolerance of the French and that of the British – while the British are always rigid, the French appear to have controlled parts of India, with a lighter hand. Though the story ultimately ends up  to  be  a  saga  of  unrequited  selfless  sacrifice,  Tagore’s  flashback  strategy  to  include Chandernagore, thereby juxtaposing Niharranjan’s childhood knowledge of French reaping fruitful harvest in his postgraduate days at Calcutta University, speaks volumes of his nostalgia for Colonised Chandannagar; and French education, even as a short reference, is no meagre episode, for one unambiguously discerns the ambivalence inherent in the colonial discourse of early twentieth century Bengal. The three short stories, therefore, become insignia of Tagore’s deep sense of belonging to a place where he has returned time and again.