The dilapidated Shanti Niketan. Pictures by Nagendra Kumar Singh

Very few residents would know that the nation’s first Nobel laureate, Rabindranath Tagore, had a short tryst with Patna.

Call it government apathy or lack of public awareness that the places once associated with Tagore in Patna are crying for attention. A place associated with Kaviguru has been partially dismantled, while the other has been erased from the map.

Behind the row of highrises on the bustling Fraser Road stands a two-storeyed old, red brick house, Shanti Niketan, which houses numerous shops. Tagore stayed in this house during his two-day visit to Patna in 1936 as a guest of renowned barrister P.R. Das, the brother of Desh Ratna Chittaranjan Das.

Shanti Niketan houses many shops. However, none of the employees or the shop owners know that Tagore had once stayed at the house with a grand Burma teak staircase from where they are operating. An employee of JD Enterprises, a shop at Shanti Niketan, was surprised to know that Tagore ever visited the place. He declined to say who the present owner of the building was.

Dilip Sinha, the president of Bihar Bengalee Association, who found out details about Gurudev’s visit to Patna, said: “In 1936, Tagore reached Patna in a special saloon by Danapur-Howrah Express and was received by Rajendra Prasad at Patna Junction. He stayed in the house on March 16 and 17. His troupe performed dance drama Chitrangada at the city’s oldest theatre, the Elphinstone Picture Palace. A mall is presently coming up on the land where the theatre once stood.”

According to sources, P.R. Das, who was practising law at Patna High Court at that time, was a tenant in this house. Das christened the house Shanti Niketan, which was owned by Hassan Imam, an eminent lawyer and a freedom fighter.

“The Dakbungalow roundabout was rechristened Kaviguru Rabindranath Chowk to commemorate Tagore’s birth centenary in 1961. But the roundabout is still known as Dakbungalow,” said Sinha.

Shanker Dutt, a professor of English at Patna University, attributes the loss of heritage to a “society which now values commerce more over its history”.