Santiniketan, June 29: Visva-Bharati university has set up a committee to decide whether its campus can be allowed to be used to shoot Nalini, a bilingual film being produced by Priyanka Chopra's company.

The film is based on the teenaged Rabindranath Tagore's supposed "relationship" with Annapurna Turkhud.

The eight-member committee is expected to keep a gimlet eye on the plans for the "commercial and romantic" film to ensure that:

• No objectionable (read intimate) scene is shown.

• No harm comes to the dignity and personality of Tagore.

Visva-Bharati officiating vice-chancellor Swapan Kumar Datta, who heads the committee, said the members would examine the proposed content of the Marathi-Bengali film being produced by actress Priyanka's Purple Pebble Pictures.

The panel includes poet Sankha Ghosh and Supriya Tagore, former principal of Patha Bhavana, one of the two schools run by Visva-Bharati.

"We are yet to decide regarding the permission. We have formed the committee. I will not make any comment regarding the shooting right now," Datta added.

On Monday, Datta had convened a meeting of the committee with the film's director, Ujjwal Chatterjee, of Escape from Taliban fame.

Tagore was 17 when he was introduced to Annapurna, daughter of eminent physician and social reformer Atmaram Pandurang Turkhud, for English tuitions before he left for studies abroad in England.

Pupil and tutor became friends and the future Nobel laureate is said to have given the London-educated Annapurna, three years his senior, the name Nalini.

Sources said the story of Nalini, the movie, is based on interactions between Tagore and Annapurna in 1878-79, when the poet was still a teenager. Around that time, Tagore had been sent to his older brother Satyendranath Tagore, the first Indian ICS, to learn English before he left for studies in London.

Satyendranath had taken his sibling to his friend Turkhud's house, where the young poet stayed for two months in 1878 and was taught by Annapurna.

A friendship developed between the two and Tagore wrote poems where he referred to her by the name Nalini.

Asked about Nalini, committee member Supriya Tagore said: "We have asked for the full script."

According to another committee member, the director had given a synopsis of the film. "We have clearly said no objectionable scene can be shown. After seeing the synopsis we had several objections, so we sought the complete script," the member told The Telegraph.

"Let us go through the complete script first and then the decision would be taken. The permission for shooting has been sought for Kala Bhavana only," another member said, referring to the varsity's art wing.

Director Chatterjee said: "I have documents that show that Tagore himself had admitted about the relationship, in writing. So the scenes would be based on the documents and there should be no controversy at all."

One panel member said the makers could of course shoot the film elsewhere but they would have to then do without the involvement with Visva-Bharati, which Tagore founded.

Jogen Chowdhury, artist and professor emeritus, said the committee should examine whether Tagore's "dignity" was being maintained while making the film.

"As the film would focus on a particular relationship, it might be difficult to maintain the dignity of a personality like Tagore. The committee members as well as the varsity should be careful to ensure that the dignity of the icon is not harmed," Chowdhury said.