Jorasanko: Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina recited Tagore when she failed to express how she felt to be at the poet's birthplace.

Hasina spent almost an hour at Jorasanko Thakurbari on Monday evening, at the end of which officials and teachers at Rabindra Bharati University asked her how she felt being at Tagore's birthplace.

"An overwhelmed Hasina" kept quiet for a second and then recited a poem from Sanchayita, a collection of Tagore's poems, someone who was present at the spot said.

Hasina recited from the poem Pratham Din-Er Surya: " Pratham din-er surya proshno kore chhilo/Shottar pratham abirbhabe/ Ke tumi/Meleni uttar (The first day's sun/Asked at the first appearance of Being/Who are you/There was no answer.)"

"She recited this not once but twice before boarding her vehicle," RBU vice-chancellor Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhuri said.

Hasina visited the room where Tagore was born, the place where he breathed his last, galleries, museum and the famous " dakshiner baranda (southern verandah)" which was closely associated with Rabindranath, Abanindranath and Gaganendranath Tagore.

"She was mesmerised wherever she went and by whatever she saw," the vice- chancellor said.

Hasina was nostalgic too, a professor at the university said. As she went around the dining hall of the Thakurbari and saw the pictures hanging on the wall, Hasina recounted the turbulent days of the Muktijuddho (the Bangladesh Liberation War), when their house in Dhaka was attacked.

Looking at one of the pictures of Tagore, Hasina recounted: "We used to have portraits of Tagore and poet Kazi Najrul Islam on the walls in every room of our house. When they attacked our house, they asked my brother pointing at a portrait of Tagore whether he knew the poet or not. My brother kept quiet. So they pulled the portrait and tore it off. They had destroyed a portrait of Nazrul the same way," the vice-chancellor quoted Hasina as saying.

As she walked around the house, she recounted how close Tagore had always been to her family and how deeply her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, had been moved by the writings of Tagore.

"Tagore had always been a great inspiration to our family. The writings of Tagore had immense impact on the freedom movement of Bangladesh," Hasina said.

She arrived at Thakurbari around 5.15pm. After garlanding a bust of Tagore and his father on the sprawling lawns of the campus, she went to the huge lobby, which was the dining hall during the times of the Tagores.

She promised the RBU authorities that the Bangladesh government would help the university set up a Bangladesh gallery on the campus.

She also expressed her keenness to have more cultural and educational exchange programmes between Bangladesh and RBU.

"She was supposed to stay on the campus for 30 minutes. But she was so enthralled that her stay had to be extended by 25 minutes," the VC said.

The Bangladesh Prime Minister is on a two-day trip to Bengal.

She was at Visva-Bharati earlier in the day before visiting the Jorasanko Thakurbari campus of Rabindra Bharati University.

Hasina will visit Kazi Nazrul Islam University in Asansol on Saturday.