The Familiar Black Umbrella

From Rabindranath Tagore: The Myriad-Minded Man (Bloomsbury, 1995) by Krishna Dutta and Andrew Robinson

For the first publication of this memoir, Gaganendranath Tagore painted a charming black-and-white scene. Entitled 'The Familiar Black Umbrella', it shows Dwarkanath Tagore's Lane seen from the verandah of No. 6. Rain is lancing down, the lane is flooded (it still floods during a heavy shower), and a male figure clad in a dhoti (English tutor Aghore Babu) is picking his way towards the house beneath a large umbrella. Rabindranath explained:

It is evening...Our lane is under knee-deep water. The tank has overflowed into the garden, and the shaggy tops of the bel trees are standing guard over the waters. Our whole being is radiating rapture like the fragrant stamens of the kadamba flower. Our tutor's arrival is already overdue by several minutes. But nothing is yet certain. We sit on the verandah overlooking the lane, waiting and watching with an apathetic gaze. All of a sudden our hearts seem to tumble to the ground with a great thump. The familiar black umbrella has turned the corner, undefeated even by such weather. Could it not be somebody else's? No, it could not! In the wide world there might be found another person, his equal in pertinacity, but never in this particular little lane.