At the moment we are reading this inspiring text. Tagore is a legendary figure within the Indian intellectual, literary and public realms – as legendary as Gandhi and therefore almost as taken-for-granted and relegated into picture frames. As a poet, he was India’s earliest Noble laureate and invested substantially in the vision of Shanti Niketan, a special space of learning, about a hundred and fifty odd kilometers from Calcutta, which combined the magic of forests with intense urbane, cultural and learning experiences. Patrick Geddes is a more than special name in the world of urban practice – providing inspiring ideas on cities, regions and connections between the environment and habitats. He lived for several years in Mumbai and established the department of Sociology and Civics at the Bombay University in the late nineteenth century, besides doing planning surveys in several Indian cities. The fact that the two met a few times and had a great correspondence on issues linked to cities, forests, rural lives, and cultural practices, around the early twentieth century, fires our imagination. A detailed review to be posted very soon here…

Rabindranath Tagore and Patrick Geddes, the Correspondence
Visva-Bharati Press (India) and Edinburgh University Press (Scotland)
ISBN – 1-85933-203-X