Kolkata Police recently took a trip down the memory lane. The Facebook page of Kolkata Police on Sunday, December 10 shared an interesting story about the fountain pen of Noble laureate Rabindranath Tagore with which the Noble laureate had penned countless poems.
The story behind the lost pen
It was 1918 when the fountain pen went missing from his house mysteriously. “Well, the fountain pen with which I’ve written my best works, that pen, alas, is lost! It can’t be found anywhere,” a dejected Tagore disclosed at a meeting of literary minds in Kolkata.
Months later, the officer-in-charge of Jorasanko Police Station in Kolkata retrieved the fountain pen from a thief’s secret den and showed it to Tagore. The officer took note of every word the poet said and jotted it down in his notebook. As he was leaving, still carrying the pen, Tagore couldn’t help but ask him a question — “When can I expect to get back my pen?”
The officer explained how legal binding prevented him from returning the pen.
A few days later, a jamadar of the Jorasanko police station knocked on Tagore’s door with a summon asking the poet to be present on a specific date at the court within Lalbazar premises as a witness in the case.
Soon after, Sourindramohan Mukhopadhyay—a writer who was a lawyer by profession—rushed to the chambers of Magistrate Anisuzzaman Khan and narrated the events that had led to the summoning of the great poet. Khan immediately summoned Court Inspector Sarat Kumar Ghosh to his chamber. Here’s what he said:
Law is made for the people. And there is only one Rabindranath among millions and millions of people. If we bend the law a bit for his sake, I suppose it isn’t going to be a grave sin to commit.
Thereafter, Tagore’s pen was collected by Mukhopadhyay who safely returned it to its owner.
What Kolkata Police said
Kolkata’s Lalbazar police station has had the honour of witnessing many distinguished leaders and freedom fighters visiting its premises during the pre-Independence era. It shared the post highlighting how ‘the police headquarters would have been honoured by’ Tagore’s presence– all thanks to his lost fountain pen.
Check out the entire post here:
