The Hills enamoured a reluctant Tagore

SILIGURI, 8 MAY: Rabindranath Tagore's love for the Darjeeling Hills is a mere myth, if his near ones are to be believed. To quote the poet's daughter-in-law, Pratima Devi, Tagore did not like the Hills. The quiet flow of meandering rivers, the wafting of cool breeze and the unbroken spread of the sky in the rural setting of Bengal fascinated him more than the mistiness of the Himalayas, she wrote. Yet, he has visited the Darjeeling Hills as many as eighteen times.
“He visited Darjeeling eight times between 1882 and 1933. He visited Mongpoo four times and Kalimpong, Kurseong and Tindharia twice each,” wrote Dr Ananda Gopal Ghosh, an eminent historian, in his just-published book on Tagore's association with the Darjeeling Hills and the Nepalese intelligentsia.