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Sunday,
the 16th of June 1996...
Elizabeth
carried on, "then we also went to Santiniketan. And
then, of course, it was a great thing to meet again,
specially Gurudev (Tagore), and Nanda Lal Bose, his best
student and a great artist himself.
Some time before we had arrived, Tagore had been
really very ill. For three days he was so ill, he threw away
all his clothes and lay bare in his bed to be in the direct
connection and near His God.
- But
by the time we arrived, he would walk and talk again, he
seemed alright.
Do you know, I would say that Tagore was a
composition of great thoughts! You know, like those dolls
made all of cotton? Every bit of cotton inside the man, a
great thought!"
In
between, they also went back to Santiniketan. But the Second
World War was looming high over everything and eventually
started.
Surroundings
of the idyllic hill resort Nainital
It was two years into the war, when mother and
daughter were rather cordially served a warrant of arrest by
the British resident of Baroda and requested to move to
Nainital (Uttar Pradesh). This happened to all 'hostile
foreigners' stationed in India during that time, and the
Brunners were Hungarians. Though the reason for being sent
to this idyllic hill resort in the lower Himalayas was
rather dubious, the Brunners eventually loved the place and
stayed on. Elizabeth and her mother revelled in the wonders
of nature, the mountains and the climate. The results are
some of the most profound paintings of scenic beauty.
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