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Here is Bollywood’s tribute to Rabindranath Tagore on his 156th birth anniversary. Priyanka Chopra will be producing a bilingual Bengali-Marathi film based on the life of the Bengali Nobel laureate. The film will deal with an unexplored chapter from the poet’s early life. The period drama will be based on a love story during a teenager Tagore’s stay in Mumbai.
17-year-old Rabindranath Tagore resided for two months in Mumbai in the year 1878, before leaving for England for his studies. While staying at the house of Dr Atmaram Pandurang Turkhud, the poet fell in love with his 20-year-old daughter, Annapurna, who had just returned from England and used to teach him English. Tagore developed an intimacy with Annapurna Turkhud, who he named Nalini, during the course of their English lessons. He was highly impressed by her English etiquette and language skills and even penned a poem on her. However, the platonic relationship was nipped in the bud as Tagore’s father did not approve of it. A couple of years later, Annapurna got married to Harold Littledale and went back to England.
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National award-winning filmmaker Ujjwal Chatterjee will be directing the film, the script of which has been written by his wife Sagarika. The filmmaker told a leading tabloid that it was a platonic love story and will be narrated from the point of view of a young student, who visits modern-day Shantiniketan and sees a picture of Annapurna captioned ‘Nalini’. He also informed that casting is in progress and the film might go on floors in October. The film was initially titled Sound of Silence but later renamed Nalini.
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Priyanka Chopra, who is all set to make her Hollywood debut with Baywatch, was last seen in the Prakash Jha film Jai Gangaajal. However, the 34-year-old actress has successfully donned the producer’s hat. Her production company Purple Pebble Pictures has films like Bam Bam Bol Raha Hai Kaashi (Bhojpuri), national award winning movie Ventilator (Marathi) and Sarvann (Punjabi) under its banner. She is presently working on producing a Sikkimese and a Goan film. PeeCee had announced her Bengali production venture soon after returning to Mumbai in April last week but did not elaborate on the details of the project.
As India observes Rabindranath Tagore’s 156th birth anniversary today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweetd,
Gurudev Tagore will always be remembered for his powerful thoughts & contribution to the freedom movement. Tributes to him on his Jayanti.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 9, 2017
Addressing the nation on the eve of the poet’s birth anniversary, President Pranab Mukherjee said, “On the occasion of the birth anniversary of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, I pay humble tribute to this great creative genius, who authored India’s national anthem and won for Asia its first Nobel Prize in literature.”
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