Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe on Thursday visited the ancestral home of poet Rabindranath Tagore in Jorasanko, where he was greeted with music and dance by students of the Rabindra Bharati University.
Abe was greeted with the song 'Esho Shyamala Sundara' (composed by Tagore in an invocation to monsoon) by Amita Dutta, the dean of the university's arts faculty, and her troupe.
Students lined up both sides of the road leading to Tagore House and waved flags of India and Japan as Abe entered the campus. The premier spent 25 minutes.
Abe paid floral tributes to Tagore in the room, where the poet was born and died. He also had a look t paintings Tagore drew during his visit to Japan in the 1930s at the gallery and signed the visitors' book.
The premier, accompanied by Vice-Chancellor Karunasindhu Das and other varsity officials, was taken round Vichitra Bhavan which has priceless paintings by members of the Tagore family, mainly Rabindranath, his elder brother, sister and nephew.
The university officials gifted Abe a mural of Tagore's painting. A tight security cover was thrown in and around the university complex for Abe's visit.
