There was also an undated tear-out from a Bengali magazine Desh. Inside the trunk, there were a few ancient clay coins, an English punching machine dated 1835, old British stamps, a small silver aphrodisiac container from the reign of Bengal ruler Ballal Sen (1159- 79 CE), an antique copper kosha (water dispenser), a one-mouthed rudraksh bead, the first printed edition of Tagore’s poems, Sphoolinga, a rare Pashmina shaaler-sari (shawl sari), a printed 1903 edition of Abraham Lincoln’s autobiography, an old Bengali edition of Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat in colour, a kushti stone plate with a footprint of Vishnu and the second edition of Alice in Wonderland printed in London in 1946. Having failed to break the lock after several attempts, he hired a locksmith from across the Ganga in Hooghly district. The mention of Tagore aroused his curiosity. It had changed a few hands through the generations. He was told the trunk was a gift to the family from Nandita Kripalini, granddaughter of Rabindranath Tagore. The small and heavy iron chest bore no insignia and was sealed with a sturdy egg-shaped lock. In the late 1990s, a 17-year-old youth in north Calcutta inherited an olive green trunk from his maternal uncle. How he ‘inadvertently’ put another poet’s works in his collection and why the episode remained unknown
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