‘Now, tell me, what is the title of the poetry book you dedicated to me?’
                                                      - Victoria Ocampo to Rabindranath Tagore on 8th June 1940
‘It is named Purabi (the East in its feminine gender)’.
                                                       - Rabindranath Tagore to Victoria Ocampo, 10th July 1940

Rabindranath Tagore dedicated his poetry volume Purabi to the Argentine writer and intellectual Victoria Ocampo or Vijaya (the Bengali name given to Victoria) whom he had met in the South American city of Buenos Aires in 1924. Tagore was well known and widely read among the academic and scholarly circles of Argentinians. Ocampo, known as the as La mujer más Argentina or the ‘quintessential Argentine woman’ was immediately struck by the poet’s depth of knowledge and invited him to live in her residence at the Villa Miralrío till he left for India in January 1925. It was a subtle affair, a platonic love - born on the banks of the river Plata.

The present watercolour painting by Rabindranath Tagore titled Purabi is a rendering in memory of this volume, which in the opinion of many represent his genius at its peak. A doodling amongst a series of others that he was increasingly getting drawn and engaged with, this particular image, developed in sweeping strokes of the brush reveals the poets inner vision perhaps of the cherished Villa Miralrío. The two months of pure bliss and poetic exchange of thoughts had come as a huge solace to the bard who was in the eve of his momentous life.