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14
SHANTINIKETAN
THE POET'S UPPER ROOM
where some of the older students conduct a night school for the boys of the Santal aboriginal tribes who are to be found scattered about in the neighbourhood, I attended service in the temple, a building open to the light and air on all sides. As I entered, the boys in their coloured shawls were seated, some on the steps outside, and some on the white marble floor in an attitude of meditation. After an opening prayer in Bengali, the boys, all together, chanted a Sanskrit verse, ending with the words,
"Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti." "Om Peace, Peace, Peace."
To hear for the first time a Sanskrit prayer chanted by the boys of Bolpur is an experience not easily to be forgotten. I wish it were
