Malancha Niwas, Agartala

Malancha Niwas is the house where Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore had stayed during his visit to Agartala in 1919. The king of Tripura was known to have very good ties with Tagore, and on the former’s invitation Tagore is known to have visited Agartala quite a few times.

During one such visit in 1919, he stayed at a ‘kaccha’ house adjacent to the Kunjaban Palace, which was the private retreat of Maharaja Birendra Kishore Manikya Bahadur. The kaccha house subsequently became famous (for serving as the official guesthouse of the Kabiguru), and today it is a major tourist attraction.

The kaccha Malancha Niwas has today been demolished and in its place stands a concrete two-storeyed structure. However, when Rabindranath Tagore visited Agartala in 1919, Malancha Niwas wasn’t known so. Only after the concrete construction was it rechristened as Malancha Niwas.