When Sourav Ganguly landed in Kolkata after the Test series against Australia, he was no longer an Indian player. For Bengal, which put him on a pedestal higher than any of its other sons, an era had ended.
Now, in the quiet confines of his house in Kolkata, it's time to reflect on an unique career. It's time for life after cricket for Sourav Ganguly.
>> Dada's full interview on IBN Live
Some felt he couldn't play the bouncer, some laughed at his lack of athleticism, others took immense pride in his ability to galvanise a side. Sourav Ganguly's ability to polarise opinion led to one of the most fascinating dramas in Indian cricket. Yet, nobody can dispute that he was India's most successful Test captain - forging a winning unit from a bunch of talented, but directionless individuals - and nobody can argue about him being one of the greatest batsmen of all time.
What does a visitor from Bangladesh look forward to in Kolkata?
For many visitors from Bangladesh, Kolkata is the place that offers better medical care. Many are here on business. But for many visitors, it is also a pleasure trip.
“About 70% of my customers are from Bangladesh. They visit most during winter and before the Eids. Business is a little low when the tourists are not here,” says Bhupendra Saha, of Prince, a Bengali cuisine restaurant in Kolkata.
How does an average Bangladeshi tourist find the city?
“What I most enjoy about Kolkata, is the feeling that it’s a different country and a different place despite it being so close. Though my husband still says that the two Bengals should be one,” smiles Jasmine Sarkar, a Bangladeshi housewife.
> Insight from The Telegraph
Rabindranath-Tagore, a soul rooted in Bengal, was inseparable from his Bengali background. He travelled all over the world, but no landscape could ever move him more than the flat, dry plain around his beloved Santiniketan.
The rivers of East Bengal inspired much of the poetry of his thirties, but it was the drier West Bengal landscape, with its spaciousness of sky and simplicity of earth, that he came to regard as his home.
Even the Himalayas - so important to his father, who took Tagore there when he was eleven years old - never meant as much to him.
> Related Link: 'Ogo-Bideshini'
He belonged with the land, the flowers and the trees; the birds; the people - whom he cared for genuinely, not just romantically, combining his educational experience at Santiniketan with an agricultural experiment at the neighbouring village of Sriniketan; the music, which he enriched immeasurably with his two thousand songs; and above all the language of Bengal.
He may have moved to English at a particular phase in his life; but he never moved from Bengali. He insisted that Bengali should be the medium of instruction in Bengal's schools, and wrote several essays and lectures on this theme.
When he was invited in February 1937 to deliver the Convocation Address at Calcutta University, he made history by delivering it in Bengali. Back in 1895 he made a similar stand at the Bengal Provincial Conference, demanding (unsuccessfully) that all business should be conducted in Bengali.
His concern of the language went far beyond the literary use he made of it.
Near the end of his life, he wrote a technical treatise of the Bengali language, bangla-bhasa paricay (1938); when the Bangiya Sahitya Parisad (Bengali Literary Academy) was founded in 1894, he provided a list of technical terms.
> Bengali Language Movement: One - Two
Via Bangladesh-Blogger
It has been suggested that the freedom-struggle of Bangladesh originated from the Bengali language movement. Statistically Bengalis were the majority community of Pakistan - About fifty-five percent of the total population.
The Language Controversy
The language controversy of Pakistan started even before the creation of Pakistan. Dr. Ziauddin Ahmed, a former Vice-Chancellor of the Aligarh-University of India had suggested that Urdu should be the official language.
Simultaneously Dr. Md. Shahidullah, a noted Bengali linguist from Dhaka-University, opposed the suggestion and put forth arguments in favour of Bengali as the future state language of Pakistan.
He wrote: If Urdu or Hindi instead of Bengali is used in our law courts and universities, that would be tantamount to political slavery.
(Shahidullah 1947: 34-35)
> Bengali Language Movement: One - Three
Via Bangladesh-Blogger
The importance of the Movement for the Defence of the Bengali-Language was not restricted to politics alone. As Badruddin-Umar has written: The language-movement has actually laid the foundation not only of a new cultural-life of the people but also of a truly non-communal and democratic movement in the country. Muslims of Bengal, during the decades of communal-politics almost forgot their national identity.
> Bengali Language Movement: Two - ThreeVia Bangladesh-Blogger
Heart-rending depiction of the deep-anguish of a Bengali; separated from his mother-land. Echoes of Jibanada-Das bellows vividly in the back-ground.
> Way Back Home: Part one
Heart-rending depiction of the deep-anguish of a Bengali; separated from his mother-land. Echoes of Jibanada-Das bellows vividly in the back-ground.
> Way Back Home: Part two
