Why a post on Bengali New Year one may ask?
For one,I was born in Bengal.
Second,I grew up surrounded by all things Bengali
Most importantly,I have seen this amazing culture which in many ways is India,embracing others,influencing but never coercing.Enhancing everyone who touches it.
Across India,the Bengali has been stereotyped as a lazy person who talks more,does less,generally lives in the past and is totally ambitionless.This is so pervasive that some of my Bengali friends themselves believe this.
Yes they do hold onto Rabindranath Tagore,Netaji Subash Chandra Bose but let us not forget these people left a defining impression on the course of Indian history and not an overstatement to say that they not only defined it but changed the direction.Then there is the Bengali Renaissance,a socio culturural reform movement in the early nineteenth century led by Raja RamMohan Roy that questioned the prevailing orthodoxies like 'sati'or bride burning,polygamy and other practises that were corroding the very fabric of Hinduism.
Kadambini Ganguly was the first woman graduate from India.Henry Louis Vivian Derozio,an anglo Indian wrote about the glorious country that India was.
Swami Vivekananda,Sri Aurobindo,and Sri Ramakrishna were the leading philosophers whose vision is still relevant.
The war of Independence began from Barrackpore with Mangal Pandey then Binoy,Badal and Dinesh and Khudiram fanned the flames.
One blog is not enough to talk about character,some of them British,Scottish and Irish who were infuenced by the climes of Bengal to set up instititutions of learning that survive till today.The scientists,industrialists etc
India does not know how to cherish its history.Go to Plassey or Chandannagore and see the lack of care with which monuments are treated.
Yet like a phoenix that rises from the ashes,Bengalis abound.I will always remember a chance meeting with journalist Vir Sanghvi many years ago in Delhi who said,"the best work by bengalis is done outside of Bengal".
The sheer locational advantage of Kolkata and Bengal as a gateway to the natural resources of the East,a deep water port,fertile soil means that it will not take much for an agrarian-industrial economy to thrive.Like a wild creeper that just needs a foothold,a crevicefull of soil,a snatched handful of sunlight.
There were some noises made around 2007 of opening Nathula for Chinese goods to flow through Calcutta Port,of industries in the hinterland that subsided into political chaos.
Politics is and will remain the bete-noire of business unless the will to triumph.If Narendra Modi can make a wasteland like Gujarat prosperous then Bengal is far better equipped.
All those bengali classmates of mine today plying their trade in Delhi,Mumbai,Bangalore,Muscat or California have wistful ideas in some hidden corner of their heart to one day come back and do something.Of monsoon rains,freshwater fish.
Of Rabindranath Tagore's saying,"IF NO ONE WALKS WITH YOU.WALK ALONE".
A Bengal that will claim its rightful place in a modern,digital India.I have faith.
