Invitation Cards for the inaugural Sujal Mukherjee Memorial Lecture

Entry to the inaugural Sujal Mukherjee Memorial Lecture is by invitation only. Invitation Cards can be collected ( 19 February 2014 onward) from Sri Arindam Sarkar, Asistant Director, Savings Bank, Kolkata G.P.O (9433026252) and Sri Ranatsoh Majumdar, C/O UCO Bank, 45, Lenin Sarani, Kolkata ( 9830720045).

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Across The Sahara on a Bicycle

Across The Sahara on a Bicycle Between the things we get And the things we celebrate Flows a desert Lest we forget. #SaharaQuartet Background: My Africa My first exposure to the real Africa in 2005 after climbing Kilimanjaro. Scanned from slide. On top of Kilimanjaro in 2005 with a copy of Tathyakendra magazine. Scanned from slide I first visited Africa (Tanzania to be specific) in 2005. I hiked Kilimanjaro and came back home. It was just a tourist thing I did. But in spite of being wrapped up in an itinerary and a travel package of all things touristy; something very curious happened. I got even more inquisitive about Africa. I wanted to go back to Africa. Not as a tourist, but as a drifting wanderer, living an ever curious life. But for that I had to wait a good seven years. In 2011, while I was exploring the barriers of the Nanda Devi Sanctuary in ...

To the Mountains of the Moon: A Journey from Fiction to Facts

In 1937, Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay chronicled the adventures of a Bengali boy named Shankar. This novel was named 'Chander Pahar' (English: 'Mountains of the Moon', as the fiction refers to a range of mountains and not a single standing mountain). 'Chander Pahar' went on to become one of the most loved adventure stories in the Bengali literature. In his lifetime, Bibhutibhushan wrote 16 novels and over 200 short stories. Interestingly, even though most of Bibhutibhushan's works were largely set in rural Bengal; in this particular novel the writer chose the setting of 1909 Africa. Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay (1894-1950) In the story 'Chander Pahar', our protagonist Shankar gets a lucky break to go out from his little riverside village in Bengal to work for the Uganda Railway. Thus begun his sudden and long journey from the mundane to the extraordinary. A roller coaster ride through adventures involving the infamous man eating lions of Tsav...

Straight from a Story Book: Part I

It all started with a story book. In 1937, Bibhuti Bhushan Bandyopadhyay , one of the leading writers of modern Bengali literature penned ' Chander Pahar '. It is a story of a 22 year old young man from rural Bengal who sets out to Africa on an adventure of a lifetime in 1909. (If you have not read the book already you can read the plot summary here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chander_Pahar ) Like millions of Bengali readers I had read this adventure story when I was a kid and then as I grew up, as indicated by its publisher (juvenile literature); it became a thing of the past, a childhood fantasy for me. It is only in recent years, after I climbed Kilimanjaro (2005), I picked up 'Chander Pahar' again. It is then, the book started opening new meanings and fresh directions for me. It is then I began to understand the meaning of the Swedish proverb- 'In a good book the best is between the lines' . My repeated readings of 'Chander Pah...

Soliloquy of a Wandering Pilgrim

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