“Libraries always remind me that there are good things in this world.” – Lauren Ward (American singer and actress) The aristocratic Belvedere Garden House in Alipore is a holy pilgrimage for any bibliophile. Housed within the expansive Belvedere Estate is the sprawling National Library, the country’s
HThe seventh edition of India’s first Bengali literary festival, Apeejay Bangla Sahitya Utsab (ABSU) curated by Oxford Bookstores, ended at Oxford Bookstore on December 12. The good thing is, the end here does not necessarily mean the end, because the sessions are available digitally for
Some people make us smile simply by existing. Shibram Chakraborty, the great humorist born in Kolkata in 1903 on today's date, is one such person. Chakrabarty was born into the well-known Chanchal Raj family, and his father Shibprasad Chakrabarty would often speak of the road
It took them until 2020 to consider him for a Sahitya Akademi Award. The year his ‘Chowringhee’ turned 60, and he himself turned 86. We are of course talking about one of Bengal’s most popular, and curiously enough, perhaps one of its most underrated living
In 1907, Dakshinaranjan Mitra Majumdar (1877-1956) compiled a number of Bengali folk tales and fairy tales he had been listening to since childhood, into a book he called ‘Thakumar Jhuli’ (also referred to as Thakurmar Jhuli). It was quite possibly the first time that the
At times photographs can start a lifetime bond! It was the year of 1914, when Rabindranath Tagore went to Allahabad and stayed for about three weeks with Pyarilal Bandyopadhyay, the son-in-law of his nephew, Satyaprasad Gangopadhyay. During his stay there, he spotted a photograph hanging
For the home of a living legend, Narayan Debnath’s house on a narrow by-lane in Shibpur, Howrah is surprisingly nondescript. As we walk up to the gate and push it open, a bright-eyed stray dog greets us happily. An ordinary dog in an ordinary lane,
সিংহাসনে বসল রাজা বাজল কাঁসর ঘন্টা, ছট্ফটিয়ে উঠল কেঁপে মন্ত্রীবুড়োর মনটা৷ বললে রাজা, মন্ত্রী তোমার জামায় কেন গন্ধ? মন্ত্রী বলে, এসেন্স দিছি - গন্ধ তো নয় মন্দ! (Rough translation: The king takes his throne, the fanfare we hear/ The old minister’s mind fidgets and quakes in fear/ Says the
Not every Bengali will be on the streets this year pandal hopping, for there are many of us who love to spend a quiet Pujo, back home in the middle of books. GB recommends this particular book that features the man whose smile has swept
