Jesuit Father Christian Mignon, a Belgian missionary who translated the Bible into Bengali died recently in Kolkata. He was 93. Father Mignon translated the Bengali Catholic Bible, popularly known as the Mangalbarta Bible. This Bengali Bible was widely read by Bengali Catholics, both from West
Night (Jibanananda’s poem on night in Calcutta) Lepers open the hydrant and lap some water. Or maybe that hydrant was already broken. Now at midnight they descend upon the city in droves, Scattering sloshing petrol. Though ever careful, Someone seems to have taken a serious spill in the water. Three rickshaws trot
Written in the end of the nineteenth century, Swami Vivekananda’s poem, Kali the Mother, evokes the Night of Kali as a time of pitch darkness that blots out stars, while on every side, ‘a thousand, thousand shades of Death begrimed and black’ scatters plagues and
We were just out of school, when Byomkesh Bakshi first hit the TV screen in 1993. The famous Doordarshan serial, directed by Basu Chatterjee with Rajit Kapoor in the lead. I was a huge fan of Agatha Christie and his Hercule Poirot, so Sherlock Holmes or
By the Tungabhadra is set around 1430, in the southern Indian Vijayanagar empire, during the reign of King Devaraya (Deva Raya II, who ruled ca. 1425 to 1446). It is a loosely historical novel, as author Saradindu Bandopadhyay builds his story around some of the
Ramkrishna Mission recently released a revised and enlarged edition of letters that Sister Nivedita wrote in the thirteen years of her life she spent working in India. Nivedita, born as Margaret Elizabeth Noble was working in London as a school teacher when she met Swamiji
In this award-winning book, poet-novelist Sunil Gangopadhyay pushes himself beyond the frontiers of the ‘well-made novel’ into the fascinating world of family and period history, reportage, travel narrative, folklore and ethnography. A central achievement of the novelist lies in the manner, in which he integrates
Saheli Mitra speaks to academician and author Arnab Bhattacharya, who brings Bengal’s very own no-nonsense stories of satirist Troilokyonath Mukhopadhyay in English Why not join Domorudhar for an adda, this pujo? The comical hero of Domoruchorit, a collection of seven satires by 19th-century Bengali author, Troilokyonath
One of India’s most respected scientists, Yash Pal passed away. He was 90 years old and lived in Noida. A scientist and educator of international fame, he received the Padma Bhushan in 1976 and the Padma Vibhushan, in 2013. Pal made significant academic contributions towards
More than a century has passed since hunter-turned conservationist Jim Corbett was born in Nainital, but his legendary activities in and around the rolling hills and dense forests of Uttarakhand are still remembered. He was indeed like an enigma, a dream, where a tall and