Sunderban Delta Publication

  An extract from   My Choto Pishe :   A boyhood memoir  - Goutam Moitra    It’s a song that is lost in the winds of the earth. But the winds still carry a few reveries of that journey. He swam in the lake in the odd mornings of summer and a few times I was lucky to accompany him. He swam with ease while I struggled with my strokes. One time, I was on the brink of being drowned. That saviour hand stretched to get a hold of me in that moment. But his face would not make you feel that it could turn so serious with the deep waters welcoming me into their womb. On school holidays, we would visit his house so often. His house that was just a quick stroll away on a route and in those days  people loved to stroll through it. And  if it was a morning,  a barber would be sitting with his tools on call in the visitor’s room attending to him , as he leisurely lay down. In those days, children were often rebuked for listening to Radio-stations airing an...

 Today is the birth anniversary of this great Bengal renaissance poet Modhusudhan Dutta and the father of Bengali modern poetry. Michel Modhusudan Dutta(1824-1873) and his immortal  book of poetry  'Meghnadbadh'  (1861) are always breathed  together .Retelling the epic through a modern ballad and is one of the renaissance tradition challenging the myth and  a section of the poem we are reading in school text book for generations. Meghnad was a tragic hero in Ramayana. He was slayed by Lakshmana brutally, while he was worshiping Goddess Nikumvilā, in the royal temple of Lanka, because of betrayal by Vibhishana, who was an uncle of Meghnad. Meghnad asked Lakshmana not to fight with an unarmed person, rebuking him as a coward; but Lakshmana did not hear him. This unfortunate hero twice endangered Rama as well as Lakshmana but could not survive himself in this unfair battle. This is the central theme of this epic. Meghnad was a patriot, a loving husband, a cari...

 🙏🙏🙏🙏 Dual and NonDual existence of beings ....Vivekananda progressed through his life as a proponent of duality of existence - self and the God ...Then through  the rigorous introspection and scriptural search , took the Adi-Shankaracharya's path of Adaiyabad ( non-dualism) where every search ends at self - me as the manifestation of super consciousness , the  Brahman. Ramakrishna's Kali  idol worship was a medium to reach the inner state of consciousness - samadhi -  the state of bliss.  Vivekananda began his life as an atheist and when came in contact with Ramakrishna , he attained a sudden state of bliss, when one day Thakur touched his chest  with his foot. And he cried , ' aa tumi ki korle,Thakur !'  That day Vivek attained a near  bliss state -  only the rarest of beings are tuned to attain such state even without going through the painstaking  method of Progress ( - a process of disciplined living and following meditatio...

 এমন একটি দেশ , যেথা জীবন কয়েক হাজার বছর ধরিয়া নদীর  বক্ষ জুরিয়া, তেঁনার ইচ্ছায়  মৎস্যরা গান গায় , লাফাইয়া ওঠে জেলেনীর বোনা জালে,  আষাঢ়ের বর্ষণ  ইচ্ছে পাখির ডানায় তাল ঠুকিয়া ঘুরিয়া বেরায় , চাতকের মত বৃষ্টির পূজো করে । #river #rain #fishingfolk #fish

  An ancient ritual of eating fourteen leafy vegetables( the chodda Sag ) on the day of Chaturdashi in the month of Kartika exist among the people of Bengal, residing in the eastern region of South Asia. The day falls ahead of the Amabashya night - when Ma Kali is worshipped The chouda Sag  whose  cooking and serving as a main item in day time main meal has been practised since ages. The name of these vegetables is Helencha ba hinche sak, ooal pata ba sak,mankochu pata, kulekhara ba kule sak, beto sag, sorshe sak, guloncho sag, jayanti sak, ghetu sag ba vhat pata, keu sak, sushni sak,sanji ba santi sag ( another name borma sag) , kalmegh and neem pata. The sags are consumed not for warding off unholy spirits from the home but for improving immunity from various diseases with the arrival of the winter season. The health benefits of these leaves can make you take note of the insight of our ancestors in discovering the benefits of eating certain plants. 1. Blood purifie...

History and evolution of mankind often throw interesting facts that time has the tenacity to add various ritual of different times and all the practices gets into the multiple narratives of the same pagan festivity. On the day preceding the Amabashya night  falls the  Chaturdashi  (14th day) of the  Krishna Paksha  in the  Vikram Samvat Hindu calendar  month of  Kartika and this festivity is celebrated all through the eastern provinces of South Asia - the Hindu families pay obeisance to their ancestors and  Bengali Hindus observe the day as Bhut Chaturdashi.  When we were kids, we heard from the elders that ghosts become active on this night  - the night preceding the day of Amavasya ( preceding day of the no-moon night). So all homes have to light ritualistic fourteen lamps and place it on the key passages of our home, the doors, the windows,  especially the main entrance door.  And the ancillary ritual of mandatory cooki...