Sunderban Delta Publication

 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 caring son and a friend t

 🙏🙏🙏🙏 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 meditational routines ). We learnt from his chi

 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 purifier and mental s

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 cooking together of the prescribed fourteen types of fresh vegetable

If the wind gets cooler, and the paddy harvest reaches the rural  homes, the people who live in the vast hinterland of mangroved riverine  delta  of  aluvial soil  begin to celebrate the annual festivity of prosperty and wealth ( Kojagori Lokhi  variously known as Laxmi, Mahalaxmi) on the night of full moon, the Purnima as per Hindu calendar Evolving Vedic belief and  Puranaic text revers  Laxmi  as the vedic Goddess  and worshiped as the spouse of Vishnu. However, the discourse on Sri Laxmi over various scriptures, Ramayana and Mahabharata point out that Laxmi has two  other lineages - one with Indra, the first amongst the  Gods mentioned in  the Vedas;Kuber cannot be ignored while worshipping Laxmi. The Purana says that Laxmi came out of the great churning of the sea by the Gods and the Assuras. In period of vedic conquer of forest and hill tribes, Laxmi remained a lucky  daughter of the local tribes, the Asurras.it is interesting part of social engineering that  took place during th