Posted
October 30, 2016
Today
we celebrate an Indian historian who was born on this date in 1932.
Barun
De was a senior professor, an editor, and an academic in a variety of
organizations and universities. He was the founder and director of
the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences in Calcutta, and he served
as member and chairman for museums and heritage conservation
committees.
He
researched in particular the colonial conquest of India and the
national movement that ended India's time as a British colony.
Indian
history is, of course, long and complex. The Indus Valley is famous
for early civilizations, and a lot of impactful world religions got
their start in India. Inventions of everything from rulers to shampoo
(the word shampoo is derived from a Hindustani word!); from
chess to Pachisi; from the spinning wheel to fabrics such as calico,
chintz, and muslin; from yoga to zero – many aspects of our world
were first invented, discovered, or used in India.
Barun
De was born in Bengal. This region is mostly a low-lying river delta
system that has been partitioned into different nations –
Bangladesh (once East Pakistan) to the east and India to the west.
The portions of Bengal that are in India make up the state that has
been called West Bengal for years – but apparently has been newly renamed Bengal. The capital city of that state is Kolkata (once
called Calcutta) – and that is the city where De was born, where he
died, and where he studied and worked and lived most of his 80 years.
 |
| Kolkata is a mix of serene and frenetic busy-ness. |
Check
out Kolkata:
Kolkata
is even more a blend of past and present than most cities. The
hand-pulled rickshaw is associated in many people's minds with the
city – but it is also associated with cruelty to the
rickshawwallahs. Apparently they are being replaced with
battery-operated modern vehicles.
The
widest tree in the world in the Great Banyan Tree in Kolkata's
botanic gardens. Strangely, it still lives and grows, even though it
no longer has a trunk! Check it out!
Kolkata
has a lot of “biggest in the world” / “largest in India” /
“biggest in Asia” bragging rights. One of the ones that interests
me the most is the fact that its book fair is the world's largest
non-trade book fair, and it is the most-attended book fair in the
world, as well. It is recognized as the world's third-largest
conglomeration of books, and it is Asia's largest book fair.
In other book-lover's-paradise news, Kolkata's College Street is often called the world's second largest second-hand book market in the world.
Also
on this date:
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ahead:
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out my Pinterest boards for:
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