5th October 2016
Kolkata is often called the city of ‘bhadralok’, or ‘noble people’ – a city that has been home to educational elites for more than a century. Remarkably, it is also the city that has bred five Nobel laureates.
24th August 2016
The Nobel Prize is one of the most prestigious awards at the international level. The award honours academic, cultural and/or scientific advances.
25th April 2016
Tagore started painting in 1924, at the age of 63. He was surrounded by exponents of visual arts, and so he always wanted to be a painter. The doodles in his various manuscripts and corrections made in an artistic way bear testimony to his intention and efforts. His first exhibition of paintings in Paris was organized by the Argentine writer Victoria Ocampo. Later the exhibition moved to Birmingham, London, Berlin, Munich, Dresden, Copenhagen, Geneva, Moscow, Boston, New York and Philadelphia.
20th April 2016
Back in the nineteenth century, the Brahmo Movement emerged in colonial Bengal. It was a social and religious movement that centred around the institution known as the Brahmo Samaj. The movement was initiated by Raja Rammohan Roy (1772–1833), who is famous in history for his crusade against the age-old practice of Sati. Rammohan established the Brahmo Sabha in 1828 which became the Brahmo Samaj in 1830. The Brahmo Samaj became the mouthpiece of the movement, and through it Rammohan launched a protest against the popular practice of idol worship among the Hindus. The Samaj preached monotheism or belief in one god. The god of the Brahmo Samaj is formless or nirakara and thus, invisible. Rammohan held that centuries of idol worship had degenerated Hinduism and that the Samaj aimed to revive it to its truest form.
28th March 2016
Tagore wrote Visva-Parichay, an essay on science, which is basically a reflection of his scientific temper. It is also a testimony to the fact that such a temper is an attitude which is not necessarily the monopoly of a student or teacher or researcher of science. He dedicated this book to Prof. S. N. Bose of Bose-Einstein statistics and Higgs Boson fame.
16th March 2016
Alexander Selkirk was born in Scotland in 1676. He went to become a sailor. Aboard the Cinque Ports, the crew came to the uninhabited island of Más a Tierra off the coast of Chile. Selkirk was abandoned by the captain when he questioned the seaworthiness of the ship. He was rescued after four years. His story is said to have inspired Daniel Defoe who in 1719 wrote The Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. In 1782 the poem Solitude of Alexander Selkirk was written by William Cowper. The famous first line of the poem is ‘I am the monarch of all that I survey’. Another famous line of the poem ‘Society, friendship and love is divinely bestowed upon man’ is said to have influenced Tagore’s Ebar Phirao More, and in particular the statement ‘Sartho magno je jan bimukh brihat jagat hote, se kakhono sekheni bachite’ which essentially means that one who is self-centred and withdrawn from the greater world has not learnt to live. Charles Dickens also referred to Cowper’s poem in the Pickwick Papers.
