This is for you Didu

My "Didu"

This is about my grandmother. She is 80 years old and has seen the ups and downs of life from a small village near Chittagong, Bangladesh to another small village in the hinterlands of Bihar. Now she lives in Patna with my masi. So today I was at their place talking with her. Suddenly I asked her if she remembered Surya Sen. My masi hearing this, laughed and said grandma even forgets their names sometimes, how could she remember someone who died 70 years back. 

So I asked again. And Grandma says, "Oh yes I do! I remember Master Surya Sen, Kalpana Dutta and all of them!" Shocked I asked if she had seen them, to this she said yes she had actually met them because she was part of a group of girls who sang a welcome song for them when they came at the Congress President's office at Chittagong. She explain how was Surya Sen dressed and how beautiful Kalpana Dutta looked.  Then came the biggest shock; she sang the whole song!

Surya Sen and most of his motely group of revolutionaries died in early 1930s. Now most Indians do not even know what happened in Chittagong on 18th April 1930. Here is one lady who remembers them all even if she doesn't remember the names of her own daughters. This generation will fade away soon, giving way to the Gen Xs and Ys who do not know and just do not care..

Masterda, this small post is for you, and for my grandparents. I worship you and am proud of them, very proud!

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For the uninitiated, you can read about Suryasen here , Kalpana Dutta here and Chittagong revolt here.

The Aryan Myth according to Max Muller

"I have declared again and again that if I say Aryans, I mean neither blood nor bones, nor hair nor skull; I mean simply those who speak an Aryan language… in that sense, and in that sense only, do I say that even the blackest Hindus represent an earlier stage of Aryan speech and thought than the fairest Scandinavians...To me an ethnologist who speaks of Aryan race, Aryan blood, Aryan eyes and hair, is as great a sinner as a linguist who speaks of a dolichocephalic dictionary or a brachycephalic grammar."

- Max Muller (Indologist)

Azad - a rememberance

Time : Sometime in late afternoon

Date : 27 February 1931
Place : Alfred Park, Allahabad





The tension is palpable as the gunshots refuse to cease. The young revolutionary realizes that he has only one bullet left in his pistol. He has been surrounded by the police from all sides and although three of them have already gone to meet the gods, thanks to his sharp shooting skills, they are still too many and too well armed. Time is running out. They are closing in and will very soon overpower him if he does not act fast. He is sad, not because everything seems to be over, but because he will not be able to achieve what he and his comrades had dreamed of for so long.

He gives a last look to his 'Bamtulbukara', his pistol as he lovingly calls it. This last bullet lying in wait in his pistol will redeem his freedom. He puts the pistol on his temple. The faces of his comrades flash past his eyes. He thinks of his mother whom he will never be able to see again. He thinks of another mother who is bound in chains, waiting for her sons to free her. The finger pulls the trigger....

... This post is not an obituary. This is a remembrance to that event and the man involved. He was just Twenty Five years old when he took his own life in preference for eternal freedom.

Today I write this post to salute Chandrashekhar Azad- who lived, and died free on this very day seventy eight years back!

The story of three young boys and the gun battle at the Writer’s building

8 Dec 1930. Calcutta Writer’s building, the administrative powerhouse of Bengal, was abuzz with daily activities. As usual there were a lot of people- British Officers, Gentry, Bengali gentlemen and clerks and the day looked like just any other day. One could hardly imagine on such an ordinary day that something extraordinary was just about to happen…

All of a sudden, the usually monotonous day was disturbed by mayhem. Three young men in their early twenties, dressed in smart European clothes, appear from nowhere and start firing a barrage of bullets from their revolvers. The target was Col. N.S Simpson, IG Prison-Calcutta, infamous for the brutal oppression of political prisoners. Col. Simpson died on spot and the three men were surrounded by British Indian Police. A brief gun battle, made famous as the ‘Gun battle in verandah’, ensued in which three police officers were injured. As the drama drew to a close and deeming it impossible to escape, one of the assailants Badal Gupta consumed Potassium Cyanide. The other two, Binoy Basu and Dinesh Gupta shot themselves. While Binoy died of the injuries after a few days, Dinesh survived only to be hanged later.

Binoy, the leader, was 22 years old; Dinesh was 20 while Badal had just turned 18. They were the members of ‘Bengal Volunteers’ an organization started by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose which aimed to “punish” the oppressive officers of the British regime in Bengal.

78 years later, looking at their innocent faces, my heart fills with wonder at the grit and determination of the generation for whom, one’s own life was the easiest thing to give away in order to attain freedom for Mother India. This post is my salute to the generation which was so precious and which is lost forever…