Asim Bando's KOLKATA BLOG

10th September, 1890 Punyalata Chakraborty was born. She was a renowned writer for children. Her father,  famous author writer of yesteryear Upendra kishore Roychowdhury had three sons and three daughters. Punyalata was the second daughter. Famous poet and writer Sukumar Roy was her elder brother. She had two more brothers - Subinoy and Subimal. Her sisters were Sukholata Rao and Shantilata. Punyalata got married in 1909 during her graduation course. Her husband was Arun nath Chakraborty, a Deputy Magistrate. Her two daughters Kalyani Karlekar and Nalini Das were author too. Eminent social reformer of Brahmo Samaj Dwarka Nath Gangopadhyay was Punyalata's maternal grandfather.            The books written by Punyalata: 1) Chhoto Chhoto Galpo 2) Chhotobelar Dinguli 3) Sadib Magic 4) Gachhpalar Katha 5) Rajbari (Novel)                                  -- Asim Ba...

In the year 1778, on this day first Bengali printing press was established in Hooghly.  Printing in Bengal had started in  Hoogly  where the press of the bookseller Andrews used Bengali types.  N. B. Halhed’s   A Grammar Of the Bengal Language  was published from this press in 1778. Sir  Charles Wilkins  had mastered the art of cutting types and he also taught Panchanan Karmakar. The printing press was in the immediate charge of Ward, who left detailed accounts of its day-to-day running. Between 1800 and 1834, the press printed Bible translations in almost 50 languages, 38 of which were translated at Serampore by Carey and his associates. There were altogether 117 printings, of which 25 were in Bengali. The press supplied Bibles to almost all significant Baptist missions in the region, from  Indonesia  in the east to  Afghanistan  in the west. From a memoir of 1813, it may be seen that a Malay Bible in roman characters was in ...

Today is the 135th death anniversary of Prasanna Kumar Tagore.  Prasanna Kumar Tagore  (also spelt  Prosunno Kumar Tagore ,  Prasanna Kumar Tagore ) (21 December 1801–30 August 1886) was a son of  Gopi Mohan Tagore , one of the founders of  Hindu College . He belonged to the  Pathuriaghata  branch of the  Tagore family  and was one of the leaders of the conservative branch of Hindu society.  He was educated at home, in Sherborne's school and Hindu College, when it was established in 1817. With his knowledge of traditional  smriti  and western law, he started practising law in the Dewani Adalat (civil court). Within a short period he was appointed the government lawyer, but left that job in 1850, to look after family property. When the Viceroy’s Council was formed in 1854, he joined as clerk-assistant. At that time he was respected as one of the rich Bengalis.   Although he was founder-secretary of the conservative ...

Sajanikanta Das  (25 August 1900 – 11 February 1962) was a Bengali poet, literary critic and editor of Shanibarer Chithi. Sajanikanta was born at Betalbanthe village,  Bardhaman district . He passed  entrance examination from Dinajpur Jila Schoolf of  Dinajpur  and entered into the  Presidency College Calcutta  in 1918. Sajanikanta Das did not complete his study there due to political causes and joined in  Bankura  Weslian Missionary College. Thereafter he passed B.Sc from Scottish Church College. He  joined in the esteemed Bengali magazine Shanibarer Chithi while he was studying M.Sc and took the pen name  Bhabkumar Pradhan . He became the chief editor of the magazine from the 11th issue and got popularity for satire based criticism. His prose, satirical attack hit eminent personalities of Bengal. He was also attached with  Prabasi ,  Dainik Basumati  and  Bangashree  magazines. He researched and pub...

Dwarkanath Vidyabhusan  ( Bengali :  দ্বারকানাথ বিদ্যাভূষণ ) (1820 – 22 August 1886) was an  Indian  scholar, editor and publisher of the trend-setting weekly  Bengali  newspaper  Somprakash . Vidyabhusan's father, Harachandra Bhattacharya (better known as  Nyayratna ) was a scholar. He had studied under Kashinath Tarkalankar, who had a popular traditional centre of education at Hatibagan in north  Kolkata , Nyayratna taught in the traditional centres of  Sanskrit -based education called  tol-chatuspatis  and also taught some boys in his spare time at his home.  After initial education in the traditional centre of village education,  the pathsala , Dwarkanath joined  Sanskrit College , Kolkata in 1832, and studied there up to 1845, winning many prizes and earning fame as a scholar. He won the title of  Vidyabhusan  in his last examination. He had a short stint as a teacher in  Fort William Col...