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Showing posts from September, 2016

Sarat Chandra Chattopadhay: In search of a name through rural Bengal.

A name is your very identity. And yet, you do not have the power to choose it and most often do not have the power either to change it. Does a name really matter? Are our destinies shaped in any measure by the name we are given? Do we imbibe anything of those who we are named after? If yes, do we also imbibe something of those, who we were named after, were named after in the first place? I do not know and let’s admit it, neither do you. What I do know however is that, for long now, I have been doused by curiosity to know more about this man, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhay. In my IIM Calcutta interview, my name struck a chord with the Bengali professor and we had a pleasant conversation on culture. On my first day in campus, as I was being handed the keys to the hostel room, the sombre security man, upon noticing my name, looked up, broke into an unexpected smile, and insisted that I visited Sarat Chandra Kuthi, across the Hugli. And so it was almost inevitable that I would one day vis