Mrs.Reena Ganguly,
Andrewspalli,
Santiniketan,
West Bengal
Phone:O3463- 264944
Dear friend,
It is quite a long time since I sat down to write a letter to you. Hope you are all fine.
Now, just yesterday evening Kartik put your photo along with Kushi on my Internet site (www.v.isvarmurti.com)you can see there.
The site is now being developed by Kartik of course cataloguing all my writings so far and also photos and videos etc. I wanted to write to you and also to Mr.Suranjana Ghosh asking for any photos of our days in Santiniketan. Can you put in a word to Mr.Ghosh? There is one I know I saw in Pijush Gosh house when I visited him long time ago. It was a pity this time though I very much wanted to pay a visit to his Mrs. I couldn’t do so. What a pity. I must rectify it next time surely.
You haven’t responded to my article on Santiniketan. Yes, I might have made mistakes in facts and opinions. But I did it all for the sake of drawing attention to the deaf years of Delhi. I can tell you this much. This government or for that matter, any one competent individual, including Amartya himself seem to be interested to lift Santiniketan from the obscurity into which it has fallen. The so many scandals I read about is shocking beyond belief. It pains me like an old student. That is all what I wanted to convey.
Then how are you and how is your health. I hope everything is okey.
One provocation for writing this letter is again yesterday I read in the latest issue of the Indian literature, published by Sahitya Akademy a long article, some 29 pages long written by Nabanitha Dev Sen. It is a translation and I am sure you must have read it in the original. It is a sort of imaginary or actual dialogue where Sen receives the news Prof Amartya winning the Nobel Prize and the hallubullah created in Kolkatta. It reads well and I read it with great interest. It brings in all the news, old and new, I have already known how Sen Visits his mother often and how he was expected as a Jamai at his former in-laws house etc.
Sen also brings in lot of gossip of those days: how Sen was awarded the Prize as the previous year the Committee awarded it to two American economists-conmen who predicted with accuracy about investments in stocks in a company where they were advisers and how the company became bankrupt. So, in a matter of damage control exercise, the Nobel Committee awarded it to Sen, a good man as one committed to the poor etc. As gossip and as a literary piece it reads well except it is a bit too long for an English version.
Now, I often see the Bangla TV channel and one day I saw Sen .He looks now very aged and also I read his lectures, two in the South, one in Bangalore, and one in Madras and one in Mumbai. They all deal with themes outside his domnain. On IT he speaks with such poor grasp.
Anyway, after we came back from Kolkatta, I have written many pieces on Bengal politics and economics. I admire Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the opposition to his policies is sure to fail. For Bengal cant live in such terrible conditions any longer. We read with so much sadness about the poor healthcare in Kolkatta itself and not to speak of the countryside.
Anyway, it is all for many others also to take interest.
Please let us know your views.
In the meantime best of all luck and a happy year ahead. When are you coming to South? We would be only too happy to receive you all.
With warm regards,
Yours sincerely,
V.Isvarmurti