I Salute the People of Bengal

 

I Salute the People of Bengal

Dr. C. V. Ananda Bose

Governor of West Bengal

 

I am privileged to be here to be at the service of the people of Bengal. 

Bengal is the land of great deeds, great men and great people.  The people of Bengal bring sweetness and light to all.  Can anyone forget Kolkata – the city with a Soul. 

I am humbled that I have come to this blessed land of Vivekananda, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Gurudev Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose, Mother Teresa, Khudiram Bose, Binoy, Badal, Dinesh, Matangini Hazra, Pritilata Waddedar, and a galaxy of other luminaries. 

Bengal is the land where history was born, history was made, history was transformed, history was enriched.  This is the land which showed the way to the whole world through reforms by stalwarts like Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. 

This sacred land is nourished by the waters of the mythical Ganga.

It appears that it was there in the womb of time that my humble self was pre-ordained to merge with the spirit and essence of Bengal. 

My father was a freedom fighter and an ardent follower of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and that is why he named all his children ‘Bose’.

My career as a Banker progressed in Bengal, through Jalpaiguri to Shyambazar to Chowringhee to Rash Behari Avenue. My first short story was titled Flowers of Chowringhee, in the backdrop of the goodness and greatness of the common man of Kolkata. I dedicate myself to the service of the people of this great land of Bengal.   Where do I look for the people of Bengal, Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore shows me the way:

 

“He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the path maker is breaking stones.

…Meet him and stand by him in toil and in sweat of thy brow.”

I supplicate myself before Sita Ma who came from the earth and went back to earth.  My humble self came from village and I am back to the villages – Bengal – the great village where humanity has found its best.  It is a God-sent to be here to breathe the air that Gurudev breathed, tread the path which Netaji strode, to see the sky which Vivekananda saw, to be in this benign land “Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high…”

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