A DEVELOPING CONVERSATION ON THE NEED FOR A CULTURAL HOMECOMING
Sugata Bose : Now, back to India, please, back to our culture and no more Anglophilia. This is national self-respect. Patriotism demands it.
Debaprasad Bhattacharya : This certainly emerges from right thinking.
Somenath Patra : Are you feel it yourself???till you are using Anglo British Language...Is it your mother toung..? don't mind it sir I beg apologies if I hurt you..
Debaprasad Bhattacharya : Somenath Patra I love your spirit.
Sugata Bose : Dear Somenath Patra,
I am not an Anglophile. Using an alien language and subscribing to alien culture are not the same thing. By that count even men like Netaji and Swamiji would be deemed Anglophiles, would they not? But are they so? Even so here.
Remember, I belong as much to the world as I do to India where in this incarnation I have struck earthly roots. And, as such, I care for the well-being of my motherland in my bid to serve humanity everywhere, for the Vedanta which is my guiding philosophy knows no geographical limits in self-expression. English being the universal linguistic vehicle, I resort to it by way of self-expression so that I may reach the widest audience the world over. However, in agreement with you, I must state that the very usage of it has been thrust on me by my country's colonial past where we have suffered the fate of growing up as Macaulay's foster children before Bankimchandra, Tagore and Ramakrishna-Vivekananda rescued me from the malefic clutches of alien linguistic culture. But I must add here that western culture has never found an adequate foothold in my being even in childhood or adolescence despite my early academic grooming in a Salesian Catholic school of repute. Nor did Catholicism ever succeed in making a dent in my tough indigenous cultural hide of sufficient refinement that could easily withstand the onslaughts of western modes and manners to which some of my peers succumbed progressively in due course but I did not, thanks to the patriotic pride generated in me by my parents early on and the innate Indian attitudes and aspirations that I was born with and which were reemphasised by my study of the scriptures and the literature of our land.
You ought not to entertain any idea that I am beggared of home culture so much that I have been thus forced into resorting to literary expression in alien language as opposed to the same in my mother tongue, Bengali. I am equally conversant in my mother tongue but find it cumbersome to write in it on my smart phone, my desktop computer having as yet not the facility to allow for such expression where English finds its easy abode. It is not that I do not write in Bengali occasionally and I shall continue to do so to dispel your fears at least that I am sold to the West and yet preach about being Indian in culture.
The crux of the matter, though, is this. We, Indians, are apt to be superficial enough to engage in shallow talk on a piece of writing that is at once distracting from the main discourse as it is an unnecessary jibe at a fellow countryman endeavouring to do some good to society by way of igniting thought on a contentious issue. The thematic content of the post not being comprehended well, that is, in the right spirit, such side issues that digress easily take centre-stage and deviate discussion. This is not your fault as such for it is a present-day national cultural malady that needs treatment and eradication from the body politic of society. It will be far better to engage in healthy discussion on issues rather than personalities of insignificance like this writer.
Thanking you,
I remain your friend in future fruitful interaction and ever devoted to the motherland in Ramakrishna-Vivekananda,
Sugata Bose.
Sugata Bose : Now, back to India, please, back to our culture and no more Anglophilia. This is national self-respect. Patriotism demands it.
Debaprasad Bhattacharya : This certainly emerges from right thinking.
Somenath Patra : Are you feel it yourself???till you are using Anglo British Language...Is it your mother toung..? don't mind it sir I beg apologies if I hurt you..
Debaprasad Bhattacharya : Somenath Patra I love your spirit.
Sugata Bose : Dear Somenath Patra,
I am not an Anglophile. Using an alien language and subscribing to alien culture are not the same thing. By that count even men like Netaji and Swamiji would be deemed Anglophiles, would they not? But are they so? Even so here.
Remember, I belong as much to the world as I do to India where in this incarnation I have struck earthly roots. And, as such, I care for the well-being of my motherland in my bid to serve humanity everywhere, for the Vedanta which is my guiding philosophy knows no geographical limits in self-expression. English being the universal linguistic vehicle, I resort to it by way of self-expression so that I may reach the widest audience the world over. However, in agreement with you, I must state that the very usage of it has been thrust on me by my country's colonial past where we have suffered the fate of growing up as Macaulay's foster children before Bankimchandra, Tagore and Ramakrishna-Vivekananda rescued me from the malefic clutches of alien linguistic culture. But I must add here that western culture has never found an adequate foothold in my being even in childhood or adolescence despite my early academic grooming in a Salesian Catholic school of repute. Nor did Catholicism ever succeed in making a dent in my tough indigenous cultural hide of sufficient refinement that could easily withstand the onslaughts of western modes and manners to which some of my peers succumbed progressively in due course but I did not, thanks to the patriotic pride generated in me by my parents early on and the innate Indian attitudes and aspirations that I was born with and which were reemphasised by my study of the scriptures and the literature of our land.
You ought not to entertain any idea that I am beggared of home culture so much that I have been thus forced into resorting to literary expression in alien language as opposed to the same in my mother tongue, Bengali. I am equally conversant in my mother tongue but find it cumbersome to write in it on my smart phone, my desktop computer having as yet not the facility to allow for such expression where English finds its easy abode. It is not that I do not write in Bengali occasionally and I shall continue to do so to dispel your fears at least that I am sold to the West and yet preach about being Indian in culture.
The crux of the matter, though, is this. We, Indians, are apt to be superficial enough to engage in shallow talk on a piece of writing that is at once distracting from the main discourse as it is an unnecessary jibe at a fellow countryman endeavouring to do some good to society by way of igniting thought on a contentious issue. The thematic content of the post not being comprehended well, that is, in the right spirit, such side issues that digress easily take centre-stage and deviate discussion. This is not your fault as such for it is a present-day national cultural malady that needs treatment and eradication from the body politic of society. It will be far better to engage in healthy discussion on issues rather than personalities of insignificance like this writer.
Thanking you,
I remain your friend in future fruitful interaction and ever devoted to the motherland in Ramakrishna-Vivekananda,
Sugata Bose.
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