I applaud Enajori's move to digitize Lakshminath Bezbaroa's work. This will give Assamese-reading people across the globe access to Bezbaroa, who undoubtedly was one of the literary giants of 20th century India. Other steps also need to be taken to honour the sahityarathi on his 150th birth anniversary.-- Nitish Chakravarty, New Delhi
________________________________ From: Buljit Buragohain <[email protected]> To: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] Cc: Himjyoti Talukdar <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, 18 May 2013, 23:48 Subject: [Assam] Press Release : Enajori.com launches a website on Assamese litterateur, Sahityarathi Lakshminath Bezbaroa Press Release Enajori.com launches a website on Assamese litterateur, Sahityarathi Lakshminath Bezbaroa New Delhi, May 18, 2013: To commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of Assamese literary stalwart, Lakshminath Bezbaroa, Enajori.com today launched the website Sahityarathi.com. The portal promises to be the most comprehensive website about any Assamese author and aims to showcase the prominent works of the writer. The portal has been developed by a team of Assamese students and professionals spread across India, who interacted through various social networks to coordinate their efforts over the past 2 months. The team includes Dr. Anjal Bora (Indore), Anamika Barua (Tinsukia), Auditya Ranjan Dutta (New Delhi), Bornaly Hazarika (Itanagar), Deva Pratim Hazarika (New Delhi), Gitartha Bordoloi (Dibrugarh) and Manjil Konwar (Guwahati), who worked on Unicode to digitise Bezbaroa’s work. Over the next few months, the team will add to the content that was released through the portal today. Delhi based IT Professional Biman Bora, who also is closely associated with Enajori.com, has developed Sahityarathi.com About Bezbaroa and Sahityarathi.com In the late 19th century, a wave of renaissance swept across India, with Bengali stalwarts like Tagore and Sarat Chandra Chattpodhyaya at the peak of their creativity. It was a time when Bengali literature and arts were dominating the socio-cultural space across India. This impacted the province of Assam, more than any other state, as one saw the official language and the education medium being changed to Bengali between 1826 to 1873. It was not uncommon in those days to perceive a sense of superiority in many Bengali intellectuals that roamed the streets of Calcutta, especially when it came to arts and culture of Assam. To make matters worse, stagnation was creeping into the cultural spectrum of this eastern province. However, the ensuing decades, as well as the 20th and 21st century that followed, we saw the Assamese cultural identity flourish, creating a niche for itself in the Indian literary landscape. This was possible due to the dedicated efforts of a handful of Calcutta-based Assamese students, entrepreneurs, authors and poets who heralded a new age in Assamese literature . And leading this group from the front was Lakshminath Bezbaroa, lovingly called “The Sahityarathi”, which according to top-notch linguist, the late Suniti Kumar Chatterji, meant “A chariot borne warrior in the field of letters”. Chatterji described him as a “great link” between Bengal and Assam and included him in the list of the crème da le crème of Indian intellectuals of the 19th and 20th century which boasted of names like Tagore, Swami Vivekananda and Jagadishchandra Bose. Bezbaroa was a humourist, novelist, poet, publisher, editor and columnist, all rolled in to one and his house at 22, rosemary Lane in Calcutta was at the centre of Assamese cultural revivalism. Bezbaroa’s repertoire of works and his efforts to establish the unique cultural identity of Assam in the beginning of the 20th century jump started a chain reaction. More than a century has passed since then and we at Enajori.com have initiated a project to pay homage to this doyen of Indian and Assamese literature. Sahityarathi.com strives to be a one stop shop of his works, which can be accessed by the Assamese diaspora spread across the globe. His bouquet of work has been printed extensively, but we feel that this is not enough under the current circumstances. The website will not only feature his novels, poems, plays and articles, but also research papers, songs and even rare pictures. We strive to create the most comprehensive website that has been developed on an Assamese author and what a better occasion to do this than the 150th birth anniversary of the Sahityarathi. “It is our endeavour to digitise the work of Assamese literary stalwarts like Bezbaora, so that it can be accessed by the Assamese diaspora anywhere in the world. Moreover, the website design and the content has been chosen in such a way that we are also able to connect with non-Assamese people, through English articles, research papers and translated works. Bezbaroa’s work is still relevant and we are sure that the gen-next will relate to his writing style and topics in the digital form” Himjyoti Talukdar, Project Head of Enajori.com. Enajori.com: Our Mission § Promoting cultural heritage of Assam through internet. § Create Online Database of Assamese culture, literature, wildlife etc. § Organizing seminars on Assamese folk culture & Music. § Translation of Assamese literature into English under ‘Project Lipyontor’. § Promoting Assamese scripts on web through UNICODE. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ সমাজৰ কাৰণে ভাল কাম কৰাজনৰ পৰিচয় ৰাইজৰ আগত দাঙি ধৰিব লাগে আৰু ভাল খবৰবোৰ যিমান পাৰি ৰাইজৰ মাজত বিলাব লাগে। ---- বুলজিৎ বুঢ়াগোহাঁই _______________________________________________ assam mailing list [email protected] http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org _______________________________________________ assam mailing list [email protected] http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
