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February 21 Language is the soul of a nation… Do you want to make a people disappear? Destroy its language. Jules-Paul Tardivel, L’anglicisme, voila l’ennemi, 1880 Today is International Mother Language Day. For some reason the excitement surrounding this occasion is not quite as intense as other more important holidays, such as Talk Like a Pirate Day. This may be because our national linguistic experience differs from most countries. As one joke goes: What do you …Read more 
December 16
In Bangladesh, December 16 marks the anniversary of the victory of Indian and Bangladesh forces over what was then West Pakistan. Between 1955 and 1971, Bangladesh was known as East Pakistan. On the other side of India, the country we know as Pakistan was West Pakistan. Although more people lived in East Pakistan than in West Pakistan, the West controlled the country both politically and economically. Since representation was by “unit” rather than …Read more October 5-6, 2011 Maha Navami According to an 1815 French text… “Maha-navami, known also under the name of Dasara, [is] specially dedicated to the memory of ancestors. This feast is considered to be so obligatory that it has become a proverb that anybody who has not the means of celebrating it should sell one of his children in order to do so.” Okay—celebrants don’t actually sell off the kids to honor to celebrate, but the holiday is a big deal …Read more The seventh and eighth days of Durga Puja are two of the most auspicious days of the great Bengali festival. (You’ll notice a lot of ‘Maha’ in Hindu festivals. It’s a prefix meaning ‘great’.) Maha Saptami According to www.indiasite.com The morning of maha saptami (seventh day) is taken up with the worship of the deity, followed by anjali when a devotee offers prayers and flowers on an empty stomach, amidst the chanting of mantras to the Goddess. Only then can …Read more
May 16
Today is the anniversary of the Farakka Long March in 1976. The march protested the construction of the Farakka dam, aka the Farakka Barrage. The dam is located just 11 miles from the border of Bangladesh, and it diverts up to 200,000 gallons of water per second from the Ganges River that would have flowed to Bangladesh. “If ever there was a lesson in the unintended effects of damming rivers, the Farakka Barrage …Read more |
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