Author Archives: secondsaturn

About secondsaturn

Independent Scholar. Polymath.

Kotal Kahini by Biswanath Lahiri

Posted on June 7, 2021 by secondsaturn

Biswanath Lahiri. Kotaal Kahini. Dey’s Publishing. Calcutta. 1971. When I was growing up in the early 1970’s, I often heard Madhuri mashi, whose death anniversary is today talk of Kotaal Kahini as though it were a novel. Only last week … Continue reading →

Posted in About Books, Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment

Raja Rammohan Roy 250 years and not out…

Posted on May 22, 2021 by secondsaturn

When I recently, which is just about a year, started to study Raja Rammohan Roy both as a scholar and philosopher I realized that our history books had mistakenly written about him as being the first Indian to be fully … Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Raja Rammohan Roy

Posted on May 1, 2021 by secondsaturn

When I read about Raja Rammohan Roy in school, I was taught to believe that he preached a new religion that spoke of One God, making Hinduism in similar vein to Islam and Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism. The ideas and … Continue reading →

Tagged | Leave a comment

Michael Madhusudan Datta – Miusunderstood by Mediocres

Posted on April 2, 2021 by secondsaturn

Betrayed By Hope. A Play on the Life of Michael Madhusudan Dutt. Namita Gokhale and Malashri Lal. Harper and Collins. New Delhi. 2020. Betrayed By Hope is a slim volume consisting of a single play that seeks to investigate the … Continue reading →

Posted in About Books, Bengali Icons | Tagged | Leave a comment

Keshub Chandra Sen – Pedestrianization of the Brahmo Samaj

Posted on March 1, 2021 by secondsaturn

Sanjiv Chattopadhyay. Dharmayuddha. Bengali. Dey’s Publication. Kolkata. 2011. The book is a biography of Keshab Chandra Sen, a prominent social reformer of Bengal who lived between 1838 and 1884 and occupies the mind of the Bengali intelligentsia as man of … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment

Bankimchandra and Bangadarshan – Looking Into the Future of Bengali Language

Posted on February 4, 2021 by secondsaturn

Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay was already an established novelist and a well-entrenched bureaucrat under the British rule when he decided around the 1870’s to edit a Bengali literary magazine called Bangadarshan. The idea behind this was to expand the reach of the … Continue reading →

Tagged | Leave a comment

Muslim Politics

Posted on January 7, 2021 by secondsaturn

A very young friend of mine who is already an internationally acclaimed scholar pursuing his post graduate in a globally reputed University in England and from who I always have learnt a semester worth of knowledge through his posts and … Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Some Obituaries

Posted on January 5, 2021 by secondsaturn

That Saroj Khan will not live into her centenary was clear from her demeanour. She looked exhausted and harassed, puffed up in her face with a glassy glint in her eye and somehow communicated a feeling that somewhere the world … Continue reading →

Posted in Obituaries | Leave a comment

Fascism Talks 1 : Long Calls With K

Posted on December 5, 2020 by secondsaturn

K called up; I was busy and so I sent him a message saying that I will call later when free. He sent a bit of an apologetic message saying that he just wanted to continue the discussions of some … Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Dusting During Lockdown

Posted on November 11, 2020 by secondsaturn

Ever since the lockdown I have taken passionately to sweeping and mopping floors of my homes in Faridabad and Kolkata. I visualise and plan the best ways to do the turns of the rooms, which order must I sweep them … Continue reading →

Tagged , , , | Leave a comment