Kolkata: ‘Hatey Khari’, a ritual to teach the Bengali alphabet to a child, was held at Raj Bhavan on the occasion of Saraswati Puja on Thursday where Bengal Governor CV Anand Bose was taught how to write the first letter of the Bengali alphabet by nine-year-old Diyangshi Roy, a class III student of a convent school in Chandannagar, on a blackboard.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and other dignitaries were also present. The Governor, whose mother tongue is Malayalam, took Bengali lessons from three children. Ranjana Biswas and Subhajit Dhar, class IV students of Raj Bhavan Free Primary School, taught him the meanings of two Bengali words — ‘Maa’ (mother) and ‘Bhumi’ (earth). Bose, on the other hand, gifted each of them a bag full of drawing books and one silver coin as “gurudakshina”. The Chief Minister gifted the Governor a copy of “Barnaparichay”, written by 19th-century social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar.
After the “Hatey Khari” event, Bose said: “Ami Bangla sikhbo, Bangla khub sundor bhasha, ami Bangla ke bhalobashi. Banglar Manush ke ami bhalobashi. Jai Bangla. (I’ll learn Bengali. It’s a nice language, I love Bengal and its people. Hail Bengal).” The Governor also announced that he would give one month’s salary to outstanding students in the state.
However, the Governor’s “Jai Bangla” slogan did not go down well with the ruling Trinamool Congress and the BJP with the latter accusing the former of importing the slogan from Bangladesh. It was a popular slogan during the Bangladesh liberation war.
The Chief Minister congratulated Bose for taking the initiative to learn Bengali. She said: “I wish him all the best for the endeavour. It’s a proud moment for us. Bengali-speaking people get unlimited scope around the globe,” Banerjee said adding: “Mahatma Gandhi started learning Bengali in 1940, while former state Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi also had learnt the language. Even today when we converse, Gopal Krishna Gandhi speaks in Bengali.”
The BJP skipped the ‘Hatey Khari’ event while veteran CPI(M) leader Biman Bose attended it. Soon after taking office in November last year, Bose expressed his interest in learning the Bengali language in order to pen a book. The retired Kerala-cadre IAS officer of the 1977 batch has a number of books to his credit.
Meanwhile, Governor Bose on Friday went to a Bengali medium school in Delhi to listen to “Pariksha Pe Charcha” by Prime Minister Narendra Modi where students took part.