Great writers are multi-talented. Modesty, forbearance, sociability, curiosity, love of children, tastefulness, deep inquiry, concentration carry a writer far, spreading virtues. The author does not even know how high he has reached!
A Bengali by birth, Canadian citizen Subrata Kumar Das possesses that quality. But his true talent is well established in India and abroad as a devoted researcher. Also about culture, literature and history. This research work is very complex, because in this case no conventional theory is applied. Judgment, analysis is a barometer or view of his own perceived merit. It goes without saying that all the leading works of his that I know of have passed long ago and before their time. Now the proper evaluation of those works is essential. The Bengali nation does not have the culture of valuing the right person at the right time, because the education to develop that perfect mind was never there. Sophisticated culture is civilization. We don’t have that culture, we don’t have civilization.
After reading the recently released book, I dare to express my own opinion about Subrata Kumar Das, the noted writer, researcher and translator and one-time teacher, whom I have known from home and abroad for many years.
The book is not written by him, it is a transcript of a lengthy interview with him by a gifted reader or well-wisher. Such an inquisitive, intriguing interview book is extremely rare in Bengali literature. As a result, writer Subrata Kumar Das is very lucky to have the brilliant record of his birth-education-work-emigration-fighting life and ongoing achievements in exile before the age of 60 thanks to the grace of another virtuoso poet and writer Mrs. Debanjana Mukherjee Bhowmik. Revealed in front of us. Congratulations and greetings to both of them respectively. 🌸🙏
Incidentally, I feel fortunate that my name is also spoken by Subratababu. I dare not belittle thanks. But a little dissatisfaction remained somewhere! For example:
1. He discovered me in 2008 in Dhaka’s Mohammadpur in relation to Japan. My two-volume book “Known Unknown Japan” received outstanding reviews in The Daily Star, Daily News and Book World Magazine.
2. Around 2007, I got his full cooperation in publishing the monthly “Kishorchitra” paper, and his brilliant daughter Brati also wrote in it.
3. Then he did the unique English translation of my book “Rabindranath and Japan: A Centenary Relationship” on the occasion of Rabindranath’s sesquicentenary, a copy of which is preserved in the National Parliament Library of Japan. The book has also been excellently discussed in The Daily Sun newspaper.
By the way, if these are connected, I have a little idea that other dimensions would be connected!
There is no end of work in one life! May the inquisitive journey of Priyabareshu Subrata Kumar Das continue.
