Museum Day was celebrated with the performance of dance-drama presented by local villagers and a seminar on the ‘Museum of Santal Culture: Its future and the possibilities of attracting mainstream visitors’.
Our new exhibition is named Hapram Dander which means “Ancestors’ Abode”. It was inaugurated on 9 December 2019 when Ghosaldanga Bishnubati Adibasi Trust celebrates Museum Day.
The museum now has an exhibition of photographs depicting Santal life hundred years ago, thanks to a gift received from Prof. Oivind Fuglerud of the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo (Norway).
Other items on display are Dhodra banams, sculptures and pre-historic stones collected from the adjacent sites of Santiniketan, and the stones donated by Prof. Ranjana Roy and Prof. Debasis Mondal, Department of Anthropology, University of Calcutta.
Participants
The chief guest of the inaugural programme was Dr. Mita Chakraborty, former curator of the Indian Museum. Other special guests were Prof. Sushanta Dattagupta, former Vice-chancellor of Visva-Bharati University, Prof. Sharmishtha Dattagupta; Dr. Debasis Mondal, Calcutta University; Dr. Dhoneswar Majhi, Head, Department of Santali, Visva-Bharati; Prof. Sudipto Mukherjee, Kalyani University and Mr. Sunder Manoj Hembrom, Santali writer, Bandel; Mopiya Majumdar and Sumanto Sarkar, Urotaar theatre group, Kolkata.
Report by Dr. Boro Baski (email 9 July 2020)
Photos courtesy © Sudipto Mukhopadhaya
Dr. Boro Baski works for the community-based organisation Ghosaldanga Adibasi Seva Sangha in West Bengal. The NGO is supported by the German NGO Freundeskreis Ghosaldanga und Bishnubati. He was the first person from his village to go to college as well as the first to earn a PhD (in social work) at Viswa-Bharati. This university was founded by Rabindranath Tagore to foster integrated rural development with respect for cultural diversity. The cooperation he inspired helps local communities to improve agriculture, economical and environmental conditions locally, besides facilitating education and health care based on modern science.
He authored Santali translations of two major works by Rabindranath Tagore, the essay “Vidyasagar-Charit” and the drama Raktakarabi (English “Red Oleanders”), jointly published by the Asiatic Society & Sahitya Akademi (India’s National Academy of Letters) in 2020.
Other posts contributed by Dr. Boro Baski >>
Ghosaldanga Bishnubati Adibasi Trust
Registration under Trust Registration Act 1982
P.O. Sattore, Dist. Birbhum
West Bengal-731 236
India
For inquiries on Santal cultural and educational programs, please contact:
Mob. 094323 57160 or borobaski@gmail.com
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