Bishnupriya Manipuri Online

On 30th October 2008 the Pune unit of Bishnupriya Manipuri Kalyan Sangthan celebrated the 138th anniversary of Sri Sri Bhubaneswar Sadhu Thakur at the site of proposed Mandir at Ramnagar about 20 km from Pune Railway station. It may be mentioned here that the plot of land for the mandir was bought in 2007 by 5 ladies of Pune and donated it for the cause. Bishnupriya Manipuri Puneities assembled in the newly erected pandal for Adhibas . The Chief Guest from Mumbai, Sri Rebati Mohan Sinha, President of Bishnupriya Manipuri Kalyan Sangathan arrived; Sri Ramsena Sinha, Sri Kulajit Raj Kumar and Sri Babul Sinha received him with great honour. Colonel Sri N. K. Sinha was also received earlier by them. The daakula Ishalpa stood up for the commencement of the utsav after chanting of mantras by the purahit. Hearing the sound of mridang and karatals the neighbors started occupying the empty chairs. The Adhibas was ended after the Aarti. Early in the morning,30th October, Bishnupriya Manipur...

Shri Shri Bhubeneshwar Sadhu Thakur's name has been caricatured to Shri Bhubeneshwar Sadhu Guru? Thanks to the The Times of India (Whats Hot, Delhi Times, October 31, 2008 issue).  ‘Thakur’ has got changed to ‘Guru’ with a few keyboard strokes of a over confident person handling the page, irrespective to the fact that the submitted text nowhere reads Shri Shri Bhubeneshwar Sadhu Thakur as Guru.  The mistake is gruesome keeping in view that it is related to sentiments of a faith. “Do we as Indians, as readers of the newspaper, as public, must expect that until and unless we pay for the space, our content, our Holy leaders can be baptised, renamed, our sentiments be tossed and played around as per the mood swings of the editor, compiler?” questioned Henryy Sinha.  In the same tone, BN Sinha said, “I find it absolutely unpleasant to read the name of Sri Sri Bhubaneswar Sadhu Thakur as Sri Bhubaneswar Sadhu Guru. I just can’t think in my wildest thought where from you got the name, th...

Read Bishnupriya Manipuri Kalyan Sangthan, Mumbai unit invites Gov of Maharashtra SC Jamir. The Sangathan met with Shri SC Jamir on 23rd October, 2008 and had discussions on various aspect of the Bishnupriya Manipuri community, its past and present. Shri Rebati Mohan Sinha, President, the Bishnupriya Manipuri Kalyan Sangathan, Pune, Mumbai and members Mrs. Riten Sinha and Mr. Bipul Sarma met with the Hon'ble Governor. Please Subscribe to the blog.

In a communiqué to the Honourable Governor of Maharashtra, Shri SC Jamir, the Bishnupriya Manipuri Kalyan Sangthan, Pune, Mumbai has sought a meeting with him to invite him in the celebration of the birth anniversary of Shri Shri Bhubaneshwar Sadhu Thakur on November2, 2008.  “We the 30 odd Bishnupriya Manipuri families from North East, specially from Assam, Tripura residing in Mumbai and its suburbs (are) celebrating the occasion every year under the banner of ‘Bishnupriya Manipuri Kalyan Sangthan’, Pune Mumbai, … would like to invite the Honourable Governor to attend the celebration of the birth anniversary of Shri Shri Bhubaneshwar Sadhu Thakur” reads the communiqué addressed to The Officer on Special Duty, Governor of Maharashtra.  The Bishnupriya Manipuri Kalyan Sangathan, Mumbai strives for the spiritual, social, economical, educational and cultural upliftment of the Bishnupriya Manipuri community and also mankind at large. This group also acts as a hub for educational, socio-e...

In a glittering function held in Kolkata on October 16, 2008, and which was attended by renowned personalities from literature, art and culture, government and films space, Biswananda Sinha released his second Bengali novel ' Tomai Amai Milon Hole '. His first novel was ' Pratishruti ', published in 1992. Son of Mani Kanta Sinha, Biswananda Sinha hails from Bhakatpur, Cachar, Assam. A GSM Engineer by profession, he holds a top level portfolio in Bhatri Airtel Ltd. Kolkata. The function organised at Press Club, Kolkata got underway with the inaugural speech by Prof. Subodh Sarkar, eminent poet and novelist. Other dignitaries in the presence of which the novel 'Tomai Amai Milon Hole' was released included Srikanto Acharjjyo, singer, writer and composer; Krishna Kumar Mukherjee, film personality; Partho Bannerjee, Publisher and Nitin Ganguly, Director of Art and Culture, Government of West Bengal. Mrs. S Ganguly, Adviser to Chief Minister, West Bengal and P Ghose,...

As the day to celebrate 138 Birth centenery of Sri Sri Bhubeneshwar Sadhu Thakur , to be celebrated on November 2, 2008, is coming nearer, with the same momentum, the grapevine machine amongst Bishnupriya Manipuri Delhiites, is also touching a new height. Very hot to handle! Grapevine? "Last year, per family cash collection was Rs 500, this year it is mere Rs 250, I will not attend." Hope, your stomach fluttered simply reading this sentence. Imagine what had happened to me when I heard this cross pollinated stuff. I simply shrieked "Who on earth can stop you to donate x amount?" You can definitely contribute Rsx0000 and come! The pretext is doesn't hold water. It is indefinitely deposed. Order. "Since I have been out of the Bishnupriya Manipuri society and the people, and I am not conversant to the mother tongue, I feel insecure- so I am not coming." Who is going to talk to you, if you don't want to converse and mingle with your near and dear relat...

With an objective to organise Sri Sri Bhubeneshwar Sadhu Thakur's 138 Birth Centenery on November 2, 2008 in New Delhi in a planned and much organised manner, a meeting held at Gurgaon yesterday took a review of the preparations and chalked out all the details that will go into the grandiose celebration of the day. The meeting confirmed Shree Shiv Mandir, Sanatan Dharam Sabha, August Kranti Marg, Andrews Ganj, New Delhi, will be venue of the celebration. It is expected that above 250 strong Bishnupriya Manipuri Delhiites will be congregating on this day. In keeping view of this, the attendees elaborately discussed the measures that will go into the managing the mass of people, thus making it a success. The highly attended meeting had a review on the monetary contributions of the Bishnupriya Manipuri people living in Delhi, NCR region for this occasion. The attendees also took decisions on the list of programmes that will be performed on this day. However, alongside brainstorming o...

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Sri Sri Radha Madhavjiu Seva Puja Parichalan Central Working Committee, in its quarterly meeting held at Chamtilla, Shingla, Karimganj on last 13/09/2008, has reposed the confidence again on Delhities for the mandir management after a gap of three years. The oath taking ceremony is scheduled to take place at Radha Kund, Mathura at around 10 in the morning on 25/10/2008.The following personnels will be attending the function. Name Designation Place 1. Sri Kajal Kanti Sinha, President, New Delhi 2. Sri Bishwajit Sinha, Member New Delhi 3. Sri Mohan singh Choudhuri, Member, New Delhi 4. Sri Rebati Mohan Sinha, Member, ...

Sunday is a sleeping day! After six days of strenuous job-home daily routine, Sunday comes as a day to unwind ourselves, to envelope ourselves with our personal work. It may be taking a sound sleep, meeting with friends, bringing things in order etc...etc... However, if you ask me - how did I spend this Sunday? I don't have words to say more than uttering- fantastic. I wouldn't have spent this Sunday much productive than what I did actually. It was full of fun, camaraderie, and of course resourceful. I met with married, unmarried, employed, unemployed, struggling, established, old, young Bishnupriya Manipuri people. Yes, I spent the whole Sunday with my own people. The day couldn't be less enjoyable than a picnic, and educative than visiting a library, a workshop. What more to say. We - Henry Sinha, Jishnu Sinha, Lakhikanta Sinha, Babu, Shashikant Sinha, all packed in two cars - at first took a recce of the venue where Sadhu Baba uthsav will be held, and finalised it. [The...

By Debojit Sarmah The Assamese Community of Mumbai celebrated the Autumn Festival "Durga Puja" at Assam Bhawan Vashi, Navi Mumbai. The five days long programme started from 5th October to 9th October 2008, cultural evening was organized on 8th and 9th. A souvenir "Smaranika" published on the occasion was released by Dr.Bhupen Hazarika on 8th evening.

By Bibhulal Sinha, Mumbai Bishnupriya Manipuri Kalyan Sanghatan, Pune and Mumbai, is going to organise the 138th birth anniversary of Shri Shri Bhubaneswar Sadhu Thakur at Pune/Mumbai. This will be held on 30th October in Pune and on 2nd November in Mumbai. Attached is an invitation card for all. On Maha Astami day of Durga puja, a team of Bishnupriya Manipuri Kalyan Sanghatan, Mumbai led by the president Shri Rebati Mohon Sinha visited the Durga Puja at Assam Bhawan, Washi, Mumbai. The team invited Shri Debasish Sharma, Resident Commissioner, Assam Bhawan, as for the forth coming 138th birth anniversary of Shri Shri Bhubaneswar Sadhu thakur to be held at New airport colony, Vile Parle(E), Mumbai. Shri Sharma was touched by this invitation and assured his presence to the occasion.

While introducing ourselves as Bishnupriya Manipuri to others, most of us feel proud except some so-called status concerned people and we have lot of reasons to be proud of being Bishnupriya Manipuri. By Santosh Kumar Singha, Manipal So, while informing Punjabis, Hindi-speaking people, Kannadians, Tamilians, Telegus, Malyalis and people belonging to other states, about the greatness and faith of our culture, we do it with enthusiasm. But while doing that it is realised that there are some drawbacks in our culture which dilute its greatness. It is expected that our intellectual and community concerned people have to find some solutions and take initiatives in minimising these drawbacks and make our culture spotless as least as possible. Some of these issues are 1. We, bishnupriya manipuri people call ourselves as 'Vaishnavites' who are the devotees of lord Vishnu but the questions comes 'Do we really follow the etiquettes of Vaishnav Dharma and can honestly call ourselves as...

Is it 27, 25 or 24? If you are sure of the number of districts in the state of Assam, better have a look at it, again! Especially at this time, when the whole world is peeping into the crisis through state website and informative websites like Census of Inda and wikipedia, the question holds meaning and significance. Since all these websites are quoting different figures on the number of districts in the state. See below [increase in the volume of search with ‘assam’ as keyword in Google’s search engine in the last 7 days. You could see, there is an increase in the search of the term– assam. According to wikipedia , number of districts in Assam is 27 viz. 1.Tinsukia, 2. Dibrugarh, 3. Sibsagar, 4. Dhemaji, 5. Jorhat, 6. Lakhimpur, 7. Golaghat, 8. Sonitpur, 9. Karbi Anglong, 10. Nagaon, 11. Marigaon, 12. Darrang, 13. Kamrup Rural, 14. Nalbari, 15. Barpeta, 16. Bongaigaon, 17. Goalpara, 18. Kokrajhar, 19. Dhubri, 20. North Cachar Hills, 21. Cachar, 22. Hailakandi, 23. Karimganj, 24. K...

(The photo doesn't relate to this write-up) Assam is burning. According to media reports pouring in 47 people are dead and tens of thousands are homeless (Irishtimes.com) in the clashes between indigenous tribesmen and settlers in the Udalguri district of Assam. Someone tracking the crisis would know how the media were carrying the news. At first it was hiding the name of the two communities. Of late, however it has started resurfacing the names of the communities: migrated Bangladeshi muslims and Bodo. The situation in the Udalguri district, as well as in the neighbouring Chirang district, has exacerbated to such an extent that police “in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam are using helicopters to spot rioting mobs”. Residents of the state of Assam, like this minority-community Bishnupriya Manipuri which has its existence in the Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimganj districts of the state, and in the neighboruing state Tripura, know how serious the situation is. Assam like its nei...

By Santosh Kumar Singha, Manipal The Bishnupriyas are also a branch of Manipuri people.However, the Meiteis object the Bishnupriyas' claim to calling themselves as Manipuris. A great debate had been raging on the subject. No final decision has been arrived at. The Manipuris ( Meiteis ) base their arguments on linguistic and anthropology and theoretically speaking, they have many valid reasons to establish their view points. But the Bishnupriyas argumentation rests on culture and the contribution of Bishnupriyas' in propagating the Manipuri culture is significant to boot. Rajarshi Bhagyachandra who is reported to have married a maiden of this community, thereby leading to birth of his son who later on became to be known as Kalaraja. The Rajkumar families in Ningthoukhong trace their origin to kalaraja. In due course of time, the community left Manipur in large numbers during the time of mass evacuation into Cachar, tripura and sylhet during Manipur-Burma wars in the first phase ...

By Rebati Mohan Sinha, Mumbai These days, whenever we look at the newspapers there are cases of negligence on the part of doctors, leading to patients` death; but the episode which I am going to tell is quite different, as it narrates about the greed of a doctor who treated my wife in a hospital. My wife has been suffering from arthritis and she was to be admitted in a nursing home for an operation on both knees. When the formalities were about to be completed I had noticed, there were some discrepancies in bed and O.T. charges. On query, no one could clarify my doubt then I said good bye and left the nursing home. I explained and asked my (Dr) daughter at Australia about the next course of action, on which she suggested to take 2nd opinion of an another (orthopedic) doctor. A doctor of my ex. company referred my wife to an empanelled hospital near my residence. The first two-three visits the doctor did not charge anything as he came to know from my company’s doctor that he was treatin...

By Henryy Sinha, New Delhi “ I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the culture of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any ”. By Mahatma Gandhi. Surely we all must have seen this quote, read this quote, understood this quote and appreciated this quote. I have been doing that for the last thirty summers. Especially the last line. I repeat, “ But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any ”. What a line! What fascinating yet harmless arrogance. Resonates spine, gut and self respect. Couple of nights back while browsing the blog two things arrested my restless eyes. First, the name Pocha Heedol, then an insight, a shameful insight. He writes lots of Bishnupriya Manipuri people using the Assamese gamosa across numerous occasions. Shameful fact that Pocha Heedol is true in his observation and his concern is of deep import. Pardon my words. Pardon them as they are born more out...

BY Rebati Mohan Sinha, Mumbai Like every year, this time around Durga puja is knocking at the doors of Mumbai city. In fact, it is a matter of days away from now. Although we are yet to see the cotton like autumn clouds above the city’s sky but of the rainy cloud which is still covering the entire Mumbai horizon, it is expected it will not recede in next forty eight hours. Bishnupriya Manipuri/ Bengali Mumbaikar are getting ready for the year’s best celebration of Durga Puja. About a decade ago the Mumbai’s puja was celebrated in a humble way with three day’s of khichuree bhog. Now like Kolkata, the clubs and Associations of Mumbai are gearing up with decoration of puja mandops along with height-increase in Pratima`s kathama, year after year. And at the same time there is a trend now that clubs bring famous artists from Kolkata for crowd pulling. The women folks are not lagging behind and they are thinking of buying matching sarees, like Tusor silk, Benarosi silk, and taater sa...

A revolutionary feature has been added in the ever-expanding world of internet. Publishers (here the blog: The Bishnupriya Manipuri) can send its article alert to its subscribers’ mobile, absolutely FREE. Thanks to Google India. To avail this feature, click here to subscribe to the blog. However, this feature is at present available to subscribers of India only. Any mobile phone, irrespective of the model and technology, can avail this awe-inspiring add-on tool from Google India. Geography of the subscriber doesn’t come in place to have relationship with this blog. Whether you are in Tripura, Silchar (Assam), remote village in Manipur and Assam, or in metro cities like Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai or in any techno cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad. You will not be missing any update from this blog. After you have clicked on the above link, and submitted your mobile phone (don’t worry according to Google policy, I will not be having your mobile number). You will receive a verific...

By BN Sinha, Kolkata Among the many festivals we observe, there is always a controversy or difference of opinion which is the major festival observed by us or our community, may be Shree Krishna Janmastami , Raas Utsav or Rath Yatra , it is rather very easy to confess that the most celebrated festival in Bishnupriya Manipuri community is Durga Puja. Reason may be any or many; the fact is that Durga puja always witness us to visit our native place, as often it becomes the official visit to home for the people who are out of their native places. While acknowledging every individuals wish list I must add another that holds good every year when most of us declare " Ebosor te pujat gore jitouga" ( I will go home puja this year). As I belong to the city Silchar, Assam, I have always witnessed Durga puja as the most celebrated among all the Hindu festivals. Puja always meant homecoming. In the childhood days we used to anxiously wait for the autumn to arrive that we may receive the ...

Every time I call you up, I find your mobile either 'busy', or 'you don't pick up'. What is happening? You don't want to talk to me... This is my last call. Thanks! Take another case: Hey!!! Why you logged out in the midst of chatting that day? Yesterday, I buzzed you seeing you online, but there was no response from your side! Such instances, with the increase of mobile and internet usage, have become very common and have eaten up our peaceful life. Isn't it! We all are bombarded with such interactions. At last, tired of listening/ reading such scripts you ponder and exasperate "What was my fault?" "Why I have to face all these?" Unfortunately, these simple looking conversations are not as simple and straight as it seems. Hard decisions are being taken taking these tools as proof of acts. The question is: Are mobile telephony and internet becoming the basis of your decision? Please, don't come to a conclusion (read decisions)...

By BN Sinha, Kolkata We all know that the Bishnupriya Manipuri community is spread mostly in the northeastern part of India especially in Barak and Kushiyara valley of Cachar and Karimgunj districts, in Assam and places in Tripura apart from few places in Bangladesh. Among all the places in Barak Valley, especially Silchar is the place which is most significant. Silchar can be termed as the hub for all the Bishnupriya Manipuri think tanks, may it be the Bhasha Andolan or any other Brishnupriya Manipuri social renaissance or convention like Mahamel, Silchar has definitely witnessed the most. It is a fact that more that 90 per cent of Bishnupriya Manipuri population live in villages. There are many villages in the Cachar region which has its significance and vital role in all the socio political activities, namely Bhakatpur, Singari, Chengcoorie in Meherpur region and Santipur, Bekirpar, Katakhal in Sonai region and also villages like Bihara, Mohanpur etc in Kalain region are few among p...

Every community has its own culture and traditional dress. In our case, we do have distinctive traditional dresses for our woman folk whereas there is no such unique dress for our Bishnupriya Manipuri men. We normally use khuttei for routine day to day work and pheisom (dhoti)-panjabi for special occasions. Off late, I have been observing that we are using Assamese Phulan Gamosa around our neck instead of our khuttei . It may be due to the evolution of the Assamese gamosa as a latest fashion statement in Assam. One can find the use of gamosa everywhere--in the dashboard and rear view mirror of car and buses to the head of rickshaw puller on the streets. In fact, most of the tribes (Bodo, Karbi, Lalung, Rabha, etc.) of Assam have their own distinctive style of gamosa/khuttei for festive occasions. We also do have our own khuttei . But as far as I know, there is no special (short length) khuttei for social gathering or utsav. In this context, I would like to draw the attention of o...