Bengali Heritage Gallery
Memorable Quotes  |  Language and literature  |  Folk traditions |  Arts and crafts  |  Pride of Bengal  


Bengali Heritage comprises its arts, language, literature, folk traditions and philosophy of life and religion.

Great authors and poets like Rabindranath Tagore, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Sarat Chandra Chatterjee, Tarashankar Banerjee and Manik Banerjee have put Bengali language and literature on the world map.

Artists Jamini Roy, Nandalal Bose and Abanindranath Tagore used their canvas to create portrait of peace and tranquility, of anguish and suffering and of love and hate that is Bengal. Udayshankar delighted millions by his frolicking dance sequences and Ravishankar by his ecstatic, transcendental melody and magic of sitar. Sachin Deb Burman and Abbasuddin Ahmed with their uncomparable rendition of Bengali folk songs. The former packaged and exported Bengal's unique folk tunes to the rest of India in popular Hindi motion picture scores. Film directors Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and Tapan Sinha depicted moving tales of Bengali hearts and souls and their meagre yet meaningful existence and way of life on the silver screen with all its glory and vibrant universal appeal to every people of the world.

Social reformers like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and Maharshi Debendranath Tagore redefined our social mores.

Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose led us in the field of science and B.C. Roy in medicine. C.R. Das sparked the sipirit of Indian nationalism and Netaji gave leadership in India's armed revolution against the might of the British empire. Philosophers and prophets such as Sri Ramkrishna, Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo emancipated not only Bengal and India with their simple message of life and living, but illuminated the world at large.