Ekti Jiban

“Portrait of a Life”

Gurudas was a Sanskrit teacher in a village school in undivided Bengal. While teaching he felt the absence of an up-to-date lexicon in the Bengali language which has gained a new shape delinking itself from the original Sanskrit. In no time, he devoted himself to reconstructing a Dictionary and spent most of his life in pursuit of culling vocabularies from the mouths of common people. In the wake of the partition of Bengal in 1947, he came over to West Bengal and found shelter in a refugee camp. Meanwhile, he lost his daughter, son, and wife one after another, and was thrown into abject poverty still undaunted in spirit Gurudas went ahead with his mission. The only woman beside him was his widow daughter-in-law who kept vigil like unflinching flame of love and affection. When his work saw the light of day the erudite came crowding to show honor. The govt. conferred a befitting award but he refused. He was opposed to all these empty shows of honor.