Walking through Biswakosh Lane

As a Game of Thrones fan I can say in this month of September that 'Winter is coming'. We all know in winter in Kolkata lots of fairs take place. But among them my favourite is Kolkata Book Fair. We have world's largest open air book fair and we should be very proud of that. I found the history of bengali books is very interesting and also important for us to remember. The first bengali newspaper was published from Srirampur and it was published by the two of the famous Srirampur trio - William Kerry and William Word. The newspaper was 'Samachar Darpan'. But, wait why I am telling story about Srirampur. Well, today I am going to tell you about a person who's ancestors used to live in Srirampur in a place called Mahesh. The second oldest RathaYatra is held here at Mahesh. The oldest obviously Puri. His ancestors settled here in our Kolkata near SyamBazar. I spent my college life there. So, while roaming around  I found this great story about this man, Nagendra Nath Basu.

He was born on 6th of July in 1866. He was a brilliant student and later found a membership in Asiatic Society. He edited an English to Bengali dictionary name 'Sobdendu Mohakosh'. He was just 18 years old then. But, the main reason we should remember him is an editor of 1st Bengali Encyclopedia. This work of Bengali Encyclopedia was started by Rongolal Basu and Troilokyonath Mukherjee in 1885. After three years at the age of 22 Nagendra Nath Basu started editing it. After 22 years of hard work in 1911 he finally finished the work. In 1933 he started to edit the second edition of Bengali Encyclopedia but after finishing the 4th volume( the 1st edition contained 22 volumes) in 1938 he passed away. 17th March 1915 to honour a great work of dedication of a great Bengali, Kolkata Corporation decided to change the name of the lane where Nagendra Nath Basu used to live. The previous name of that road was Kata Pukur By Lane. In 1915 it changed into 'Biswakosh Lane'. Even now in that road lives Sambhu Nath Basu, the Grand son of Nagendra Nath Basu. But, this is not the only road in Kolkata which is named after a Book. At the Hazra - Lansdowne crossing there is road called ' Swarnalata St', Which is named after the novel of Tarak Nath Ganguly. As I said earlier, We have world's largest open air book fair in our city. It is obvious here isn't it???