Stories behind writing a book on Chaitanya Dev

Since my childhood I had been raised in a Vaishnava family though we were never encircled with the traditional bondage. Rather we had the liberty of getting involved in rituals of other cults and joining festivals of other faiths as well. When I had been a student at the tertiary level, I never felt inclined to study Vaishnava literature like my fellow batch mates of the Bengali department. On the eve of my fiftieth, I had to settle in Toronto and what a coincidence that on my fifty second birthday, my book on Chaitanya Dev is going to be published from Toronto.

To mention here, Toronto has three temples administered by the Bangladeshi Hindus. All the pujas are observed there with much fervor. Enchanting cultural events are also very common in the temples for which like many others the temples have been my weekly destinations. From my first day in Toronto, I felt a rare freedom of religious practices for which a special zeal had always enthralled me. As previously I had written a book on the epic Mahabharata, some of the times I was invited to address in the temples like Hindu Dharmashram also.

With the passage of time, on 15 May 2015 I was invited by Chaitanya Education and Research Centre to give a talk on Chaitanya Dev at the Bangladesh-Canada Hindu Mandir. Afterwards, Sushital Sinha Choudhury, an enthusiastic organizer of Toronto Bengali community, informed me that they were going to organize a discussion on ‘Sri Chaitanya and Global Peace’ on 21 June at Durgabari.

The Swami of the Gaudiya Math of Rochester branch, Bhaktisundor Sonnaysi, was supposed to attend there. Among the discussants they had invited intellectuals like Dr Dilip Chakraborty, freethinker Akbar Hussain and researcher Sujit Kusum Paul. Rekha Patha was to conduct the session while the convener the above center Sharadindu Dey would read out a written speech. As the program was mainly on discussion, everyone delivered their best. To speak true, the event imprinted a deep root in me.

On the following day of the program, the Swami made a phone call to me from the USA. He expressed his satisfaction over my speech and requested to give a write-up on my ideas that I expressed and told that they wanted to publish that from Kolkata. Though, to respond to a commission for a write-up goes against my trend, I agreed because I wanted to give a try on Sri Chaitanya on whom I had never given. After some short sittings I found that I had been able to compose a piece some twelve hundred words and emailed that to the Swami.

While I had been dotting, my questions centering Sri Chaitanya began to hover over for which I started browsing books, in hard copies and online. In a week I found that I had gone through more than one thousand pages and some more thousands were waiting to be read. Thus the answers of my questions began to be answered. And I found a desire floating in my mind to write a book on this great personality.

For myself, I always give evaluate those religious leaders who put emphasis on the belief ‘Religion is for the humans, humans are not for religion’. Till date this is the best of all philosophies that have enriched the human race and the importance of Sri Chaitanya Dev lies here. It was He who brought the religion to the commoners from the shackles of the Brahmins. It was He who violently ignored the discriminations created based on caste, race or religion. It was He who dared to voice the importance of devotion to God, rather the means.

And all His initiatives created huge tumult in the then Bengal society. The exposition of His leadership quality was exposed the day when He organized a parade against the Kazi, the ruler of that time. It was a sort of demonstration because from the Kazi it was ordained that no Kirtan (chanting Hare Krishna) would be allowed as some people complained against it.

There is doubt that Chaitanya had meetings after meetings before he organized the demonstration. The rally moved to the office of the Kazi. It was attended by people of all castes and creeds. It was enriched by youths and olds, men and women. It was the first ever demonstration against any government authority in Bengal which ended with a great success that the Kazi was compelled to withdraw all prohibition over Harinam Kirtan. My interest in Chaitanya Dev lies here and so I feel so respectful to this historic figure.

The question of which I have tried to get the answers during my writing the book includes if there was anything like Vaishnavism before Chaitanya? Where from did He get the concept of Radha Rani? Was His demonstration against the Kazi was an exposition of His individual leadership, or a joint one? What mysteries were there in His death? The more I got the answer, the more I felt like diving into a sea.

When I had finished more the half of the book, I got an opportunity to give a power point presentation on the Mahabharata at Durgabari. In that program Pandit Prosenjit Deoghorya, a noted musicologist of the Toronto Bengali community and his wife Piyali were present. They expressed their positive attitude to my research. On next Friday we had an invitation for dinner to my loving Alok Choudhury da and Gopa boudi’s house. The Deoghorya family was also invited. During our rendezvous, Prosenjit expressed his desire to gift me with a huge numbers of books that he had been belonging for long. He said he was looking for a right person to give the gifts and he thought he had got that person.

A few days later, I made a visit to Prosenjit’s home. I began to open the boxes and got maddened to see that all the books were on Chaitanya Dev and Vaishnavism. At first I could not believe that but the truth is I got 260 books from Prosenjit and only two book were of different genre. Most of them were in English and were mostly published in the USA or Madras. I am sure, even if I were in Dhaka or Kolkata, I could not be able to get hold of such a huge amount of related books that I have got in Toronto.

When I was writing the book, I made some posts on my social media walls and found that many of my Toronto friends are very much eager to collect copies. More than that, to celebrate the life and works of Lord Chaitanya, a huge group of Chaitanya enthusiasts are organizing a program on 12 March at the Bangladesh-Canada Hindu Mondir, Toronto. Considering the situation, I was planning if the book could be published from Toronto. Publishing from Dhaka or Kolkata, and bringing the huge lot to Toronto was not an easy task either. But I was also scared of the costs of the publication.

Again the fortune nodded me with a smile and I got Manik Chanda, a well-known real-estate businessman of Toronto to provide the financial support. My gratefulness to Manik knows no bound. I know well that without Manik’s extended hands, my book would not see the light in Toronto. During my writing the face of my Vaishnava father, who died in 1992, came over my mind very now and then. I know well that it was he who roused in me the interest of reading. I believe this publication will make my mother happy. I believe this book will get a Dhaka edition soon.


Subrata Kumar Das, a Toronto-based Bangladeshi writer. Email:[email protected]
Website: http://bdnovels.org/