Highlighting Possibilities of the Indigenous
Ananya Pathak
THE ESSAYS OF CHITTA RANJAN DAS ON LITERATURE, CULTURE, AND SOCIETY: ON THE SIDE OF LIFE IN SPITE OF by Ananta Kumar Giri Cambridge Scholars Publishing (unabridged Edition), 2020, 239 pp., 6500.00
December 2022, volume 46, No 12

The book under review is indeed a very carefully curated anthology of essays that brings together the lesser known side of thinker, scholar and activist Chitta Ranjan Das. The volume is a collection of Das’s writings on a wide variety of subjects related to culture, politics, literature and life and thereby holds up the spectacular canvas of his extremely creative and life-affirming personality.

The book has been divided into three sections, each remarkably bringing out the beauty of the diverse aspects of his life, contributions and writings. The first section, aptly titled ‘The Perennial Affirmations’, presents a series of engaging and thought-provoking reflections by Chitta Ranjan Das that are at once insightful and representative of his charismatic yet humble personality.  Here we come across his writings on luminaries of the world: Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Sri Aurobindo and Janus Korczak.

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