Origin of Bangla Second Part Ghoti The Highlander

By Dibyendu Chakraborty

Naru, a Bengali by birth, was shown by destiny that the process of peopling India had happened along the Prehistoric Elevated Highway Systems of India. Adivasis came first, and then a different group followed them to get settled in the highlands. In Bengal, the members of that new group later became known as ‘Ghoti’. 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookRix
• Release date: Sep 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9783748745549

Book preview

Prelude

Some trading partners were obviously needed to start a trade. Even if the Tibetans came up-to Kalimpong and adjoining areas, then they could also not engage in trade, had they come there before human settlements started on the opposite side.

Had the Tibetans (if they originated and started exploring first) came to the north of the present-day Bengal at the southern margin of the Himalayas and decided that the land lying in front of them was qualified to be a ‘La’ then also they could not name that ‘La’ as ‘Bongola’ (Origin of Bangla-First Part) because ‘Bongo’ was yet to be coined. After the peopling of that geography in the foothills of present-day Bangla, when ‘Bongo’ came into existence, then only ‘Bongola’ could become a reality. On the other hand, if ‘Bongo’ was already in existence and the Tibetans visited that land afterwards, then the name ‘Bongola’ was coined without any delay. In either of the cases, the journey of Bangla started. All the people of the Indian part of Bengal call it Bangla in their mother tongue. The desire to unravel the process of formation of a distinct linguistic human group that later would create a political boundary provided fuel to Naru’s lamp of quest.

Chapter 1 - Journeys unravelling the Prehistoric Elevated Highway System

An adventitious tryst with an Adivasi (earliest inhabitants) heartland

At the end of the decade of the 1980s, Naru was suddenly dictated by destiny to visit the nondescript town of Chakradharpur in Bihar (present-day Jharkhand) on the Chota Nagpur Plateau. That plateau is considered to be one of the oldest continuously-inhabited areas on the earth. Situated very close to the borders of ‘Bongo’ or ‘Bangla’, that town has gained its importance from railway operations. It occupies an important place on the map of the Indian Railways. One of Naru’s close relatives was stationed there for quite some time then. The first few days of the sojourn were hectic due to the family event.  Naru could observe that the immediate surroundings of that place were similar to those of the industrial towns situated in the western part of his home district. Situated at a higher elevation, that place had flat terrain with relatively drier weather and devoid of vast green pastures, which are typical to a river basin.

Inside the railways-owned area, where the residential quarters were present (it was not like a rail colony in a regular sense), wide open flat places were available with large trees scattered here and there. The gentle breeze of the summer evenings, when enjoyed in those sparsely grass-covered open fields, called for a devout thanksgiving to the creator.

From the major streets, a few shadowy hills were visible, which seemed to be not very far away. Being a resident of the south of Bangla, Naru never saw a hill from close proximity. His home district is a vast, almost-flat land. In that just ended teen age, the provocation created by the sight was enough to embark on an adventurous tour to the direction of one of those hills one day.

With one of his elder cousin brothers, the adventure started one day in the mid-morning on a bicycle. It did not take long time to leave the town area behind. The landscape started to become undulated. Small patches of open areas were present within the natural forests intermittently. The general look and feel of the terrain went on becoming rougher as they proceeded on their journey. They crossed a bridge of a river, on the bank of which on a board it was written Sanjoy Nad, which means the River Sanjoy in English. In no sense could that water-flow stand for a river in Naru’s hometown. The most prominent river of Naru's home district has originated from the highlands of the Chotanagpur plateau and runs through Naru’s hometown. That river is at least a hundred times wider than the River Sanjoy at Chakradharpur. The channel of the River Sanjoy was very rocky; hardly any soil could be seen on its bed, and a real thin layer of the flowing water was there at the bottom of those rocks. It seemed that some giant tossed those massive boulders on that riverbed. The places on the banks were also scattered with such rocks. At many places, algae formations were there on the disconnected, stagnant water on the riverbed.

They gave a pause to their journey at that spot. The most interesting finding at that spot was a beehive hanging from an overhead water reservoir, on the upper side of the river. Naru had many close encounters with beehives all through his childhood, and he had a notion that some of those that he had seen were significantly large. Within the university campus, where Naru’s father had created a small garden, beehives used to be formed on the bigger trees, mainly on the drumstick trees. It was quite an experience to break those hives and extract honey from those at the appropriate stage. But those hives were no match to the one that was hanging from that water reservoir on the bank of the River Sanjay. The hive was at least five feet wide and that much tall. Those bees were also considerably larger than the ones seen in the south Bengal region. It would be another one and half decades that Naru would come to know about an invasion of the larger and more aggressive bee species of African origin that has happened all over the world in the not-so-distant past.

The world around had started becoming desolate. For many minutes, they did not see any person around. Somewhere near that place, the existence of the modern-day road ended. A road was there which bore the sign of maintenance, but that was an uncovered road. Beyond that river, the path had a gentle upward slope, which was getting steeper apace. They came nearer to one of those hills, which attracted them to that place. At some places, that path had branched out. A few of those branched-out paths were of equal width that of the main road, and that had made it hard to decide which one was the continuation of the main path. As no one was there to enquire about anything, they followed their hearts and proceeded forward. The path reached higher elevation, wherefrom the overview of the low-lying areas became available. For them, that bird's eye view was a reward enough to put in the effort to scale the uphill path by two persons on a single bicycle. The road gradually became one-sided, meaning on one side, i.e., on the left hand side, the hill was creating a wall and on the right side the low-lying areas down below started to be seen.

Another equally rewarding change did happen in the surroundings; the colour of the soil of the path got transformed. Till date, it has remained one-of-a-lifetime experience for Naru. The small gravels strewn on the path there were very colourful, having a range of colour from light maroon to dense purple, and of innumerable shades in between. Gravels with a few shades of light yellow punctuated those gravels occasionally. The base colour of the soil was also changed to light red,