Sunday: The Brick Lane Mela, or Baishaki Mela, celebrates Bengali New Year with a procession that starts at 11.30am and goes from Buxton Street, E1 through Brick Lane to Weavers Fields. There will be fun and food at Weavers Fields, Allen Gardens and Brick Lane itself from midday till 7pm. It’s the biggest celebration outside of Bangladesh, apparently. Admission is free.
Interesting interview of Diptakirti Chaudhuri, author of the Calcutta Chromosome blog on overcoming blogger's block, fitting writing around business travel and the many Bengali short stories crying out to be made into films.
Exhibition: Telling Tales: Story Scrolls from India, Prescot Museum, Prescot, until April 17 2011From Bengal to the banks of the Mersey, World Museum Liverpool’s recent continental commission has resulted in pieces of art as breathtaking as a trip down the Ganges.
India and Bangladesh have agreed to redraw their 4,100km boundary. Straightening of the boundary would include ending the contentious issue of over 200 enclaves located in each other's territory.
Prime minister Sheikh Hasina has urged linguists and experts to work together towards making the Bengali language simpler and more lucid."Some sorts of mistakes and confusions are recently being observed in the usage and practice of Bengali language. Our young learners have to be given a clear and perfect guideline in this regard," Hasina said on Monday.
The Spoken History of Rural Britain Goes Online
George Ewart Evans, the pioneer of British oral history, collected 250 recordings of around 170 individuals born largely in the 1880's and '90s. That collection is now accessible online via the British Library, pioneers in their own right.
