Editor,
No congratulation is enough for the residents of Subhrajpur village of Nadia district for rushing to the home of Manjushree Mandal following her death due to cerebral attack.
In these blatant selfish times, when cooperative attitude towards fellow human beings itself are turning rare in today’s society, the warmth displayed in Subhrajpur attains greater significance as the Mandals were the only Hindu family among the 370 Muslim families in the village.
The news of Manjushree’s death at a hospital arrived just before the break of dawn when the residents were preparing for sehri in this ongoing Ramjan month.
Immediately, Abu Sufian – the imam of the local Jama mosque – advised the villagers, during morning prayers, to rush to the Mandal household and organise the last rites of the deceased woman by taking her to the crematorium. After the faithful prayed for the soul of Manjushree, they duly completed all arrangements for the last rites. The imam has also appealed to all to help the Mandal family for the shraddho rituals (in honour of the deceased soul), as well, which take place after almost a fortnight.
The overwhelmed widower Sanat Mandal strikes the nail hard upon our conscience – “Such kindness is part of Bengal’s tradition. It is sad that this has now become a talking point, given all the hatred across the nation.
Indeed, the act of lending a cooperative hand towards individuals in distress forms the very basic essence of humanity. Yet these incidents are being called for attention just due to the context of religious hatred cutting across the Bengal Indian and global society.
The merchants of hatred are in urgent need of drawing a lesson as well as inspiration from the divine acts of the humanitarians of Subhrajpur.
Kajal Chatterjee,
D-2 /403,
Peerless Nagar, Kolkata