Shubho Nobo-borsho

Subho Nobo-borsho, as we say in Bengali, which is the greetings on the “Auspicious New Year” since today is the Bengali New Year!

New year, new resolve. What else to quote but Guru Robindranath Thakur’s (aka Robindranath Tagore) prayer from Gitanjali, a collection of song offerings:

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action—
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Author: Atanu Dey

Economist.

8 thoughts on “Shubho Nobo-borsho”

  3. Wish you many Shubho returns of Nobo-barsho!

    Pardon my ignorance, but is it in some ways related to Gudi Padwa/Ugadi? Or is it something totally different and unique to Bengali culture?

    Isn’t it amazing that in India, every month we have someone’s new year? Sometime back it was Parsi New year, before that muslim new year and I guess there would’ve been some other new year before that and some more to follow in the future 🙂

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  4. Suhail Kazi has mentioned a special feature of our diverse “Indian” culture, that has been remarked to me by many foreign friends…we are a world inside a national boundry….
    Shubho Nobo-Borsho to all!

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  5. Happy New Year Atanu – as Jyoti S says, it was the Tamil New Year on the 14th.

    I hope this year is productive, worthwhile and immensely satisfying.

    Ram

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  7. Shubo Nobo Borsho to you ; as a tamil I can almost understand this bengali greeting; we practise in fact a mixture of tamil and sanskrit known as Manipravalam style.

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