– By Bachaspati Roy
Bangla School in Delaware was founded in 2004-2005 by Rupa Roy (Rupa di) under the auspices of the Delaware Hindu Temple. Rupa had long yearned to instill in children the fun of learning, from her carefree school days at Pathabhavan in Santiniketan. Around that time the Hindu Temple of Delaware had just opened its facilities and formed Balvihar (Kindergarten) school for children, under the coordination of Tia Mukherjee, who encouraged Rupa to hold classes at the temple.
Rupa started the Bangla school with its first and only student Mayukh Pan, son of Pranit and Reena Pan. 1st day of school was attended by Sushim Mukherjee (senior member and community priest who had initiated Mayukh for his auspicious ‘Haate Khori’ ceremony), Chandan and Dipa Nath (active community coordinators), Bitasta and Anjan Gunin (early parent coordinators of the Bangla school, and few parents. Also present as an observer was a New Castle County representative for possible future language interpretation needs in the County.
A simple curriculum was learning Bangla alphabets, language and history using the popular texts of Vidyasagar’s ‘বর্ণপরিচয়’ (Barna Parichay), Tagore’s ‘সহজ পাঠ’ (Sahaj Path), and Sukumar Roy’s ‘আবোল তাবোল’ (Abol Tabol) children’s stories and poems, as well as stories from the Hindu epics of Ramayan and Mahabharat. The students also had fun staging many plays from these stories and poems, such as ‘তুতু ভুতু’ (Tutu Bhutu), ‘জুতো আবিষ্কার’ (Juto Abishkar), ‘ক্ষীরের পুতুল’ (Khirer Putul), ‘লক্ষণের শক্তিশেল’ (Lakhhaner Saktishel), ‘বাল্মীকি প্রতিভা’ (Balmiki Pratibha) and many more.
The Bangla school flourished over the years with many students and with help from parents and volunteers. Presently two branches of the school, ‘সোপান’ (Shopan) and ‘হৈ–চৈ’ (Hoi-Choi).
