Girish Chandra Ghosh

by Chetanananda

This book is an authentic biography of Girish Chandra Ghosh, the legendary playwright, actor, and bohemian, whose colourful life has long been a subject of interest for many devotees of Sri Ramakrishna. Besides being a biography, this book is also a social history of Bengal centred on the last part of the nineteenth and the first part of the twentieth centuries. In nineteenth-century Bengal, heavily dominated by the British Raj, Girish turned the Bengali theatre into a medium for promoting Indian traditions and spiritual life, and also awakening the political consciousness of Indians.Yet with all this, Girish’s primary role in life, it seems, was to demonstrate how a sinner can become a saint—how an atheist, drunkard, and debauchee can be transformed into a great devotee and lover of God. Girish used to say that he was Ramakrishna’s miracle.Swami Chetanananda's authoritative biography provides a fascinating introduction to Sri Ramakrishna's most colourful and least orthodox devotee.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography

495 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Aditya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice book about one of the greatest devotees of Sri Ramakrishna. Must read book for every Ramakrishna devotee. Although most people know Swami Vivekananda very few people know about Girish Chandra Ghosh(GC). An amazing personality - A Playwright, dramatist, poet, thinker etc His devotion to Sri Ramakrishna is nothing short of Puranic! And the love that Sri Thakur showers on him is also unparalleled.

Though the writing style is bit repetitive, the book covers many aspects of Sri GC's life and surely inspires everyone!

[The Conch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though this book is about biography of Shri Girish Chandra Ghosh, however, it covers spiritual, devotional and historical aspect too. Girish Ghosh was one of the disciple of Shri Ramakrishna Paramhamsha. He was a bohemian devotee and lived an adventurous youth. Due to lack of guidance and loss of parental care, he became atheist, alcoholic and debauchery. However, by the grace of Shri Ramakrishna he became so pure that at later stage of life he proclaimed himself as "miracle of Ramakrishna". He used to say transformation of himself was the proof of existence of God and advent of Avatar for salvation of human.

This book also gives an account of social history of Bengal of end of nineteenth century. A vivid account of the struggle of Bengal to regain its cultural, political and religious identity. In that time, Bengal was heavily dominated by British. Girish turned Bengali theater into a medium for promoting Indian tradition and spiritual life. Many dramas for e.g. Rana Pratap, Chatrapati Shivaji, Nildarpan etc. , written by him, were censured and blocked by British Govt. as it awakened patriotism.

Girish Ghosh can be called pioneer of Indian movie and theater. This book brings about Girish's influence of early history Indian drama and theater.