Bengali People - Culture

Culture

Noted Bengali saints, authors, scientists, researchers, thinkers, music composers, painters and film-makers have played a significant role in the development of Bengali culture . The Bengal Renaissance of the 19th and early 20th centuries was brought about after the British introduced Western education and ideas. Among the various Indian cultures, the Bengalis were relatively quick to adapt to the British rule and actually use its principles (such as the judiciary and the legislature) in the subsequent political struggle for independence. The Bengal Renaissance contained the seeds of a nascent political Indian nationalism and was the precursor in many ways to modern Indian artistic and cultural expression.

The Bengali poet and novelist, Rabindranath Tagore, became the first Nobel laureate from Asia when he won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature. Other Bengali Nobel laureates include Amartya Sen (1999 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences) and Muhammad Yunus (2006 Nobel Peace Prize). Other famous figures in Bengali literature include Ram Mohan Roy, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Arundhati Roy, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Bengali science fiction writers such as Muhammed Zafar Iqbal, Humayun Ahmed, Jagadananda Roy and Roquia Sakhawat Hussain (Begum Rokeya). Famous Bengali musicians include Ravi Shankar, Sachin Dev Burman, Rahul Dev Burman and Norah Jones; Famous Bengali singers include Kishore Kumar, Abbas Uddin, Runa Laila, Heamanta Mukherjee, Manna Dey, Shyamal Mitra, Geeta Dutt, Nachiketa, Shreya Ghoshal, Shaan, Bappi Lahiri, Abhijeet, Kabir Suman and Rezwana Chowdhury Banya. Famous Bengali scientists include Meghnad Saha, Prafulla Chandra Roy, Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, Amal Kumar Raychaudhuri, Jagadish Chandra Bose and Satyendra Nath Bose; famous Bengali engineers include Fazlur Khan and Amar Bose; famous Bengali filmmakers include Satyajit Ray, Bimal Roy, Mrinal Sen, Ritwik Ghatak, Zahir Raihan, Aparna Sen and Tareque Masud; and famous Bengali entrepreneurs include Sake Dean Mahomed, Amar Bose, Jawed Karim and Subrata Roy.