Not many do. The easiest association of that name is with Rabindranath Tagore, the first Indian Nobel laureate and the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1913. Rabindranath Tagore was, like me, a Bengali. The Bengalis are known as the intellectuals and at the same time the effete of India. Both allegations are only partially true. It is true that the renaissance came first to Bengal, whose capital, Calcutta, was between 1772 and 1911 the second most important city of the Raj as India was becoming the jewel in the imperial crown. It is also true that even 30 years ago, Bengal was the cultural capital of India, producing, among others, the first Indian director to win an Oscar when Satyajit Ray, who lived and worked only in Bengal, accepted his for lifetime achievement in cinema from his deathbed in a hospital in southern Calcutta in 1992. Today, Bengal is better known for having one of the worst rates of crimes against women in India and for elections in its villages in which scores are murdered in gun and knife battles between local political parties.
