ABSTRACT
In January of 1990 I travelled with my wife to Birsingha in the company of a distinguished Bengali historian who also happened to be a descendent of Vidyasagar. The car ride from Kolkata took us across the Hooghly River and west into Midnapur District, where we bumped and churned along narrow roads watching anxiously for oncoming traffic. With brilliant yellow fields of mustard spread out under an endless blue sky, the vistas alone were remarkable. But as our host shared snippets of family history, the sense of sharing a living connection to Vidyasagar grew quite profound. It was almost as if we were making the famous journey of the milestones in reverse, going back in time to the place where the whole story began. After all, who can resist the birthplace, the place of origin? How could one make such a journey and not hear those words, ‘I was born in the village of Birsingha around noon on Tuesday, the 26th of September, in the year 1820’. 1
