Sagardari

The Madhu Mela, held each January around the poet’s birthday, brings recitations, music, discussions and a large village fair to Sagardari. Poets and readers come from across Bangladesh, and from West Bengal too.

Michael Madhusudan Dutt was born at Sagardari on 25 January 1824, into a wealthy zamindar family. He studied in Calcutta, became a Christian, wrote first in English and then turned to Bangla, where he changed the course of the language’s poetry: he introduced blank verse (amitrakshar chhanda) and the sonnet, and wrote the epic Meghnad Badh Kavya.

He never forgot the river of his childhood. Living in France, he wrote the sonnet Kopotaksho Nad, addressed to the Kopotaksho that flows past Sagardari, and it is still among the best-loved poems in Bangla. Local tradition also points out the Bidaye Ghat, the riverside spot where he is said to have taken his leave when he came back to the village.

The Dutt family home, with its old buildings, pond and grounds, is now protected by the Department of Archaeology and kept as a museum to the poet, with his statue in the compound. Every January the Madhu Mela — a fair of poetry, songs, stalls and visitors from across the country — gathers here around his birthday.