Looking for Meghalaya

A name carries within it the essence of that very being. Searching for the right name for the beautiful state wasn't an easy task, but a certain litterateur knew the right one instantly.

Suniti Kumar Chatterjee, the man who coined the name 'Meghalaya'; Image source: Wikipedia

The beautiful state of Meghalaya has a beautiful name. It is made from a combination of two Sanskrit words- Megha meaning clouds and a-laya meaning abode. People who have visited this place will tell you that Meghalaya is no short of 'abode of clouds' and the name perfectly fits. And yet, the name Suniti Kumar Chatterjee sometimes gets lost, the man who named this state carved out of Assam.

This story dates back to 1972 when Meghalaya was formed by carving two districts of Assam- the United Khasi and Jaintia Hills, and the Garo Hills. The entire process was a combined struggle by the tribal leadership of the Khasis, the Garos and the Jaintias under the flagship of the All Party Hill Leaders Conference party since the 1960s. The capital of the city was going to be Shillong, a city so beautiful that the British called it as the 'Scotland of the East.'

The name was first coined by SK Chatterjee and then given by Rabindranath Tagore. In fact, both of them have spent quite some time together. They both have travelled to far off lands of Malaya, Siam, Sumatra, Java and Bali where they gave lectures on Indian art and culture. At that time, SP Chatterjee was the president of the Sahitya Akademi and the Chairman of the West Bengal Legislative Council.

SK Chatterjee was born on 26th November 1890 in Howrah. He was a philologist of international repute and a high order litterateur. He has done extensive research on the origin and development of the Bengali language. He got his degree from London University.

It wasn't just Bengali that he was interested in; in fact, his field of research was Indo-European linguistics and he knew more than three dozen languages, ancient, modern, Indian, foreign, all of them.

Some of his best works include Development of Bengali language (in English), Bangla Bhashatattver Bhumika (in Bengali), Bharat Sanskriti Kirata Janakriti and Aryabhasa aur Hindi (in Hindi). There is one particular piece that was extremely controversial. It was his work on Ramayana. He questioned the relationship between Ram and Sita and put forth research that the two were actually related by blood. It's needless to say that this research brought a series of death threats and created an uproar in the country. He just went on with his research though.

He placed various other theories about the Ramayana like how it isn't just a Hindu scripture and wasn't authored alone by Valmiki. He said that the Ramayana is the product of the efforts of many ancient poets and saints over time.

He remained the professor of Indian Linguistics and Phonetics at the University of Calcutta till 1952 and later became the National Research Professor of Indian for Humanities.

After retirement, he had built a modest one storey house in Calcutta and his entire family shifted there. He died on 29 May 1977 in Calcutta. Interestingly, this modest house which was named 'Sudharma', was really an architectural marvel, now, is a FabIndia store.