Banga-Parichaya

A Multimedia Introduction to Bengal

Welcome to Banga-Parichaya, the first multimedia introduction to Bengal on CD-ROM. Explore the colorful history and culture of Bengal through a combination of text, sound, slides and video. With this program, you'll be able to explore the history of Bengal from 2000 B.C. to the present.

You'll also find biographies of some of the famous Bengalis from ancient past to the present e.g., Vijay Sinha, Atish Dipankar, Jaydeb, Chandidas, Chaitanya Deb, Siraj-ud-daula, Bharatchandra Ray, Rammohun Roy, Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar, Keshab Sen, Ramprasad, Kamalakanta, Lalan Fakir, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Deenabandhu Mitra, Sri Ramakrishna, Sarada Devi, Bankim Chandra, Swami Vivekananda, Sir J. C. Bose, Acharya P. C. Roy, Sir Asutosh Mukherjee, C. R. Das, Rabindranath Tagore, Sri Aurobindo, Ustad Allaudin Khan, Sarojini Naidu, Khudiram, Prafulla Chaki, Benoy, Badal, Dinesh, Matangini Hazra, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Kazi Nazrul, Satyendranath Bose, Meghnad Saha, Satyajit Ray, P.C. Sorcar, Uday Shankar, Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, Amartya Sen, Sheik Mujib, Amar Gopal Bose, Fazlur Rahman Khan, Nabaneeta DevSen, Anup Ghosal, and Sushmita Sen.

This CD-ROM also features biographies of many others who influenced Bengal in positive ways, e.g., Sir William Jones, Sir Charles Wilkins, Nathaniel Halhed, William Carey, Sister Nivedita and Mother Teresa.

Program covers

• The ethnic composition of Bengali people,
• Musical instruments of Bengal that come alive at the touch of a button,
• Vocal renditions of songs composed by Nazrul, Rabindranath and others,
• Descriptions of festivals of Bengal in multimedia,
• Bengali alphabets, words and phrases of everyday Bengali and their pronunciations,
• Video clips from Chitrangada, one of Tagore's dance dramas, a graduation ceremony at Shantiniketan, Rath Jatra in Calcutta, and Temples of Dakshineswar and Belur Math. And much more!

Banga-Parichaya was unveiled for the first time at the North American Bengali Conference in New York during June 30-July 2, 1995 where it was received with much excitement and enthusiasm by Bengali parents and their children growing up in the U.S. and Canada. It is being used to supplement Bengali Studies programs at Arizona State University and University of Washington. Several other universities are in the process of acquiring this CD-ROM for their South Asian Studies programs.

You may use this multifaceted resource tool for university level academic work, or at home to satisfy your intellectual curiosity. If you are a Bengali parent, let your children explore and experience the sights and sounds of their precious Bengali heritage by using this CD-ROM on your multimedia home computer! Study of Bengal's ability to assimilate traditional and Western civilizations can contribute to the shaping of America.

System Requirements:

• IBM-PC (386 or better) or compatible computers with Windows 3.1 or higher,
• 4 Meg RAM and 256 color or better VGA monitor,
• CD-ROM drive,
• Sound card,
• Macintosh Performa 640 CD with DOS/Windows card.

Sample Screens

Multilingual Software Digest

For more information mail to:info@gy.com