Bodhjung Higher Secondary school is one of the premier schools of Agartala, Tripura. As recorded in the Govt. Papers and inscribed in front of the school building at Bodhjung Chowmuni erstwhile called Mara Chowmuni in old days, the date of its establishment is 1945 A.D .the school is named after a famous personality Rana Bodhjung Bahadur who was the chief secretary of Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya Bahadhur,the then king of Tripura .Regarding Rana Bodhjung a separate page has been used to describe him, some details will be available there .Hence this chapter will tell only about the school.
Being a party old school, it has a history as well. It is a pre –independence event. To speak the truth the main inspiration came from our world famous poet Rabindranath Tagore as well as his dream institute Shanti Niketan .Everyone knows, Rabindranath was very close to the kings of Tripura. He visited this place several times a honourable guest of the king. They would talk to each other in the spirit of respect &friendship on the basus of which they would exchange views in many aspects. In the mean time population in the capital of the state was increasing and necessity of a new school was being felt by the king. Ultimately the school was established in 1900 A.D It is interesting to note that the school was initially be named as Bodhjung School,but the name was Thakurpalli Patsala. errected within the eastern outskirt of Royal palace UJJWAYANTA RAJ PRASAD itself in the time of Maharaja Radhakishore Manikya Bahadur.(Ref: AGARTALA ITI BRITTA: DR . Jagadish Gon Chowdhury).
In this contest it can easily be said that Bodhjung School has already passed its century milestone by ages .This will be revealed from the coming descriptions.
The pathsala was at the outset an infant school in all senses in both in quality and structure .It was a Katchna house sheets on all sides ,including the pillars .Floor was made of soil(mud floor)and the roof was made with a long grass locally called chhau. The pathsala was mainly meant for children of lower age group taking the course of upto class II standard .Subjects of study were Bengali, Arithmatics And English in a prelimanery level. The school thus looked like a hut and the students like some innocent creatires. considering all these things it could be compared with a Tapoban of ancient India alike Shanti Niketan of Rabindranath.But Unfortunately m, the school on certain day cought fire and totally destroyed (no particular date is available).so it was inevitabe to rebuild the school.
The school was reconstructed ,but this time it was not in the palace area.rather ,it was removed to new place away from the earlier one.The new place was on the northern bank of a large tank known as Mani Dighisituates on the western side of the present central Jail. A long road which connects the ujjwaynta Rajprasad in the West ,The assam Agartala Road in the east, through the front of Central Jail runs on the Southern bank of the Dighi, Western Bank Also has a pedastrians link reaching the north bank, on the east, series of dwelling places were present as is even now. Special mention should be cited that the adjacent north of the school ,there was a big ditch full of jaw-pacvked mammoth sized water hyacinths-a depot of mosquitos and various insects. further on the way to the school many precarious low roffed huts of poor people could be seen.The inhabitants of these huts were mainly the workers of near by brick fields .They came from outside Tripura like Bihar & U.P. The area would like a Basti..(Slum). The newly constructed school also was completely made of bamboo like the previous one. even the roof was made of bamboo sheets of course, here some wooden pillars were used along with bamboo pillars and mud floor was also covered with the same sheets 9locally called ‘targa’).most important thing to mention to mention is that the school house now was much larger and obviously number of class rooms ,students &teachers also increased .
Now about the studies in the school –firstly the school was raised to the standard of Middle English School with the capacity to issue certificates &grant scholarships to the students. teacher Shri purna Chandra Roy was brought from bijoykumar M.e school .it is the same school as the present Bijoy kumar Girl’s H.S school ,Agartala tio take charge as Headmaster here. A remarkable fact was worth mentioning that most of the students of this school belonged to the tribal community. Moreover number of students was increasing gradually although number of drop-outs also was no less. However, the school could not work in its own capacity rather worked as a branch high school under the High school
Umakanta Academy ,another renowed school of the town at that time. In Umakanta Academy ,another most of the students would come from well-to-do and socially high status-families where as in Bodhjung the matter was almost reverse. Another interesting and important fact was the system of payment to the teachers & staff of the branch school (still not named as Biodhjung School).It was being done from the fund of Umakanta Academy. So that was the second phase of the Bodhjung School.
This second phase was very much important to the real of Education in Agartala in specific and Tripura in general as glory started to come in the name of the school. It was now up graded to the standard of M.E (middle English) school taking the course of study up to class 6.New teachers were appointed. A remarkable event was the joining of a few students (6-7 in number) from Mora & sighed districts of East Bengal(the then undivided India).Further,8-10 students from the U.K Academy also were sent to this school because influx of students i.e. urge for education was going up keeping pace with the increase of population in Agartala. This situation ultimately was creating problem.
To solve the problem in this stage came forward Rana Bodhjung Bahadur with his new idea, endeavor and foresightedness. He first took initiation toconvart the branch school into a full-fledged high school of separate identity and at last it was done. Now of course a problem arose regarding naming of the newly upgraded school. There was another complication in view of the affiliation of the school, because a branch school could not be considered for such affiliation without which it would be all in vain. Further, the convention at that time was not to name any institution after the king or any other member of the royal family (only exception was Maharani Tulsibati Girls school).So all this facts necessitated the new name to help the new establishment to rise to high school standard. Under these circumstances, the school was named Bodhjung High English School with the good consent of the king and some admirers of Rana Budhjung in the palace .Here end the second phase.
In this phase also the school house was made of bamboos top to bottom and all around the western part of the school was facing east word and the allotted for classes 3 and 4.The long part of the house extended from west to east facing the mani dighi in the south. Here would be held the classes 6-10.Again in the eastern side there were room extended from north to south. These rooms were allotted for office, teachers room and Headmasters room .The class rooms being small were congested with five or six long benches on each bench would sit 5-6 boys in almost a skin touch situation. Yet it was praise-worthy that there was no chaos. The atmosphere remained calm and quiet-an ideal condition for a school.
It seemed to be an Ashram Vidyalaya. As said earlier, here also the student community was comprised of hindu and muslim students. Several muslim teachers were there to teach the Arabic Farsi languages. Most of the students were innocent and attentive. In this connection description from an ex student named Sudarshan Mukharjee who became later a well known writer, reveals that they(Hindu & Muslim students)kept themselves very friendly to each other. They used to share the ‘prasada’of Swaraswati puja of hindus & sweets of Fatesh-do-ag-daham festival Of Muslims both being held in school. Another mentionable event was the brotherly attitudes & friendships between tribal & non tribal students. Such was the atmosphere of the school. This helped successful teaching very much. More over a healthy and affectionate relation between the teachers and learners were also existed to make the school attractive to all. Really it was the matter of pride both for students and teachers. Such pride was elevated to higher level by an event. A Muslim student named Safikul Islam stood second in the final examination of matriculation which was conducted by the Calcutta university.Besides this the overall result also was remarkable being 90% successful. It was in 1952 A.D. This result may be considered as a milestone for development of the school from thatched house to a massonate building in near future the third phase. The fact was as follow
The then chief commissioner of Tripura ….. V.Nanjappa heard of the news of such a brilliant result of a student as well as of the school. He became interested to visit the school and accordingly on a certain day he came. But after seeing the poor infrastructure of the school he was very much disheartened. He did not suppress his annoyance also. He therefore uttered the words – IS IT AN ACADEMIC INSTITUTION? OR A COW-SHED? Of course he did not stop there. He immediately sanctioned one lack rupees for development and reconstruction of the school. It is to be remembered that he was all in all of the state at that time and the money was one lac!
The third phase of the school started: a new place in the area of Mara chowmuhani, as it had been called in those day, was chosen and construction started soon. As a consequence, the new two storied massouate building made its appearance.
In a poetic view the building may be looked ….as a flying bird facing the town with its joyful eyes and two wings spread one towards the north west and the other towards the south east. The neglected and less important area of Mara chaumuhani is converted to land mark called Budhjung School Chaumuhani. It also seems that the bird school is calling the student in silent look-come students, come, have your desire for real education fulfilled!
The story of construction of this building may remain incomplete if special mention is not made about two persons. Number one is of late Anil Kumar Dasgupta the then Headmaster of the school. He was involved in every step of the construction from start to finish. His continuous supervision, advice & vigilance in all respects hastened the work. Further, he, as long as, worked as the Headmaster, made him the heart of the school and also as the key man.
The Second man was the contractor. Fortunately he was an ex-student of the school. The roof of the building was supposed to be of corrugated, but out of love towards the school the contractor planned otherwise. He curtailed the height of rooms a little bit and thus saved some money, which he then utilized make it a concrete roof. Thus he expressed his love, duty and fore sightedness to his school. Is not it appreciable?
There is another story of Late Anil Kumar Dasgupta. He was an expert astrologer & palmist. He had a good belief in these subjects. He therefore, worked out an auspicious date for starting the classes in this new building. It was the day of Akshay Tritia which according to the Hindu belief was a very good day to start any important work. For this purpose, he also arranged to offer ‘puja’ (worship) of the school house. According to Hindu mythology, such activities remove the evils and purify the house.
His philosophy perhaps did not go in vain as we see in later years a lot of brilliant students come out with flying colors in all aspects academic, games & Sports, literary activities etc. which are the real pillars of the institution. The student lifted name & fame of the school high up and spreader the fragrance of success. Success is glorified further by ex-student of fame working home & abroad in various fields like Administration, Engineering, Scientific researches and soon. Here stands the school till today.
Thanks to Rabindranath Tagor, Rana Budhjung Bahadur,Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya Bahadur, and Rana Budhjung Bahadur. Rabindranath initiated the dream, the Maharaja Supported and Rana worked it out. More and more the school owes its debt to the chief commissioner for granting money and at last the Headmaster A.K. Dasgupta for his love affections and duty to the school and his students and stuff.
After knowing all these facts, it can now be synopsized that the present Bodhjung Boys Higher Secondary School had its root in the palace area at the time of the then king Maharaja Radha Kishore Manikya Bahadur in 1900 AD. In the form of Thakur Palli Pathsala and thus crossed its age of century through the eventful paths.
An Appeal: The above description must have some short falls. So, a fervent appeal is being placed to all concerned to help the Bodhjung School Alumni through this website:www.bodhjungschoolalumni.org Or writing letters to the Secretary in the following address: Bodhjung School Alumni, Bodhjung School, Ground floor, West block., Agartala, West Tripura. The alumni will express its gratitude and try to add it in the context later.