In one of my write-up I suggested that the education department should prepare a must reading book for the school students of Bihar. It must not include the stories of the living political heroes such as Laluji or Nitishji that the sycophants will try to do or had been doing.

I tried to prepare a list of ’10 Great Sons of Bihar’, and came out with the one as follows:

Mahavir, Chanakya, Ashoka, Vidyapati, Shershah, Veer Kunwar Singh, Dr.Rajendra Prasad, Jagjivan Ram, JP Narayan, and Ramdhari Singh ‘Dinkar’. I felt like including the names of two more persons about whom I had heard from my advocate maternal uncle- Shri Gorakh Prasad, and Shri Basisth Narayan Singh. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get some references, and so dropped for the time being.

I know many may not agree with this. However, I made it a point that none of them are living ones, and they must have impacted the nation. I also tried to pick up those who would be least controversial. I had also decided to exclude non-historical names. I wished the members of ‘bihariyahoo’ or ‘worldbihari’ group to suggest some names that they opined as better candidates for the list giving their reasons too. One of the members pointed out that my list doesn’t include any ‘daughter’. Another member, in the reply to the response, suggested including the name of Sita. I am still not convinced to zero it on a name.

Should the project be expanded in three categories based on the time periods: Ancient Bihar (up to 1000 AD), medieval Bihar (up to 1001-1600 AD), and modern Bihar 1601-2000)? That might be a way out, but with the increasing number, the consensus will be more difficult.

I thought many of my friends would help me in getting an agreeable list. But the responses were not satisfactory enough. And suddenly I thought of drawing the information from the knowledge banks that I use very often: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and www.answers.com. I could get a fairly well done listing.

However, the whole lot of names mentioned in them can’t be part of the book that I thought we must have for the school children of Bihar. Surprisingly, both the sources gave the name of one immigrant politician of Bihar origin Faz Husain too. I wish my NRI readers confirmed this. Can they provide some NRI names with some details in industry, medicine, management, politics or social sector?

I wish the intellectuals of Bihar debate and come to agree to a list.

And through patnadaily.com, I wish to get some useful comments on the subject to complete the task for the school children. However, I am nor sure even after the agreed list is arrived at, if the minister in charge of education will agree to it.

PS I have revised the number of great sons from 10 to 13 and included Gautam Buddha, Aryabhatt, and Guru Govind Singh.