The keen student Bitan Sikdar | | Published 14.03.21, 12:45 AM
Twenty years ago in Bankura, a little girl used to accompany her father to a nearby forest every day to collect leaves. The father worked as a daily wager; he would collect leaves for a living, stitch them to make small plates and sell them to local sweet shops. On their way back, when they crossed the crumbling Shiva temple at Kuchiakol village under Joypur block, the girl, Pinki Paul, would bow devoutly.
The 250-year-old shrine was built by the Malla dynasty. “From the seventh century right up to the advent of the British, the history of Bankura has been coterminous with the rise and fall of the Malla kings. Those kings and wealthy merchants had recreated Vrindavan in and around both Bishnupur and Joypur by erecting several well-sculpted temples.