Kolkata village is now an educational center

Kolkata: "How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man" - this eternal Bob Dylan song might

be the appropriate tribute to the man whose childhood trek of 15 kms daily to reach his school made him walk yet another extra mile to make his tiny village an educational hub. When Santosh Kumar Das, after his father's death in 1936 came with his mother to his maternal uncle's place in Gangadharpur in Howrah district- there was no school. Little Santosh had to walk nearly 15 kilometers to Jujarshah everyday to have his basic education. "I wanted to establish everything in this village- from a primary school to a university so that the students don't have to walk distances for studies," Santosh says. In the last fifty years Das almost single-handedly has been able to change the complexion of his village. q Today Gangadharpur, a small hamlet nearly 100 kilometers away from Kolkata, boasts of having not only two schools and college but an open air auditorium, a playground of international standard and a hospital as well. "In my school days I had to walk a long distance to get my primary education and afterwards I had to complete all my higher education in private and so I thought to give the people of this area the basic educational facilities," says Das. Now all the people have come forward to make my mission successful. Without their active co-operation I could not have completed this task," adds Das. Bureau Report