Letters to the Editor: Remembering Subhas Bhowmick

It's shocking to hear that Asian Games medallist stalwart footballer Subhas Bhowmick (72), is no more. Famed as a 'bulldozer' in the football maidan of his generation, he shook the opponent's defence with his powerful dribbling skills as he ruled the Maidan for almost a decade. After making his debut at the Rajasthan Club, next year 'Bhombal'da' played one season for East Bengal, and he joined the rival club Mohun Bagan where he played there for three years and returned to East Bengal.

For India, he was part of the Asian Games-bronze medal winning squad in 1970 as he also represented India in the Merdeka Cup (scored a hat-trick against the Philippines) and Pesta Sukan Tournament. He was also a member of the team that toured the USSR in 1971.

After successful career in football, Bhowmick quickly switched to coaching making his debut on the field as the coach of Mohun Bagan before joining East Bengal where he became most successful guiding red and gold not only to the ASEAN Cup title in 2003, but also guided East Bengal to successive National league titles and in the 2012-13 season, he coached Churchill Brothers S.C. as a technical director, and led them to the top of the league standings in the I-League.

Bhowmick stepped down as coach of East Bengal in 2005 after his career was marred with controversy as he was arrested after being found guilty in bribery case and was jailed back in 2005. In Indian football, Bhowmick's contribution will always remain with its development, and will never be forgotten. My condolences to his family. May his soul rest in peace.

Bidyut Kumar Chatterjee

Faridabad 121005

Progress of English language

During the 16th and 17th centuries, both Queen Elizabeth and William Shakespeare influenced the English language's path of progress. Significantly, the Bible was one of the major translated and printed books to circulate during their time, which brought the church's language to the commoner. During their period, Latin was still considered a language of the educated and the crème de la creme, and therefore, numerous texts needed to be translated from Latin into English to reach out to a mass audience. In fact, some words came straight from Latin, such as, focus, lens, nausea, and genius, while words like horrid, frugal, arbit, atmosphere were altered. Interestingly, suffixes 'ize' and 'ism' were also added to the English language during their period. If one person who changed and took the English language to dizzying heights, it was unquestionably Shakespeare. Through his immense vocabulary and ability to create original words, Shakespeare invented some 2,000 words. Few examples: eyeballs, homicide, brittle, lonely, gloomy, and majestic. Further, Shakespeare coined some phrases that are still in use today. They are: 'out of thin air', 'as luck would have it', and 'fool's paradise.' In the 17th century, the British East India Company introduced the English language to India. As a result of British colonialism, English was considered the governing language, and is still in vogue due to India's heterogeneous languages. And today, India has approximately 125 million English speakers!

Ranganathan Sivakumar

Chennai – 600 091