Brief life history:
Girish Chandra Ghosh was born on 26 February 1844 in Bagbazar, Calcutta. He was a noticeable Bengali composer, artist, writer, author, dramatist, and knight. The glory and golden days of Bengali stage performance came mainly from dint of his contribution.
In 1872 he established the first Bengali professional drama establishment, the National Theater. Girish Chandra wrote about forty plays and directed more than that. Later in his life, he became a noticeable disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa.
Girish Chandra was a notorious drunkard and arbitrariness. But in spite of that, he became one of the intimate disciples of Sri Ramakrishna. The book “Sri Ramakrishnakathamrit” mentions how Girishchandra’s morals changed after coming in contact with Sri Ramakrishna and he became one of his closest disciples.
His last stage performance:
The date was a few days ago, July 15. 1911 It was one Saturday. The play ‘Balidan’ written by playwright Girish Chandra Ghosh was performed simultaneously at the Great National Theater and Minerva Theater. In the first one, Amarendranath Dutta plays the role of Karunamay. Girish Ghosh himself played that role in the second. It was raining heavily since evening. The visitors came less than expected. In total, tickets worth Rs. 50 was sold. Girish Chandra came to Minerva with a sick body. Asthma was increased. He was to get up on the stage barefoot. Minerva owner Mahendralal Mitra requested that the day’s performance would be canceled. However, the playwright did not agree to deprive those who came to see his performance, ignoring the calamity. At last, the crowd was growing, ignoring the torrential rain. Tickets worth about four hundred rupees were sold. Why would not be happened! This drama was exposed the horrible form of the dowry system in society. Girish Chandra, Ardhendu Shekhar Mustafi, Danibabu, Aparesh Chandra Mukherjee, Tarasundari, Sushilabala, Kiranbala — who was not in that play. The directors were Girish Chandra and Ardhendu Shekhar.
In the cold weather of that night, Natyacharya got very cold. The next day he felt ill. There was a slum in front of Girish Chandra’s house. There was a lot of smoke that made breathing problems worse. It was very cold in Kolkata. Finally, Girish Chandra Ghosh passed away on the night of February 8, 1912. July 15, 1911, was the last night of his acting! The day was more than 100 years ago.