Dear PRAGATI members,
As you all know our beloved Sabitadi (Sabita Ghosh) has passed away on the 14th of December morning. She leaves behind her son Partha and daughter Mita.
We thought it would be appropriate to mention her contribution to our Bengali community back in the days when an immigrant from Kolkata was looking for a familiar face in the midst of unknown.
Sabitadi and her husband Amalda (Amal Ghose) came to Philadelphia from Kolkata in the late sixties. She had a Masters degree in physics and worked on its research at Presidency college. When she came to Philadelphia, she opened her doors to all immigrants from Kolkata young and old. Her home was the home away from home for many.
While Amalda worked on chemistry research at the University of Pennsyvania, Sabitadi provided a warm welcome to all the Bengalis. There was never a night when she didn’t have any guest from her homeland. Her home was the center for all Bengalis. So Pragati was formed.
Sabitadi was the first Vice President of Pragati. She was a mother figure to many and was loved by all.
Today we mourn for her and pray that her soul rests in peace.
Another Tribute to Sabita di:
With great sadness and a heavy heart, we convey to you that Mrs. Sabita Ghosh, the veteran Bengali community organizer of the Greater Philadelphia area passed away on December 15, 2021. We received the following memoir from her daughter Paramita Ghosh reflecting on her mother’s life.
Source: Gharoa
Sabita Ghosh was born in her mother’s hometown of Cumilla in Bengal, India in the early 1930s. She lived in Habiganj as a child. Her father was a geologist and her mother a homemaker. After the partition of India in 1947, she along with her family moved to Assam to live with her uncle. She finished high school in Dibrughar in 1948.
Her family moved to Calcutta where she started college in 1949. She attended Asutosh Mukherjee College and Scottish Church College. She later did research in theoretical physics with Professor Kulesh Kar at Calcutta University. She got married to Dr. Amal Ghosh in 1965. They had two children and moved to the United States in 1967-68.
The family came to Philadelphia where Dr. Ghosh was doing research at the University of Pennsylvania. Sabita loved to cook and enjoyed entertaining Bengali students in the Philadelphia area in their West Philadelphia apartments. Amal and Sabita enjoyed people and loved hosting people in their home.
They took pleasure of hosting and helping many Bengali immigrants including relatives settle in the US. They also took pleasure in the Bengali community in Philadelphia and helped to form Pragati. Sabita served as the first vice president of Pragati.
The whole family enjoyed spending time with the growing Bengali community in Philadelphia. Sabita worked for an insurance company and kept up her passion for entertaining and keeping in touch with people she had known in India and the Philadelphia area. She truly enjoyed people, was active in Pragati, taught at the Bangla school in the 1980s.
She stayed in the Philadelphia area after the passing of Dr. Ghosh until about 1995 when she started spending more time in the Washington DC area. She also spent some time in Northern California and Kolkata before returning to the Philadelphia area in 2000.
She enjoyed going to Pragati and then Ghoroaa events and, generally, spending time with family and friends. She enthusiastically participated in a weekly spiritual meeting held in the Philadelphia area. She also enjoyed reading, listening to music, watching videos and cooking.
She is survived by her son, Partha, and her daughter, Paramita, and various other relatives who she dearly loved.
Please keep Late Sabita Ghosh’s family in your thoughts and prayers.
