“The whole world owes an incredible debt to Bharat,” said Mitra Desai, a renowned author of ‘Treasures of Bharat’, during a thought-provoking talk at the Tamarind Hall, Chitnavis Centre. Organised by Vishwamanthan Research Foundation (VRF), the talk revolved around the richness of Bharat’s legacy, uncovering historical, cultural and intellectual treasures that define the nation. Desai, in her talk, presented and explained with historical accounts, the aftermath of British colonisation.

 

The talk opened with an eye-opening story of how a Portuguese ship named ‘Madre De Deus’ left ‘East Indies’ now Bharat with a ship full of items such as 425 tons of pepper, 45 tons of cloves, 35 tons of cinnamon, 25 tons of red eye, 15 tons of ebony, 3 tons of nutmeg, 3 tons of mace, 2.5 tons of perfume and an immeasurable amount of jewels, diamonds, rubies, pearls, gold and silver coins which was being taken to Spain but was attacked and looted by the British, from which they found out how rich and valuable actually Bharat was. Mitra Desai further explained how many original ideas of medicines and surgeries that were already being practised in Bharat were later used in the West, but Bharat was never even mentioned once in their historical account.

 

“The real loss to Bharat was losing Nalanda and Takshshila,” said Desai, while explaining that 45 trillion dollars were stolen by the British while they colonised Bharat. The talk concluded with Desai emphasising about how do we get this information out to the public, “To give you only one way, will not be the Bharat way, get in touch with your lineage, traditions and culture and this could pave the way for conversations.”