Mama Bhagne

The area

It is a pair of almost spherical natural boulders of granite rock, one balancing on the top of other. The balancing of the rocks are so surprising that it is a famous landmark in West Bengal, where it is known as Mama Bhagne ( the uncle and the nephew ). The site has a number of boulders splintered across the place. It is the extreme eastern part of the Chota Nagpur plateau where "the granite is gray and composed of glassy quartz pink, gray feldspar and black mica"At the base of the rocks is a temple of Shiva entitled Pahareswar.

Mythology

When Rama decided to attack Ravana he found it necessary to throw a bridge across the straits for the conveyance of his troops, he drove in his aerial chariot to the Himalayas, picked up what stones he needed and drove back. As he was passing Dubrajpur his horses took fright and tilted up the chariot and so some stones fell out. These are the stones at Mama Bhagne.

There is another legend to the effect that they were collected by Viswakarma, at the command of Shiva, to erect in one night a second Kasi. When he collected the rocks and was about to commence work day dawned and so he left.

In popular culture

The rock formation is a thematic motif of the movie Abhijan by Satyajit Ray, where the rocks are seen as symbols of human being carrying its sin accumulated over time. It is also the title for Anup Sengupta's Mama Bhagne (2009), starring Prasenjit Chatterjee and Ananya Chatterjee.