PURNEA, Aug. 15 -- The "Jhanda chowk," located in the heart of Purnea town, was all set to unfurl the tricolour at the stroke of midnight (00:01 hrs) on August 15, about seven hours before it is unfurled at the historic Red Fort in New Delhi. The city, about 340-km from capital Patna, has a tradition of unfurling the national flag just after midnight as the new day begins. The tradition, which has continued incessantly for the past 79 years, kick-started when a group of freedom fighters and patriots decided to mark the occasion out of fervour. According to locals when the country was eagerly awaiting the proclamation of independence on 14 August 1947, people from Purnea had gathered outside Mishra Radio shop in Bhatta Bazaar. At around 11 pm, freedom fighter Rameshwar Prasad Singh and his associates Ramratan Sah, Kamal Dev Narayan Sinha, Ganesh Chandra Das and Shamsul Haque were among those who reached there. "Locals with patriotic fervour were playing carrom and listening to the radio. As soon as then Governor General Lord Mountbatten declared India a free country, the whole area erupted in delirious exhilaration. My grandfather and his comrades unfurled the tricolours right there. The tradition stands to this day since then," said Vipul Prasad Singh, grandson of Rameshwar Prasad Singh. Jhanda chowk at Bhatta Bazar was the nerve centre of the freedom movement in the region. "Freedom fighters and litterateurs such as Satinath Bhaduri, Kedarnath Bandyopadhyay (popularly known as Dada Musai), Bibhuti Bhushan Bandhopadhyay, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Balay Chandra Mukherji (known as Banphool), Anup Lal Mandal, Phanishwar Nath Renu, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar and several others used to visit this place during pre Independence days," Ajay Sanyal, a researcher on Satinath Bhaduri's books, said. "Bhatta Bazar is the area where Bengal's freedom movement reached Purnea and slowly this area emerged as one of the nerve centres where freedom fighters would gather and operate from," added Sanyal. "But our fight for official recognition of the midnight celebration tradition ended in 2012 onwards as the then Purnea district magistrate (DM) N Saravana Kumar himself attended the celebration but afterwards no DM or gazetted officer came to unfurl the flag," Gobind Das, a cultural artist and a writer, said. Das, who has done extensive research on Purnea's Bengalis and their influence on freedom struggle, said, "In Purnea, the place Jhanda Chowk where the celebration takes place every, you will still find the oldest grocery store run by a Bengali family," adding, "The grocery used to supply food to freedom fighters during freedom struggle free of cost."...