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Under a cloud: Meet Kolkata’s storm chasers who document extreme weather

Amazing Feats, Green Initiatives / Environment, Nature, Records, All, Science & Technology

The Kolkata Cloud Chasers are a group of eight members who chase storms, by photographing and documenting extreme weather conditions in eastern India.

Kolkata on a cloudy evening during the Covid-19 lockdown. Photo credit: Debarshi Duttagupta; call sign: Roadrunner, Kolkata Cloud Chasers.

When Cyclone Bulbul arrived last November, it was one of the most severe tropical cyclonic storms to have struck the state of West Bengal and Bangladesh in more than a century. Hours before the cyclone made landfall, Chirasree Chakraborty, 47, and Joyjeet Mukherjee, 49, headed down to Henry Island, approximately 130 kilometres south of Kolkata, one of the few places where the arriving storm’s impact was going to be most severe.

“We are the only people who go towards the storm when everyone else stays inside,” says Mukherjee. Both are a part of the Kolkata Cloud Chasers, a group of eight who photograph and document extreme weather conditions in eastern India — they chase storms.

According to the group, they are the only collective engaged in this kind of photography in the country.

A recreational activity still in its infancy in India, storm chasing has been practised since at least the 1950s in western countries. The American Meteorological Society defines a storm chaser as someone who “intercepts, by car, van, or truck, severe convective storms for sport or for scientific research”

A member of the Kolkata Cloud Chasers surveys the weather conditions during the arrival of Cyclone Bulbul in November 2019 with a 4×4 parked nearby. (Photo: Kolkata Cloud Chasers)

“Storm chasing is not a recognised profession in India and so we all do other jobs,” says Chakraborty. By day, she works as a publicist, but after work hours, she finds herself tracking extreme weather conditions in the West Bengal region, and a similar scenario plays out in the case of the other members of the group.

The story of Kolkata Cloud Chasers started sometime in 2005 when some of the earliest members of the group met on Orkut, the social networking site, over their shared interest in photography. By 2009, when several Android applications became easily accessible to Indian users, including weather applications like AccuWeather, it became easier to experiment with photographing a wider range of weather conditions.

“During kalboishakhi (Nor’westers) and storms, we used to give alerts on our personal Facebook page,” recalls Chakraborty. By 2014, more members with a shared interest in weather photography joined the group, and the present team was formed.

There are many who photograph sunsets or cloud formations, and weather conditions if they chance upon a storm, but tracking it is different, explains Mukherjee. What this group does is essentially visually documenting West Bengal’s weather conditions by tracing its arrival and path. “In West Bengal, there hasn’t been much documentation of weather patterns,” says Chakraborty.

Cloud formations can be very large, spread across several kilometers and are visible from long distances. (Photo: Suman Kumar Ghosh; call sign: Goodboy, Kolkata Cloud Chasers)

Chasing storms is a three-step process that starts with tracking developing weather conditions and patterns. For that, the group starts with scanning weather apps for formations, including those by India’s meteorological department. “Before 2015, we only had the Met department’s app, but since then, many new applications have come in,” says Mukherjee. In the initial years, says Chakraborty, the group also found assistance from a former Met department employee who taught them more about understanding how to read meteorological data and weather patterns.

The next step is spotting, where the group goes out into the field searching for the cloud formations or storms that they are chasing. “Clouds are huge—they can be 18 kms tall and can be seen from long distances,” says Chakraborty. The last step involves navigation, where they “intercept” the storm or clouds by taking photos, videos and, most recently, using drones for images.

While the group tries to photograph as many diverse weather conditions as they can, they try to stick to government regulations and advisories. This past May, when Cyclone Amphan arrived in West Bengal, it coincided with the coronavirus lockdown imposed by the Indian government. Unable to venture out, the group photographed the cyclonic storm from the confines of their rooftop terraces and windows instead. Similarly, last summer when Cyclonic Storm Fani made landfall in Odisha, says Mukherjee, the government had restricted travel to the cities of Bhubaneswar and Puri, that prevented the group from travelling to the neighbouring state.

A group of children play on a beach in West Bengal just as Cyclonic Storm Bulbul is about to make landfall in 2019. (Photo: Joyjeet Mukherjee; call sign: Boltanator, Kolkata Cloud Chasers)

Having known each other for as long as they have makes extreme weather photography easier, believes Chakroborty. “We have known each other since 2005 and we have a good relationship,” she says of the group members, a characteristic that is more necessary than people realise. The challenging circumstances and the unpredictable nature of the weather conditions make it necessary for the members to be able to trust and rely on each other for assistance and coordination when they are out facing storms.

(From left to right) The team of Kolkata Cloud Chasers: Debarshi Duttagupta, Abhishek Saigal, Joyjeet Mukherjee, Krishnendu Chakraborty, Chrisaree Chakraborty, Suman Kumar Ghosh, Diganta Gogoi. Team member Indranil Kar is not present in this photograph. (Photo: Kolkata Cloud Chasers)

While audiences only see as much as photographs and videos allow them to of extreme video photography, the circumstances in which the group sets out for documentation is only understood when the group explains the backstory of each photograph. “There is extreme risk involved in doing this. Our families understand and they know that we won’t take unnecessary risks. So they have faith,” laughs Chakraborty.

The members set out in their vehicles, 4x4s, known as ‘SCIFs’ or ‘Storm Cloud Intercept Four-wheelers’—a name that the group gave to the cars they use—customised with recovery straps, hi-lift jacks, additional lights, and citizens band radios, a land mobile radio system that allows person-to-person bidirectional voice communication over short distances.

Additional equipment include DSLR cameras, iPads, GPS receivers, General Mobile Radio Service (also known as Walkie Talkies) and GoPro and DJI Osmo pocket cameras for vlogging. For drone footage, the group turns to the DJI Spark, a mini drone, and the DJI Mavic Air, a portable, foldable drone, with the equipment having been funded by the group members themselves.

A bolt of lightning across flashes across the Kolkata skyline. (Photo: Abhishek Saigal; call sign: Thunderman, Kolkata Storm Chasers)

The group members all come with their own call signs, names that they go by during radio communication when they’re out on the field. While Chakraborty goes by the call sign of ‘Phoenix’, Mukherjee answers to ‘Boltonator’, a spin on the term lightning bolts.

Extreme weather conditions aren’t the only challenges that the storm chasers battle. Since much of this kind of photography occurs outside the city limits or away from densely populated areas, reassuring locals is also a part of the group’s job. “Sometimes people think we are there to seize or assess land and belong to private companies or the government,” says Mukherjee of confrontations that have on occasion, led to clashes with suspicious locals.

Despite all the tracking and planning involved, it’s not possible to accurately predict the path that a storm will take, requiring contingency planning. Chakraborty remembers an incident from last year when she travelled to North Bengal to photograph a blizzard. “It’s called a northern disturbance and I was there for three days to catch the storm.” When she went out to photograph the blizzard, she only had a small shed for cover, making it difficult to stay outside for long. “The snow was too much.”

A fishing boat lies docked during Cyclone Bulbul in West Bengal in 2019. (Photo: Chirasree Chakraborty; call sign: Phoenix, Kolkata Cloud Chasers)

For Chakraborty however, nothing has surpassed the experience of photographing Cyclone Bulbul last year in her almost 10 years of photographing extreme weather. “We got the first visual of Bulbul when we saw the outer ring. We had planned on leaving at 1 p.m. but suddenly the storm came closer. Rain and gusting increased. It was the craziest experience.”

“People don’t know what a storm actually looks like,” says Mukherjee. The nature of extreme weather photography is such that it is as much about experiencing the conditions as it is about documenting it, the members say. Sometimes, the group ends up not taking too many photos and just witnesses the natural spectacle unfolding in front of them. While following a storm requires its own planning, the group also has to devise ways to escape it.

Chirasree Chakraborty uses a DSLR to photograph Sandakphu, the highest peak in West Bengal, along the Indo-Nepal border. (Photo: Kolkata Cloud Chasers)

Chakraborty believes that storm chasing isn’t only about extreme weather photography, but it is also about understanding how to respect the might of the natural phenomenon that they are experiencing. “It is our passion and if we don’t get to do it, we will stop breathing.”

source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Cities> Kolkata / by Neha Banka / Kolkata – September 30th, 2020

What the heart hears, the hand will tell

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Records, All, World Opinion

A 34-year-old Beleghata resident’s journey as a percussionist, a field still intrinsically attributed to males

Rimpa Siva at her Beleghata home / Shubhendu Chaki

Women are still a rare sight in a few places. One such spot is the one behind the tabla.

Women vocalists have earned their place on the classical music stage. But not so much as percussionists. Something about beating a surface with force strong enough to produce a sound, perhaps, is still considered an intrinsically male activity. (In older times, the beating of drums announced war, certainly a predominantly male activity.)

Rimpa Siva, however, began to play the tabla when she was about four. “I just took to it,” she says.

Now 34, the Beleghata resident is a star. She has performed in many places in India and abroad, solo, or with the biggest names in Indian classical music, and has received many awards. Numerous videos of her performances and interviews pop up on the Net, as do write-ups and at least two short films on her, one made by a French crew.

If she is still described as a leading “woman tabla player”, and if this description sounds discriminatory, even anachronistic, Rimpa brushes it aside.

To her the reference to her as a woman performer means quite the opposite. “I think it is an acknowledgment of the fact women are becoming visible as tabla players,” says Rimpa. She believes in this. But one suspects that how she is described does not really matter to her.

Very early, she surrendered her life to the tabla.

She grew up to the sound of music at her home, the top floor of the three-storey Beleghata house that belongs to her family, where she has been confined for the six months of the lockdown. Her father, Swapan Siva, a tabla player also well-known in the city as a tabla teacher. Their surname, unusual for a Bengali family, comes from the fact that a Shivalinga had been dug up on their property in Kumilla, in former East Bengal, where the family originally comes from.

Swapan was a student of Keramatullah Khan, the doyen of the Farrukhabad gharana, who lived in Ripon Street. At the beginning Swapan had thought he would encourage his daughter towards singing.

But Rimpa’s obvious talent on the tabla decided things easily. She was stunning from the start. Swapan took over her training and she became his most distinguished pupil. “My father has been my guru,” says Rimpa. She has a broad smile that lights up her face.

Her journey began early. “I performed at the Salt Lake Music Festival held at Rabindra Sadan when I was around eight. When I was about 12, I went on the ITC tour of Mumbai, Delhi and Jaipur,” says Rimpa.

Spotted by the best musicians in the country, including tabla maestro Zakir Hussain, she would soon embark on a life that would be a mad flurry of performances, travel and awards, not something every child experiences.

The French film, made in 1999, and called ‘Rimpa Siva: Princess of Tabla’, was made when she was 13. The film shows her as a student of Beleghata Deshabandhu Giris’ High School. She goes through school as if in a haze; her fingers drum on the desktop as the class is in progress. School education took a backseat. “But my school was very supportive. It postponed the selections before the class X board examination for me.” In 1997, she had toured US and Europe.

In 2004, she accompanied Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia as the main tabla player on his US tour. In 2006, she accompanied Pandit Jasraj on another US tour. She won the President’s Award in 2007 and the Sangeet Natak Akademi award in 2017. The years in between are crowded with performances and cities, which can run into pages.

“In 1997, in San Francisco, Ali Akbar Khan himself attended my performance at the Ali Akbar College of Music. He blessed me and said that I should keep a lemon and chilli in my pocket to ward off evil,” says Rimpa. She seems quite unfazed by her achievements, but also exudes a quiet confidence. She also holds an M.A. degree from Rabindra Bharati University in Instrumental Music. 

The specialities of her gharana include kaida, rela, tukra and gat, words that have entered the Bengali language from music to indicate style or attitude. She practises for three to four hours every day. Her solo performances can last up to two hours.

The lockdown makes her feel claustrophobic. It has practically stopped performance art. “I haven’t performed in six months,” she says. “Of late, I would be even travelling every month within the country, and sometimes two times abroad in a year.”

But nothing really comes between Rimpa and her music. “I live for the tabla. Everything in my life happens around the tabla. It does not matter where I am performing, with whom. When I am playing, I transcend everything,” she says.

“At that moment, I only feel peace and joy. Those who feel music know that peace and joy.”

On stage, she appears to go into a trance, lost in the music. She also looks dressed like a typical male tabla player, in a high-collar kurta, and together with her hair, she almost suggests Zakir Hussain. That is a coincidence, she says. “I can’t play the tabla in a woman’s clothes. They are not comfortable.”

She adds that she always had short hair and never cared for anything “girlie”. She did not time for friendship either.

Rimpa is also not sure about the role marriage can play in a woman’s life if she is a musician.

She feels that a lot of young Indians are showing interest in classical music now. She mentions Aban Mistry and Anuradha Pal as her illustrious predecessors in tabla, as women, and also does not shy away from suggesting that she is a role model for girls who want to take up the tabla, whether they will still be called “woman musicians” or not.

She seems to say gender is not an impediment, but you have to strike out on your own.

“Remember, girls can play the tabla,” she says.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Online / Home> West Bengal> Calcutta / by Chandrima Bhattacharya / September 28th, 2020

Fish farming: Push to use biofloc technology

Agriculture, Business & Economy, Green Initiatives / Environment, Inspiration / Positive News and Features, Nature, Records, All

Kolkata:

The state Panchayats and Rural Development department is laying special emphasis on fish farming through biofloc technology with the objective of livelihood support amidst the COVID -19 pandemic situation.

West Bengal Comprehensive Area Development Corporation (CADC) under the aegis of the department which is executing and pushing for biofloc to be adopted by the SHG groups across the state has set the ball rolling by setting up an infrastructure of fish cultivation through biofloc at its own office at Mrittika in Salt Lake. It is expected to be readied by this week.

“Biofloc is a technology using which one can produce fishes significantly in large quantities (in a small volume of water) as compared to the traditional form of aquaculture in large ponds. It is easy to monitor the fish movement, their behaviour and abnormalities as they will remain within a tank which in turn will facilitate taking the corrective measures immediately, ” said a senior official of CADC.

Probiotic and molluscs are used to eliminate chances of food particles and excreta of the fishes in polluting the water . These components produce planktons and prevent the production of ammonium nitrate which is toxic for the fishes. An aerator is used to add oxygen to the water.

“We will be creating a biofloc model in each of our 23 projects in the state and accordingly training will be provided. The seeds will also be supplied by us. The interested SHGs will bear have to bear the other costs. However the scheme can also be taken up under MGNREGA in which the government will bear the entire cost, ” said the official.

The technique is already being practised at Tamluk in East Midnapore, Ayodha Hills in Purulia and in some semi arid zones in Murshidabad, Jhargram and Birbhum.

Air-breathing fish rearing in cement tank by 60 farmers in Kolaghat has already seen success. Every 8 feet by 6 ft tank were provided with 500 seeds on an average each costing Re 1. In three to four months each tank produces 25 kg on an average (koi, singi, magur, ) whose average price is Rs 250 to 300 per kg. The income from each tank is around Rs 7000 a month so for 60 tanks the income is Rs 42,0000.

A wide variety of fishes can be cultivated through this technology like Koi, Magur, Singi, Telapiya, Pabda and even prawn.

source: http://www.millenniumpost.in / Millennium Post / Home> Kolkata / by Soumitra Nandi / September 21st, 2020

Broadway Hotel: Old-world hotel that still stands tall

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Business & Economy, Historical Links / Pre-Independence, Records, All, Travel, World Opinion

If you don’t mind the old, if you find it elegant, not to say comforting, Broadway bar is the best party in town

Sandeep Sehgal at the bar at Broadway Hotel. Picture by Subhendu Chaki .

As the metal clinks against the glass, and the buzz mixed with laughter rises from the low tables covered in maroon or yellow tablecloths, and the shaded lamps throw light on black- and-white old Calcutta pictures, and the draught beer taps are placed on your table, and moonlight blended with electricity cracks in through the large glass windows on the front, you only miss live music. But then a tall gentleman enters the bar at Broadway Hotel through the side entrance.

He is very tall indeed. He appears silently at the door and then glides from table to table, ensuring that everyone gets a seat quickly, especially the ladies.

Sandeep Sehgal is the current owner of Broadway Hotel on Ganesh Chandra Avenue. Apart from lending his graceful, welcoming and slightly mysterious — he hardly speaks to a guest — presence to the place, he has also rendered a great service to the city.

He has kept Broadway Hotel and the bar, one of Calcutta’s most-loved places that started in 1937, the way he found them. Almost. Since he took over the hotel three years ago — the bar is on the ground floor; the four floors on top have rooms to stay in — Sehgal has just added one or two necessary, unobtrusive facilities to the bar and to the hotel. Such as the draught beer, AC, new crockery and a new menu that only adds to the old items, which include boiled eggs and the famous “Stock Market Toast” (named after bakery bread that was found near the Calcutta Stock Exchange building).

In the process he has assured old Broadway faithfuls, who form a substantial number of Calcuttans, that their refuge remains undisturbed. He has also performed an act of conservation — of a dear piece of the city, where “development” is a euphemism for demolishing the old.

Broadway, now, is exceptional in another way, as most bars in this part of the business district have either renovated themselves into a new-age tackiness to become unrecognisable or have turned into crooner bars. Or both.

I finally get to talk to Sehgal, 53, in his large and plain office on the first floor of the hotel. He was born to a Punjabi family in the city and educated here and abroad. “I am not going to change any of this. Because there is going to be no other place like this,” he reassures me personally.

Broadway always defied change, even in the hands of the earlier owners. Since the early 2000s, when most of the bars in the neighbourhood turned into crooner bars, Broadway stood its ground. Then, too, the bar had a loyal following, but mostly of office-goers.

It remained stodgy and refused an image makeover. Because it was confident of its charms, which begin with the old wooden doorway at the Ganesh Chandra Avenue entrance. It is a small cubicle by itself, possibly unique in Calcutta.

After Sehgal took over, the bar looks a little spruced-up, but still old and plain. So what is it that is so inviting?

Once you get in, if you are lucky, you may get a table by the large front windows. Or by the wall-to-wall mirror on one side. It does not matter really. The waiters will not trouble you with excessive attention, as in a snazzy restaurant, but will not neglect you either. The menu is exciting — you get everything from a robust Chicken-a-la-Kiev to succulent pieces of deep-fried Katla fish, and at prices that are quite old world too.

The old bar stands in a corner. On some evenings, you may spot another tall gentleman, much older, taking the same rounds as Sehgal. He is Mr Sehgal Sr.

But it is not one single detail. Here you are never rushed. They will let you be. Everyone is welcome. You feel good. You feel looked after.

Most of all, you feel free of the shiny oppressiveness of synthetic wood, glass and metal that defines the new restaurant chic. The new breeds such anxiety. It makes you feel that you are not up to it.

Broadway tolerates the old. You relax.

If you don’t mind the old, if you find it elegant, not to say comforting, Broadway bar is the best party in town.

That does not mean it is not cool. Far from it. The young, the trendy and the different are being increasingly spotted at Broadway. Some celebs too. A few scenes from the recent Bollywood film Dhadak were shot here.

Sometimes saving the old is good business as well.

Sehgal takes me on a guided tour of the hotel. The rooms are spacious ones, with old, unfussy furniture, very clean.

The previous owners, who were deeply attached to the property, had asked Sehgal, who also owns the restaurant Flavours of India on AJC Bose Road, Calcutta, and Hotel Utsav in Santiniketan, if he would make any changes.

“But I would not change anything,” Sehgal repeats. “We can’t make another property like this.”

“I will have to replace the furniture when they become too old. But this red oxide floor? These beams? Where will I get them now?” he asks.

Sehgal was also particularly careful in retaining all the staff. “In the hotel we have third-generation guests coming,” Sehgal says. The waiters and the visitors know each other. Besides, Sehgal did not visualise the hotel without the people who were a part of it.

If he has to renovate the hotel, the old Great Eastern Hotel will be his model. “Not the new one,” he stresses. “The old one.”

Sehgal reveals his height is 6ft 6”. He walks tall.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Online / Home> West Bengal / by Chandrima S Bhattacharya, Calcutta / September 15th, 2020

Two teachers from West Bengal receive National Awards on Teachers’ Day

Education, Inspiration / Positive News and Features, Records, All

When Kalimul Haque, 45, joined the Nepalipara Hindi High School in West Bengal’s Paschim Burdwan district a decade ago, he was faced with a challenging task.

Misha Ghosal
Misha Ghosal(HT)

When Kalimul Haque, 45, joined the Nepalipara Hindi High School in West Bengal’s Paschim Burdwan district a decade ago, he was faced with a challenging task.

“Such was the reputation of the school, that not only the students passing out of the institution were facing a bleak future, but I was badly scolded by a senior education officer of the district in my first meeting. On that day, I decided, that I would do something for the school,”

While in 2019, the Nepalipara Hindi High School at Labourhut, with more than 3600 students, was selected as the best school in the state by the West Bengal government, on Saturday Haque, a doctorate in geography, received the National Award.

Today, the school boasts of smart classes, a rooftop kitchen garden with hydroponics, water harvesting, vermicompost and students prepare their own teaching material under the guidance of teachers. From ten classrooms and one toilet in 2010, the school now has 57 classrooms and 24 toilets. Earlier students of classes, five, six and seven used to sit on the floor. Today the school has class 11 and 12 with all streams.

“Developing the school had almost become my addiction. My family supported me throughout. I am happy that I could do it,” said Haque who has received several awards including the Siksha Ratna award from the state government.

Meanwhile, in north Bengal, Misha Ghosal (51), the headmistress of Dhanapati Toto Memorial High School in Alipurduar districts’s Totopara, a home of primitive Toto tribes, had been working tirelessly for 11 years to make the school stand out among others. A postgraduate in Mathematics, she received the National Award on September 5.

“Even though I hail from Alipurduar district I had studied in Kolkata. So when I got selected for the head master’s exam and I was offered the school in the remotest corner, I was a bit afraid. But then, I took up the challenge and thought of doing something for the school and the society,” she said.

When she joined the school in 2009, only one student from the Toto community, having a population of only 1585, was able to cross the Madhyamik (class X board exam) hurdle. This year the success rate is over 80 percent.

Totopara, is a small and remote hamlet by the Indo-Bhutan border and remains marooned during the monsoons. One needs to cross seven rivers to reach the village. She almost single-handedly turned things for the school having 250 students.

“I worked hard to first win the confidence of the community and started two hostels. The school was developed from government-aided to government-sponsored so that it becomes financially sound. Now my aim is to uplift the quality of education in the school so that students can find jobs,” she said.

Rita Toto was the first female graduate from the community in 2010.

source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home> Education / by Hindustan Times, Kolkata-Siliguri / September 05th, 2020

A solo traveller around the world, on a bicycle

Amazing Feats, Records, All, Sports, Travel, World Opinion

The cycle is as good for our personal health as it is for our environment, not to mention women’s empowerment: Lipika Biswas

Lipika Biswa cycles on a road in Kasba / Picture by Subhendu Chaki

Lipika Biswas’s landing in Europe for the first time in July 2018 was with a thud. She was in Frankfurt where first the immigration officer would not believe that a woman from India was on a two-month cycling tour in Europe, alone. Then Biswas realised that no mechanic was free to help her re-assemble her bicycle, which she was lugging behind her packed in a box.

But Biswas is not someone who gives up easily. Getting to Frankfurt had not been easy either.

She calls herself a solo traveller. An Eastern Railways employee where she works as a senior clerk, Biswas, who turns 52 on Wednesday, had planned the Europe tour meticulously. She would bike from Germany to Iceland. With loans from friends and a very supportive family, she had managed to put together Rs 4.5 lakh for the trip, and had trained herself relentlessly, but had missed the bit about the re-assembling.

In Frankfurt, she lost a day trying to get a mechanic to help her and several Euros, which would always and instantly be converted into rupees in her mind. “I paid Rs 3,500 as taxi fare in Frankfurt just to move to a new accommodation,” says Biswas, a resident of Kasba. The next day she got to work herself, going by instinct, and put together her bike, and set off for Mainz, when she also realised that she did not know how to use GPS.

But the roads held her up, as she was borne by the kindness of strangers.

Biswas had been a mountaineer from 1994, the year she joined the railways. She wanted to be an adventurer. She had grown up in Palta, on the outskirts of Calcutta, attending school there and college in Naihati. “I was a tomboy. I played daant-guli. No dolls for me,” says Biswas.

She joined a local mountaineering club, Nababganj Mountain Lovers, and with them, as with others, “summited” several Himalayan mountain peaks. In 1995 she trekked up to Kalindi Pass, which connects Gangotri and Gastoli. Within a few years, she was a veteran. For two years, 2014 and 2015, she was part of an Everest expedition team, but on both occasions she had to return from the base camp as the expeditions were cancelled.

She had always loved cycling. The last few years she has turned to these “magic wheels”.

“I still wanted to go far,” she said. To be able to go up mountains that seem to be rising straight up is to conquer fear. “While going up I would think not again. Coming down I would want to return right then.”

But she also wanted to go alone. It would help her to confront the final frontiers of fear. A doctor friend, her adviser, told her to try Europe. It would be “safe”.

So there she was, on way to Mainz from Frankfurt, on a bicycle assembled by herself for the first time.

In Mainz, she was told at a late hour that she would have to cross the Rheine to camp. Biswas would either be hosted by members of Warm Showers, an international free touring cyclists community, or stay at Airbnb places, or camp in her own tent wherever possible, even in someone’s garden, spending as little money as possible on food. But in Mainz, the couple told her she could stay the night at their place. This would be the first of the many homes that would be offered to her by strangers.

“One of the best things about cycling is meeting people,” says Biswas. She made many friends in Europe. She did not face a single incident of racism, she feels. She felt appreciated, though she surprised many as an “Indian woman” out on such a tour.

She rattles off the names of places she visited: Mainz, Cologne, Duisberg, to Arnhem, Amsterdam, Zalk (a village in the Netherlands), back to Germany, and Fehmarn, from where she entered Denmark. Then she visited Sweden and Norway. From Norway she reached Iceland from Faroe Islands by ferry. Reaching Iceland was an emotional moment. She biked through the country from Seyðisfjörður to Reykjavik, from where she took a flight to Calcutta via Copenhagen and Delhi.

“On some days I cycled for 100 to 120km,”says Biswas. “My friend from Calcutta insisted that I go wild camping. So I stayed alone in the forest at Kronsjo the night before I entered Norway from Sweden.”

She discovered the pleasure of railway waiting rooms. At Lunden, near Flam in Norway, she decided to spend the night at the tiny railway station just because it was so heart-stoppingly beautiful. She was the only one at the waiting room, surrounded by mountains and an immense solitude.

She also made friends out of a few Indian ambassadors at the capitals. “Despite some problems, the tour went off quite well,” says Biswas, who was back in Calcutta after two months.

Only to be back in another part of Europe the next year, same time, for two months. She took off from Vienna, biked through Budapest, Belgrade and Sofia to Istanbul, where she had a brainwave.

She felt she must visit Greece. She went to the island of Lesbos, the home of Sappho, the greatly admired poet of ancient Greece who also gives her name to the Sapphic tradition.

Biswas visited the island, but when she wanted to enter Turkey again, from where she would take the flight home, she realised that she had a one-entry visa. She spent a deeply anxious night with her passport taken away, after which she was finally granted another visa for Turkey.

Last year in April, she had also gone on a bike tour of Sri Lanka, but with a friend.

“And I will go again,” she says. And looks proudly at her three bikes – a folding bike, a mountain bike and a touring bike — which are all parked happily inside her bedroom at her small Kasba apartment.

She wants Calcutta to be more cycle-friendly. The cycle is as good for our personal health as it is for our environment, not to mention women’s empowerment, she points out. During the pandemic many cycles are out in the streets.

“But in Calcutta cyclists should also learn to follow traffic signals,” she insists.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Online / Home> West Bengal> Calcutta / by Chandrima S Bhattacharya / September 14th, 2020

Malda librarian keeps old coins for posterity

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Historical Links / Pre-Independence, Records, All

Saha is dreaming of developing a modest museum in association with the state government where he can display his collection and ensure that the rare coins are preserved properly for the future

Subir Saha with coins at his home in Malda on Thursday. / Soumya De Sarkar

Hundreds of coins dating back to the Sultanate era and of the current age have helped librarian Subir Saha spend his days indoors during the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown.

Saha, a known numismatist who stays at Green Park here, is now dreaming of developing a modest museum in association with the state government where he can display his stock of coins and ensure that the rare coins are preserved properly for the future.

A visit to his residence, and one would be delighted to see the “Gani” coin used during the regime of Mohammed Bin Tughlaq, “Tanka” of Kutubuddin Aibaq to “Dam” of Akbar, Jahangir and Aurangzeb.

The repertoire also contains “Falus”, a coin used during regimes of emperors Humayun and Shah Jahan, “Paisa” used during the rule of Sher Shah Suri and also coins used during the eras of rulers like Alauddin Khilji and Gias Uddin Balban.

A postgraduate in economics and a postgraduate diploma holder in business management, Saha, who is posted as a librarian at a state-run library in Old Malda, also takes the pride of displaying coins used during the rules of King George V and George VI and King

“I also have a gold-plated replica of ‘Mohor’ that was used in transactions during the regime of Queen Victoria. I have coins made of silver, copper, nickel, blending of aluminium and magnesium and stainless steel,” said the numismatist, who is in his early fifties.

His collection of coins which have been minted in India post-independence is no less surprising.

He has the coin of 1,000 rupees denomination that was introduced to celebrate the 1,000th anniversary of a temple in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, and also the coins of Rs 500, Rs 200, Rs 150, Rs 125, Rs 60, Rs 25 and Rs 20, introduced as souvenirs to celebrate occasions like Indo-African summit, sesquicentennial anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore and platinum jubilee of the Reserve Bank of India.

“During the recent lockdown, it is these coins with which I had spent most of my time. These coins keep me busy as I also make different models with the coins which have turned outdated in our country. I had developed the habit of collecting coins since my university days and I feel equally enthusiastic even now to collect rare coins,” said Saha, who has created a collection of over 2,000 coins during the past 30 years.

At his home, there are at least 50 such models made of coins, which include a coin plant, decorative pieces and figures.

The librarian-cum-numismatist also has coins of over 20 countries with him, including coins of the US, France, UK, Canada, Japan and Thailand.

“My aspiration is to make a permanent display of these coins so that more and more people can see the collections. Each coin carries a piece of history with it. Once the situation normalises, I will approach the administration and the state government with a proposal of a museum that can be set up jointly in Malda,” he said.

His collection has also made some local youths propose an exhibition in the town.

“However, we can think of it only after this pandemic is over,” said Saha.

Interestingly, the numismatist is a phillumenist as well and has a collection of thousands of matchboxes.

“This is yet another collection that I have. In the past few months, we often heard that people feel bored or are depressed as they have to spend hours and days at home. I believe they can utilise their time and develop some hobby or other to remain mentally fit,” he said.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, online edition / Home> West Bengal / by Soumya De Sarkar / Malda – September 11th, 2020

The personal and the public coalesce in Isher Judge Ahluwalia’s memoir

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In Breaking Through Ahluwalia writes an account of her extraordinary life, career and fight against an implacable disease

n this together: A file photo of Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Isher Judge Ahluwalia at the Brihadisvara Temple in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu. (Photo: PTI)

At almost the end of her long innings, wracked by grade IV glioblastoma, among the toughest of all cancers, Isher Judge Ahluwalia — grace, charm and subtlety personified, and, with widespread connections — took it upon herself to write this book. Courageous as she is, Isher did so in the most trying circumstances, while she was losing the ability to read and write on her own, relying extensively on help from the family to put down her thoughts.

Yet, thank God that she has written this book, for it is a story of grit, love, care and commitment. Grit, because who would have bet that a daughter of simple, traditional Sikh parents — one of 11 siblings — living in a small, rented flat near Purna Cinema, not far from Calcutta’s Kalighat, would reach where she did, entirely on the strength of her efforts and her intense determination to succeed?

Or, that she would in 1962, finish her West Bengal Higher Secondary Board examination from the highly-regarded Shri Shikshayatan Vidyalaya, coming eighth in the state? She writes, “My father had never shown any interest in our education but when I did well in the exams, he would often tell his friends with some pride that I had got the third rank among girls. While I approved of his new interest in education, I objected to the gender differentiation; I would correct him, saying I was eighth, not third.”

Breaking Through: A Memoir by Isher Judge Ahluwalia

Isher then went to Presidency College, Calcutta, to study economics with a scholarship of Rs 35 per month, which paid for her college fees and the tram ride from home and back. After the Presidency, she joined the Delhi School of Economics for her Master’s degree. “My family would never have let me go to Delhi to live in a hostel. At this point, I had a lucky break. In 1964, my brother decided to move to the capital with his family to start a business and my parents agreed to my going to live with them, attending DSE as a day student.”

As was the case with many of us, DSE was Isher’s road to Damascus — a point of revelation when she was determined to study further and apply for a PhD. Armed with a high first division in a year when seven of the eight ‘first-divers’ were women, Isher applied to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she was accepted with a fellowship. Thus began her journey in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a passage that took a bit longer than necessary because of an interlude in Washington, DC.

In the summer of 1970, Isher applied to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a summer internship. Instead of the usual three months, she got a special six-month break from MIT. With that came to love. Soon after moving to DC, she had a date with a super-bright young man, the clever, erudite English-speaking debater from St Stephen’s and winner of a congratulatory first in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford, one Montek Singh Ahluwalia, who had joined the World Bank as a part of its Young Professionals Program.


Montek impressed Isher sufficiently enough — lunch in the Bank’s Executive Dining Room, films, dinners, walks and drives. “It was during one of those drives, while we were picnicking off some bread and cheese and a glass of wine, that I decided that Montek was the man for me.” Soon, Isher secured a full-time job at the IMF; and, in 1971, she and Montek married in Washington.

Four years passed in setting up home in Georgetown, going with IMF delegations for Article IV consultations in the Caribbean, and working long hours at the Fund. Suddenly, it dawned upon her that she had left her PhD programme behind. So Isher applied for a fellowship at Brookings and completed her MIT thesis from there in 1976 — which was published in 1979 by Macmillan, titled Behaviour of Prices and Outputs in India: A Macro-Econometric Approach.

Then came care. Of parenting two boys — first Pavan, who was born in November 1977; and, then, Aman in October 1979, after the three of them had returned to India for good. Of taking charge of what was an immaculate home and hearth; of looking after a growing family that eventually extended to daughters-in-law and grandchildren; of being a partner to Montek, who would return late at night with stacks of government files.

Then, there was a commitment to her profession. “Being a mother is a full-time job. Being a working mother is two full-time jobs.” Even so, Isher completed two major books: Industrial Growth in India: Stagnation Since the Mid-Sixties (1989, Oxford University Press) and Productivity and Growth in Indian Manufacturing (1991, OUP).

She worked at the Centre for Policy Research, then took over as the head of Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), an institution which she strengthened by attracting excellent full-time fellows and garnering some very serious grants from abroad and the Indian corporate world, that made ICRIER financially comfortable. If these were not enough, Isher got into urbanisation and published two books on the subject.

Breaking Through is a beautiful read because it is so honestly written, so touching in content — a wonderful mélange of the personal and the public. It is, in effect, a signing off. Of a great life. Of struggles. Of success. Of love and caring. Of building families, values and institutions. And, of Montek.

Thank you, Isher.

The author is the founder and chairperson of CERG Advisory Private Limited

source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Books and Literature / by Omkar Goswami / August 30th, 2020

The Minister who read too much

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Pranab Babu spoke English with a Bengali accent yet made it to the top. Here’s why

Pranab Mukherjee / Twitter/@INCIndia

Pranab Mukherjee was an unusual politician and his success was unusual given that the odds were stacked against him. He was not a grassroots politician and he lost most of the elections he contested. He was not an intellectual in the Bengali sense of the word and he didn’t come from an English-speaking background (all his life he spoke the Queen’s language with a heavy Bengali accent). He was also singularly lacking in charisma. He thus broke all the rules that had governed Bengal’s politics harking back to C.R. Das and Subhas Chandra Bose to Siddhartha Shankar Ray and Jyoti Basu.

But he had other strengths. Most notable was the fact that he was born into politics. From their home in Mirati village, his father Kamada Kinkar Mukherjee controlled, and had an iron grip on, Birbhum district politics. Along with his alphabet, his son learnt the first rules of public life: influence-peddling and networking. He was a zealous student and never forgot the lessons.

Mukherjee’s first big opportunity came soon after he had moved to Calcutta in the 1960s and dived into the thick of state politics. The Syndicate that ruled the Congress Party in Bengal, as elsewhere, threw a dissident leader out of the party. Mukherjee sensed that politics in India was changing and he chose to side with the dissident leader and was also expelled.

He had timed it perfectly. Feelings against the Congress party were rising and in the assembly elections the dissidents scraped together enough seats to be the deciding factor. The Left successfully wooed the breakaway Congress by agreeing to make the Congress dissident leader the chief minister. Even Jyoti Basu agreed to serve as the deputy chief minister.

Mukherjee knew though that no good could come out of an association with the Communist party. By then, the Congress Party had split into two parties – the Indira Gandhi Congress and the old Congress. Mukherjee skilfully negotiated a way for his group to ally with Indira Gandhi and even managed to win himself a junior minister portfolio in Delhi. His senior in the ministry was Kamlapati Tripathi, a UP Brahmin who preferred temple-hopping to ploughing through ministerial files.

That task was left to the young Mukherjee who learnt the other important lesson, one his father had not taught him, namely that if you want to run India, you must know your files. He was not house tamed by the babus — he became one.

_________________

Abhijit Mukherjee@ABHIJIT_LS

With a Heavy Heart , this is to inform you that my father Shri #PranabMukherjee has just passed away inspite of the best efforts of Doctors of RR Hospital & prayers , duas & prarthanas from people throughout India ! I thank all of You

🙏

5:46 PM . Aug 31, 2020

_______________

Mukherjee was not quite the ultimate old-school politician. True, he had friends in every political nook and cranny and beyond, and he knew when to cash in on his friendships. True, he held almost all the great offices of state, shuttling between finance, defence and external affairs with equal ease. But he had one redeeming feature which the rest lacked. He could read, and he read, every file that came his way. Jagjivan Ram, the most outstanding of all Indira Gandhi’s ministers, was once asked who was the best minister he had seen. “Pranab Mukherjee,” Ram replied. Why? “He reads the files” was Ram’s response. Others had different views. Arun Jaitley who regarded Mukherjee highly thought there was always a danger of losing the tree for the wood. Pranab had a fondness for Jaitley but thought that without spending time on files, one could never have a grip on the Ministry. Understandably, Mukherjee’s role model as Finance Minister was C.D. Deshmukh, a civil servant who went on to become the governor of the Reserve Bank and then the Finance Minister.

Mukherjee harboured ambitions of being prime minister but being elevated to the presidency was an impressive consolation prize.

In the political world, he was famed for his elephantine memory that made him the go-to man during any political discussion. Whether it was Bengal or any other part of the country, he could rattle off events and even the dates on which they occurred. “He was a ‘human computer’ like Shakuntala Devi. In most states, he could also give you the macro picture. He was relied on for spot information,” said a former bureaucrat. In addition, he was a meticulous diary-writer and brought out two books based on his memories and the contents of his diaries.

Mukherjee held a law degree as well as an MA in history and political science. He often made jokes about his diminutive stature. Many in the political world turned up at his doorstep for advice when they were in difficulties. Once he shifted into a counselling role, many say, he would switch off his political side.

He was also an administrator who could keep his cool when all others around him were losing theirs. Towards the end of his political career, bureaucrats reported he got irritable more quickly but even that was only an occasional flare-up, such as on TV when he ticked off interviewer Rajdeep Sardesai and told him to mind his tone when speaking to a former president of India.  

Above all, he was a man who cared about politics and political processes. One visitor to Rashtrapati Bhavan found him intently watching the parliamentary proceedings on Lok Sabha TV and muttering irately at the screen: “He should not have said that.”  

Early in his career, he caught Sanjay Gandhi’s eye and was catapulted to high office even before he was 40. It is said he won his attention with the help of Kamal Nath, who was, at the time, a Calcutta businessman but making his mark in politics.

Mukherjee proved his worth as a junior minister in the finance ministry. Noida, on Delhi’s outskirts, was Sanjay Gandhi’s pet project but even he could not get the State Bank of India to open a branch in Noida. At Mukherjee’s suggestion, the Finance Ministry was split into two independent entities — Revenue and Finance — both reporting independently to the prime minister. As the revenue minister, Mukherjee instructed the State Bank of India to open the branch.

The problem was resolved and a legend, that of the go-to man, was born.

By 1980, when Indira Gandhi returned to power after the brief Janata Party interregnum, Mukherjee received a huge promotion and was made Commerce Minister at the age of only 47 — still very youthful by Indian political standards.

In 1982, two years later, his dreams came true. He became the Finance Minister of India. Mukherjee fought theelection against Indira Gandhi’s wishes and lost. Indira Gandhi was reluctant to include a defeated candidate. It was Sanjay Gandhi who persuaded his mother to change her mind. It also set the curious precedence for finance ministers (or wannabe finance ministers) who lost the election to be inducted into the Cabinet through the back door. Arun Jaitley and Jaswant Singh took advantage of this unfortunate example. Manmohan Singh did one better. He became the Prime Minister.

Pranab Mukherjee was essentially a Sanjay Gandhi protégé but he was aware of the negative consequence of this association. He downplayed this relationship and instead pulled out all the stops to portray himself as an Indira Gandhi man.

But his relationship with Sanjay was to haunt him later in his career. Rajiv didn’t trust the Sanjay men and Mukherjee’s clumsy effort to become an interim prime minister when Indira Gandhi was assassinated was seen as an additional and very glaring black mark. Pranab was not included in the Rajiv Cabinet in 1984 and later at the first opportunity, Rajiv Gandhi expelled him from the Congress Party. It took him a great deal of effort (and a failed attempt to launch a party) to be allowed back. Mukherjee admitted that being dropped from the cabinet left him “shell shocked and flabbergasted”. The Rajiv years were for Mukherjee the years of wilderness and the political aridity spilled over to the Rao era. He could regain a cabinet berth only in 1995 after 12 long years in the no-man’s land.

Earlier, it was during his time in the Commerce Ministry that he grew close to Dhirubhai Ambani and the Reliance Group. At the Commerce Ministry, he learnt the intricacies of how, especially in the heyday of the licence raj, duties could make or break products and, indeed, companies.

By the time Mukherjee was back in favour, the Rajiv Gandhi government had lost its energy amidst the artillery fire surrounding the Bofors gun deal, and also the Shah Bano imbroglio. Later, he was pipped to the post to be finance minister in P. V. Narasimha Rao’s government. Mukherjee had misread Rao as he earlier had misread Rajiv Gandhi. He had also misread the change in ideological climate. Globalisation was beginning and was being endorsed even by communist countries. Deng’s China and Gorbachev’s Russia had all mended their ways. Mukherjee, a diehard statist, was the wrong man at the wrong time.

Not merely did Rao have a new finance minister, he also had a radically new economic policy. The nation had made a 180-degree turn. Mukherjee was history’s baggage. Still he got another innings when Chidambaram was replaced by Mukherjee in the UPA era. But he was clearly at odds with the new India. Worse, he was largely blamed for the economic downturn of the UPA2 that paved the way for a Modi triumph. His last act as the Finance Minister was to introduce the infamous Retrospective Taxation which amended a 50-year-old regulation and gave the government power to change laws with retrospective effect. This was Mukherjee’s last hurrah and a valiant last-ditch effort to bring back the rules-regulation Raj. From all accounts, he succeeded. The new law is said to be the single important factor in reducing foreign investments in India. His departure in 2012 for the Rashtrapati Bhavan saved him some embarrassment.

Mukherjee himself always insisted he couldn’t become prime minister because he didn’t speak fluent Hindi. Others joked that, with his strong Bengali accent, he didn’t speak English either. Even after decades in Delhi and criss-crossing the world, his accent didn’t change the slightest. Some put this down to his innate belief in Bengali superiority. “Bengalis know there is only one language on earth and English is just a dialect of Bangla,” said another bureaucrat who knew him well. Mukherjee was unfazed whether he was meeting the Queen of Great Britain or any other world leader. “He would speak to the Queen in Buckingham Palace and he stuck to his village college-teacher English. He didn’t care about his background or his height,” the bureaucrat said. Mukherjee’s first job had been as a lecturer in a local college before he shifted to Calcutta.

It was common knowledge that Mukherjee, and many others, blamed former West Bengal chief minister Siddhartha Shankar Ray – with whom he didn’t get along — for the Emergency. But Mukherjee, himself, was a prime beneficiary of the Emergency and a charter member of the Sanjay Gandhi faction. He was also at odds with former minister A.B.A. Ghani Khan Chowdhary, another Congress Party mass leader in Bengal.

In other ways, he was the quintessential Congressman and he took a stern line on communalism. Once when a communal incident broke out and others were caught off-balance, he delivered a strong lecture, quoting, as he was wont, earlier instances when the Congress had fought communalism – even throwing in the exact dates when the incidents had happened.

Later in life, however, he took a milder line towards an organisation like the RSS. He adopted the view, as one observer explained, that “if you keep them in the doghouse, they will do many things in an effort to shock you”. Mukherjee argued that the RSS should be mainstreamed and that would force them to “soften down,” the observer said. That outlook may have been the reason for his trip to Nagpur in 2018 where he addressed RSS swayamsevaks and even praised the institution’s founder, though he did also emphasize the importance of tolerance.

It was an open secret that Mukherjee wasn’t Sonia Gandhi’s first choice for the presidency. But he built up support at different levels and is said to have forced her hand and easily won the largely ceremonial post. He had recognised he was growing older and the one job he wanted wasn’t coming to him. Later, when Narendra Modi became Prime Minister, he knew that nothing would induce the BJP to give him a second term, but he did sound out Modi gently about his re-election. “You are a Congress nominee,” said Modi almost mischievously. “If the Congress Party proposes your name, we shall consider it,” Modi added. Mukherjee knew the game was lost. He bowed out quietly and gracefully, citing “health complications relating to old age”.

Modi was otherwise kind to Mukherjee. He may not have given him a second term but he did honour him with the Bharat Ratna. That was more a put down to Advani (who certainly contributed much more to the nation from the Hindutva point of view) and also to Manmohan Singh (whose contributions surpass Mukherjee’s by the long shot).

It marked a low-key close to a long and illustrious political career. While it wasn’t perhaps the triumphant finale that he might have chosen for himself, it was very far from an ignominious ending.

Mukherjee was predeceased by his wife, Suvra Mukherjee, who died in 2015. The couple had two sons and a daughter. Sharmistha Mukherjee is an accomplished Kathak dancer and choreographer who contested the 2015 Delhi Assembly election as a Congress candidate but failed to win. Abhijit Mukherjee served as a Congress MP from Bengal from 2012 to 2019.

In 2012, Sharmistha wrote about her father for India Today, recalling he had to walk nearly 10km every day to school and there was a stream on the way that during the monsoon became a gushing torrent. “Whenever I close my eyes trying to visualise my father, I see this little boy standing by the roaring stream thinking about how to cross it. He has crossed that and many other barricades in his life and walked a long way since then,” she said.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, online edition / Home> India / by Paran Balakrishnan / New Delhi – August 31st, 2020

The golden oldies: Calcutta’s heritage list

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The burgeoning vision of heritage preservation must expand to districts and villages

Monochrome view of a heritage hand pulled rickshaw on Kolkata city street with the Metropolitan building at the background. / Shutterstock.

There is a lot more worth saving than meets the eye — or, more accurately, than the eye has been willing to see. That is why it is heartening to hear that Calcutta’s heritage list, which has been lying dormant and unchanged since 2000, is finally set to be updated by the Calcutta Municipal Corporation. The inordinate delay notwithstanding, the revision is a welcome move, as it will add greatly to the representational nature of the list with the inclusion of more structures of cultural, economic and historical value. It is no secret that in spite of its diverse culture and history, Calcutta, much like other Indian cities, is known for doing precious little to preserve and protect the remnants of its past. This disregard has been amply reflected in the apathetic response to conservation; as recently as 2018, the old Kenilworth Hotel was razed to the ground after its heritage status was quietly downgraded. Well before that, the exquisite Darbhanga palace on Chowringhee was demolished; in its place today stands Calcutta’s ‘tallest building’, promoted by the same consortium that acquired and demolished the old Kenilworth Hotel.

In the light of this, it is reassuring that the practice of downgrading heritage buildings without public knowledge is set to end and, more important, public participation is to be made a significant part of the municipal framework of conservation activity. In this case, archivists, heritage enthusiasts and activists will be able to identify not just mansions but also entire precincts within the city that deserve to be preserved for their unique cultural and historical dimensions. This kind of cohesion and dialogue between administrative bodies and experts is rare in Indian policy-making; and yet, it is crucial for firing up the bureaucratic imagination to transcend established codes of conservation. After all, heritage is a fine mesh of the tangible with the intangible. It is an endangered space where old buildings and edifices jostle for survival along with cultures and livelihoods. This ecosystem is in dire need of regeneration. Calcutta’s Chinatown, a vibrant but marginalized hub, is a case in point. There is an added advantage to this nimbler comprehension of heritage. The preservation of livelihood, integral to heritage precincts, could, in turn, strengthen local — neighbourhood — economies, bolstering public mobilization to demand conservation. Heritage then can turn truly participatory and democratic.

This momentum must be widened in its scope. The burgeoning vision of heritage preservation must expand to districts and villages. Apart from Serampore or Chandannagore, places such as Tamralipta and Chandraketugarh — from where there is archaeological evidence to suggest a sea-faring history of the region’s people — as well as Bengal’s crumbling terracotta temples must be brought within the ambit of a collective culture of conservation. The future of heritage and its protection in India rely on enterprises that are modern, well-funded and truly participatory in character.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, online edition / by The Editorial Board / August 22nd, 2020