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
Women’s Day Special: Inspired by Surya Sen, the 21-year-old led the raid on the Pahartali European Club in Chittagong.
In a re-reading of historical accounts on Waddedar’s life and contributions, it is easy to forget how young she was when she threw herself fully into the cause of liberation of her motherland. (Photos: Wikimedia Commons; Designed by Gargi Singh)
Born in Chittagong, now in Bangladesh, Waddedar was a promising student, having spent her school years in her hometown. While a student at Eden College in Dhaka, Wadderdar’s anti-British sentiments began to take a more form as she slowly developed connections with other women who were spearheading semi-revolutionary groups. One such was with Leela Nag, a student at Dhaka University and an associate of Subhash Chandra Bose, who established the Deepali Sangha, a revolutionary group that provided combat training to women.
Waddedar came to Calcutta for higher education and enrolled as a student of Philosophy at Bethune College under the University of Calcutta. In the city, Waddedar was introduced to revolutionary leader Surya Sen, affectionately called ‘Master da’ by associates. Inspired by Sen, Waddedar soon joined his underground group. According to various accounts from the 1930s, members of Sen’s group initially objected to her membership, but appear to have eventually relented when they discovered her devotion to the cause for the motherland’s freedom, as well as her abilities to carry out assignments undetected by the police.
During the Chittagong Armory Raid of April 1930, 20-year-old Waddedar, along with Surya Sen, Ganesh Ghosh, Lokenath Bal, Ambika Chakrabarty, Anand Prasad Gupta, Tripura Sen, Bidhubhusan Bhattacharya, Kalpana Dutta, Himangshu Sen, Binod Bihari Chowdhury, Subodh Roy, Monoranjan Bhattacharya among a others in a group of at least 65 people, devised plans to raid the armoury of the British forces and destroy telegraph and telephone lines. Although the group did not manage to locate the armory, they succeeded in ruining the telegraph and telephone lines. Many members in the group were very young at that time, Subodh Roy being the youngest at just 14.
The tall statue depicts Waddedar, clad in a khadi sari, beset with sharp folds, with one arm outstretched and another balled up in a fist, perhaps signalling her determination for the cause of freedom. (Express photo by Shashi Ghosh)
While some members of the group were captured and arrested, Waddedar and a few others managed to escape and regroup over the next few months. In 1932, the group, following Surya Sen’s original plans to attack the Pahartali European Club in Chittagong, assigned Waddedar as the leader for this assignment. The social club for Europeans had been specifically targeted because of its racist and discriminatory practises towards Indians, especially its use of the signboard that read “Dogs and Indians not allowed”.
Under Waddedar’s leadership, a group of 10 was trained in the use of arms and taught how to consume potassium cyanide if the need arose. They attacked the club on the night of September 23, 1932. Several members of the club were injured, while the group was shot at by the police guarding the club. Waddedar sustained a bullet wound that prevented her from escaping with her group. In those circumstances, she consumed potassium cyanide to evade arrest and ended her life. Waddedar was only 21.
Like her contemporary, Bina Das, Waddedar too had been denied her graduation degree by the British authorities of Bethune College under Calcutta University. In March 2012, almost eight decades after her death, the University of Calcutta posthumously awarded Waddedar her pending Bachelor of Arts degree with Distinction for the year 1932. On her graduation certificate, Waddedar’s name is mentioned with a misspelling, ‘Pritilata Waddar’, perhaps an indication of how her name was recorded in university records.
In March 2012, Calcutta University posthumously awarded Pritilata Waddedar her pending Bachelor of Arts degree with distinction for the year 1932, that the British administrative authorities had withheld from her. (Express Photo by Neha Banka)
Dr Soumitra Sarkar, Librarian of Calcutta University, who oversees university archives told indianexpress.com that he did not have much information concerning why this may have occurred. A copy of Waddedar’s graduation certificate and marksheets were provided to the Birkanya Pritilata Trust in May 2018, based in Waddedar’s native village, Dhalghat, Patiya, Chittagong, established in her memory.
Calcutta University provided indianexpress.com a copy of Pritilata Waddedar’s marksheets for the year 1932, a detailed document that indicates that Waddedar was a student at Bethune College, reproduced by university authorities in 2018 for archival purposes. (Express Photo by Neha Banka)
The large expanse of the Maidan area in the heart of Kolkata, is dotted with statues of individuals associated with the freedom struggle. Between 1947 and 1983, the West Bengal government replaced statues of British officials and East India Company employees with those of revolutionaries, men and women who had devoted their lives to the freedom of the nation.
One such statue is that of Pritilata Waddedar, the only commemorative structure dedicated to her in the country. The monument does not have an address; to find it, one would have to walk down the long stretch of Indira Gandhi Sarani in the Maidan. The tall statue depicts Waddedar, clad in a khadi sari, beset with sharp folds, with one arm outstretched and another balled up in a fist, perhaps signalling her determination for the cause of freedom.
In a re-reading of historical accounts on Waddedar’s life and contributions, it is easy to forget how young she was when she threw herself fully into the cause of liberation of her motherland.
source: http://www.indianexpress.com / Indian Express / Home> Lifestyle> Arts & Culture / by Neha Banka / Kolkata – March 08th, 2020
To greater depths: India’s deepest ventilation shaft for East West Metro in Kolkata.
The Metro project connects Kolkata and Howrah through underground tunnels below river Hooghly
Kolkata’s East West Metro Project, a mega infrastructure venture connecting the twin cities of Kolkata and Howrah through underground tunnels below the river Hooghly, will have achieved another engineering feat on Monday when it completes India’s deepest Metro ventilation shaft. The shaft goes 43.5 metres below the ground level, equivalent to a 15-storey building. The shaft will not only provide ventilation to the tunnels, but also an exit for evacuation during an emergency.
The evacuation shaft is located at Strand Road near river Hooghly and is situated between the two tunnels.
“This is a marvellous achievement, to successfully complete the 43.5-metre deep Metro ventilation shaft on the bank of river Hooghly. This is India’s deepest Metro ventilation shaft ever constructed by adopting a unique methodology… ,” said Satya Narayan Kunwar, Project Manager, Afcons.
Afcons had been commissioned by the Kolkata Metro Railway Corporation Ltd ( KMRCL) to execute the underground stretch of the East West Metro Project from Howrah Maidan to New Mahakaran station, which includes the tunnels below the river bed. The projects have already achieved a number of significant milestones which are considered engineering marvels. Two tunnels running parallel to each other about 37 metres below the river bed were completed by mid 2017 followed by the Howrah Metro Station, which, at 30 metres below the earth surface, is the deepest metro station in the country.
Afcons officials said the ventilation shaft was another such milestone. The shaft has a 10.3 metre inner diameter circular lining wall of minimum 500 mm thickness, and of concrete grade minimum M40 (a special construction material) circumscribed by 1 metre thick diaphragm walls all around.
‘Innovative techniques’
“The Metro shaft has been constructed adopting innovative engineering techniques and methodology to navigate geological challenges and overcome any impact on Kolkata’s circular railway track along river Hooghly,” Mr. Kunwar said.
The 16.6 km East West Metro Project will connect Howrah on one side of the river Hooghly to New Town Rajarhat in the north eastern fringes of the city on the other side. About 10.8 km of the metro line is underground and the remaining 9.8 km of the project will be through an elevated corridor.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Kolkata / by Shiv Sahay Singh / Kolkata – August 10th, 2020
There is a house that oftentimes appears in my dreams. And no, it is not called Manderley. In fact, it is not a house at all, but an apartment building of the old fashioned sort. And most likely it never had a name.
On the banks of the Hooghly river, in the small town of Sahaganj, a subsidiary of the British tyre company of Dunlop had set up workshop in the early 20th century. The residential colony that overlooked the river was referred to as the “Compound” by locals. It had been built in the mid 1800s for the officers of the American Jute Mill. After the mill shut down, Dunlop acquired a large expanse of land in Sahaganj and set up a factory there and what was known as the “Estate” — a gaggle of red brick apartment blocks, a hospital, schools, a club, a swimming pool, a co-operative, a hostel for trainees referred to as the bower, playgrounds and everything possible that the employees and their families might need. It also acquired the Compound and its surrounding land.
The first time I stood before the green gates to the Compound I was no more than five. I remember looking up at the enormous gates with the spikes on top and the pink and purple bougainvilleas wrapped around them and thinking it would hurt real bad if I tried to pluck a flower and somehow landed atop one of those pointy things.
Upon entering the Compound, the first building to the left was the house that now lives in my dreams. We used to call it the Green Flat.
Like I said, it was an old fashioned apartment building. Three apartments on either side. The front of the building had two or three concrete stairs with a stump for a stairhead on either side. Those stairs led to a winding wooden staircase. A red mat affixed with brass clamps covered the wooden stairs. And whenever anyone climbed them, they heaved like a heavy heart.
One evening, before we actually moved into the Green Flat, we went by to see the place. A group of children were just wrapping the evening’s play. They crowded around to inspect me, the new addition. “Which house,” one asked. “Which school,” asked someone else. One boy, who was a head taller than the rest, said out loud to no one in particular, “That house is haunted. Those dark patches on the cement stairs outside, those are ancient blood stains.”
So many years later, there are nights when I am back at that very spot, just under the gulmohar tree, looking up at the faded green house in the purple dusk, and the house staring back at me.
It is never the same dream, though it is the same house. Sometimes I am outside, sometimes I am on the stairs, my hand on the smooth dark wood of the bannister. At other times I am running down the never-ending sun verandah of the second-floor apartment that was our home for 11 months. There have also been times when I have dreamt that I am inside the building next to it, a more modern structure referred to as the “Highrise”. Our apartment in the Highrise was at a level higher than the Green Flat, and in my dream I am looking down at the other house and I can feel it glowering back at me.
Everyone who ever lived in the Green Flat had a story, even some of the grown-ups. The smell of coffee brewing at odd hours. Voices. The bars of an invisible piano. Only one person I knew claimed to have seen something, and though she was one of the adults no one believed her. I remember her telling some of us how she had folded her hands and prayed to the white blur to leave her alone, progress to another world.
I myself don’t remember seeing or hearing anything, but there is a memory of an evening that comes alive in my dreams. It must have been just a couple of weeks since we had moved in. I was in my room playing or reading. When I was done doing whatever it was, I realised I was home alone. The next couple of minutes I moved swiftly from room to room. To this day I remember my mounting anxiety, the sound of my own beating heart and the drone of the cicadas. For some reason that day I couldn’t run out of the house but remained confined to the verandah, pasted to the net of the window, howling for my mother in some unknown fear.
Today, I don’t remember anymore how that evening resolved itself. No big deal I assume or else the parents would have told me. But in my dreams now, revisiting that moment I am sure of a presence dark and sad. An undiscerning presence that wanted to be friends with a scared little girl.
In our 11 years in the Compound we changed houses four times. All the other houses also appear in my dreams. And not just the houses, sometimes I dream of the Club House. The inside of the club, where we watched movies on Sunday afternoons on a TV with shutters and a VCR — Mr India, Moses, Ben-Hur — as we munched on jam sandwiches. This was also where a lot of the parties were hosted throughout the year; there was much dancing and one time Lanadi fell and chipped her tooth. Then there was the billiards-cum-library room. Every Christmas, this is where we put up chartpapers with cottonwool tufts to mimic the North Pole. On the lawn overlooking the club we acted out the nativity play, had fancy dress parades and quiz contests, while the grown-ups used it for lawn bowling and skittles over Abdulda’s freshly baked mince pies and trayloads of Bloody Marys.
I dream of these spaces but the tether always is the Green Flat. In my dreams sometimes I am on a rickshaw winding down the road before the Club. There are chairs and tables on the lawn, but there is not a soul in sight. I look to my right and I cannot see Nirmalda, the bearer, on the club verandah, and the doors are shuttered fast. Only behind me there is something, and I know it is that thing from the Green Flat. And it wants to get into the rickshaw with me.
In every dream I am egged on by the thing into areas of the Compound I never realised I had paid any attention to. Sometimes I am inside the Highrise lift — the one with the green doors. Sometimes I am amidst overgrown grass and I am thinking where is Maalibhai, the same who had a pock-marked face, called a bouquet, “booket” and wore a sky blue fatua and dhoti. Often I am walking down the road that connected the Highrise with the bungalows. The morum tennis court is to my right. The two copper sulphate benches are to my left. And I want to feel happy, because I am finally home. I know the road will rise at an angle soon and the bottlebrush tree will loom into view and if I walk on for another minute or so I will get to smell the magnolia outside Bungalow No. 4. But I can never get to the magnolia tree, and behind me I can feel the thing from the Green Flat, closing in, closing in, closing in.
In other dreams I will be approaching the bungalows from the club side. The narrow road that wound past the vegetable and flower patches. When I get to Bungalow 1, our last address there, I want to just burst in through the netted back door into the pantry and past the broom cupboard and up the stairs into what used to be our room.
One dream, surprise, surprise, I manage to get in. And even in my dream I am thinking, I am finally home, well, almost.
The door swings open but inside there are no lights. I walk into the dining room and I find the table laid out. I peep into the small drawing room and it is empty. I see the telephone table with the stolid black telephone — 3025 is our number. The facing window still has that lace curtain, I note with relief. The door to the other drawing room is half open and I can spy the blue carpet as I start to take the stairs. Even in the dark, even in my hurry I notice the three framed birds on the landing, and then I reach the top. But it is all dark.
On a whim I make a dash for the parents’ room. But where are they? The fans are turning, the ACs are on, the giant bed is made. There is the dresser with the oval mirror and the half mirrors on either side like angel’s wings and a heavy bottle of Oil of Olay. By the time I walk into the dressing room with the full length mirror, I am frantic. I stare into the mirror but I cannot see my reflection. It is so dark I cannot see my hands. And I am thinking I have to turn the latch, if I cannot find my hands how will I turn the latch? And I know the thing from the Green Flat is in there watching me fumble and panic. Waiting to pounce.
***
Last to last winter the Sahai siblings were in town after many years. They wanted to see Sahaganj and the Compound and, thereafter, some of us. “For closure,” all three of them chimed. It is from them that I learnt that the place is in ruins. “It was a dreary sight,” said Shippradi. “So many trees and bushes all growing wild. The club, the pool, I could see nothing. The Green Flat was a khandahar,” she added.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, online edition / Home> Culture> Heritage / by Upala Sen / February 22nd, 2020
Mookerjee was the founder president of Bharatiya Jana Sangh which later became BJP.
Kolkata :
The Union Cabinet has approved the decision of renaming Kolkata port as Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port which was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his Kolkata visit on the occasion of the 150-year celebration of Kolkata Port Trust in last January. Mookerjee was the founder president of Bharatiya Jana Sangh which later became BJP.
While announcing the new name of Kolkata port in the programme in Kolkata on January 12, Modi had said, “It is a significant day for Bengal and those connected with the Kolkata Port Trust. It is a historic port that saw India’s freedom and has been a witness to India’s progress. It will be called Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port.”
Mookerjee was independent India’s first minister of Industry and Supply and known to be a harsh critic of the Congress party. Mookerjee, who led the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha from 1943 to 1946 as its president, opposed Article 370 and expressed his displeasure at special status for Jammu and Kashmir. Mookerjee was arrested by Jammu and Kashmir police and died in custody in 1953.
Shortly after Modi announced the renaming of Kolkata port, trade unions at the port protested saying the move will hurt the history of the organisation. A mass signature campaign from the employees of the riverine port against the Centre’s decision had been launched by the National Union of Waterfront Workmen(I), backed by West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Karnatka / by Express News Service / June 03rd, 2020
Academics specialising in Indo-Bangladesh relations consider the close ties between the border towns quite natural given their shared ethnic identity and Durga Puja’s importance in the Bengali community. SHREYA DUTTA
Taki in West Bengal is a town of green paddies and greener ponds on the banks of the Ichamati river separating India and Bangladesh. Like the rest of the state, it sees enthusiastic Durga Puja celebrations every year. The streets are lit up in canopies of fairy lights, Bengali songs and Bollywood hits blare from loudspeakers, and pandals, or marquees, compete for who carries the tallest, glossiest pratimas—idols—of the goddess Durga.
But what distinguishes Taki from other border towns is a particular tradition on the final day of the Puja. As its residents gear up for the immersion of idols, so do its counterparts in Satkhira, a district across the border in Bangladesh. The inhabitants of both towns place the pratimas in their respective boats and sail up to border security boats floating in middle of the river, along the international boundary. With a dozen metres between them, the two groups of neighbours wave at each other, exchange greetings and—with deafening shouts of “Aschche bochor abar hobe!”–Until next year!–immerse the idols together. For a day, citizens of the two countries, divided by geopolitics, come together to celebrate a shared heritage.
The practice of joint celebrations goes back several decades, Sridip Roy Choudhary, a local Communist Party of India (Marxist) worker, told me over tea and rasgullas when we met in late September 2017. Until the early 2000s, residents of both countries would cross the riverine boundary and dock in the neighbouring country to shop and socialise on the eve of visarjan—the day of immersion. “There would be a little mela on both sides,” Choudhary said. “We’d buy coconuts and sugarcane from there, they’d buy oil, soap and Boroline (antiseptic cream) from here.” Some people would even find a wedding match for their sons or daughters. His friend Subhas Pal, a 48-year-old LIC agent, recalled it as a time of fluid movement across the border. “I made a lot of friends in these visits across the border. Hindus or Muslims, they always treated me with the best of hospitality,” he said. “We’d fish in the ponds and have a feast after.” While those from Bangladesh made use of the medical facilities available in India, Indian visitors were keen on the cheap, “king-size” cigarettes of Bangladesh. And Pal added, these would not be bought, only bartered.
At 6 pm, the border guards would announce the end of the meeting-time. The residents would get into their respective boats and trawlers and return to their countries across the river. There were no passport-checks or entry pass for visitors. At its heart lay an implicit trust, according to Taki residents. The practice of an open-border tradition seems extraordinary now, with security concerns about cross-border terrorism, illegal immigration and cattle trade dominating the mainstream discourse. But academics specialising in Indo-Bangladesh relations consider the close ties between the border towns quite natural given their shared ethnic identity, the mutual practice of soft diplomacy and Durga Puja’s importance in the Bengali community.
“The Puja festivities have always been more social than religious affairs,” Somdatta Chakraborty, a research associate at Calcutta Research Group, told me over the phone. “Not only do Muslims participate in large numbers in the celebrations, most pandal-makers belong to the community.” Many villages along the border lie within shouting distance of each other, sometimes separated by a narrow mud path or shallow streams. Given their shared linguistic identity, it was not easy for many residents living in the border-towns to come to terms with the creation of East Pakistan in 1947 and, later, Bangladesh in 1971. Many had friends and relatives across the border—at times, in their backyards—and restrictions on free movement were often too much to bear.
According to Chakraborty, the Ray Chaudharys, an influential zamindar family, first began communal Durga Puja celebrations in Taki in the 1970s. As it grew in scale, visitors came from across the border for visarjan. “After the economic liberalisation of 1991 in India, people started coming in from Bangladesh for work,” she said. “Then in 1992, the Babri masjid demolition happened. In Kolkata, it prompted communal disturbances for the first time after 1947. This began to dilute the homogeneous Bengali identity.”
Beginning in 1989, the Indian side decided to fence its 4,098-kilometre border with Bangladesh. Thirty years later, the work remains half-finished. A 10-foot fence with concertina wires, and two-foot rock stumps for border-pillars, are visible along the border. The Border Security Forces, or BSF, did not fence the perimeter of the Ichamati river, since local livelihoods depended on it, but ramped up security and surveillance. They also erected watchtowers along the riverfront and floating outposts in the river. By the early 2000s, a day-long free pass across the border on visarjan had all but stopped.
In May 2011, the All India Trinamool Congress, led by the now-chief minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, swept the state assembly elections. The party, known for promoting better relations with Bangladesh, reportedly organised a Milan Mela—a festival to celebrate the immersion—in Taki, and it allowed for the relaxation of border norms on the day of visarjan. According to eyewitnesses and media reports, thousands allegedly trooped into India under the garb of festivities and boarded buses and trains to bigger cities in search of employment. There was a near-complete shutdown of immersion festivities for the next three years.
The BSF South Bengal Frontier, in charge of the security at the Taki border, refused to either confirm or deny that there had been any security lapses in 2011. Instead, a representative speaking for the BSF chief PSR Anjaneyulu told me, “Such an incident hasn’t happened in the past three to four years. Now it is very organised.” His reluctance to speak about the incident had a familiar ring to it: in a report published on Rediff.com in 2014, a security personnel in Taki told a journalist, “It’s an unpleasant memory that is buried. Let’s talk about today and tomorrow.”
When I attended the Taki visarjan in 2017, the diplomatic relations between the countries were at their least combative. Over the previous four years, India had resolved the administrative anomalies of its border enclaves and started a public border-retreat ceremony at the Petrapole-Benapole checkpoint, the highlight of which was the security personnel shaking hands before calling it a day, every day.
At Taki, the border forces of India and Bangladesh were alert but not intrusive, as they patrolled on steamers with guns, cameras and life-jackets. Thousands had turned up to witness the unique Puja celebrations along the leafy riverfront. Nearly a hundred boats chugged along the length of the Ichamati promenade, carrying revellers from both countries who clicked photos, soaked in the September drizzle and waved at their neighbours across the border. At 6 pm, the security forces announced that the celebrations should wind up. Over the next hour, their loudspeakers and flashlights led the boats back to the coast.
Pal was also among the revellers that day. “My only regret is that the next generation will never know of the joy we had experienced,” he said. “For us, visarjan was not about taking the pratima and throwing it into river. It was about making the journey to the other end, of interacting with people. The charm has now diminished. It now seems like a formality.”
I asked him what he missed the most about the border-crossing tradition. With a laugh, he said, “The free cigarettes, of course.”
The print version of this article mistakenly stated that India and Bangladesh had signed a pact for sharing the waters of the Teesta River. The Caravan regrets the error.
OMKAR KHANDEKAR is a journalist from Mumbai, and an alumnus of Cardiff University. His reporting from India, the Maldives and the United Kingdom has appeared in numerous publications, including The Caravan, Open and Scroll.
source: http://www.caravanmagazine.com / The Caravan / Home> The Lede – Community / by OmKar Khandekar / March 01st, 2018
The Nizam’s Roll is one of India’s great dishes but it never gets the recognition it deserves
Kebabs rolled in paratha with onions is a fantastic dish that needs to be popularised and preserved (Shutterstock)
Over the last two decades, more and more restaurants have switched to wraps over sandwiches. You would think that Indians, with our tradition of rotis, would be perfect for this trend. But it is Central America that has taken the lead. The pattern for most wraps closely follows the Mexican taco in terms of style and construction.
I find this odd. Why shouldn’t India, land of the flatbread, have a place in this wrap boom? A few months ago, Gaggan Anand opened Ms. Maria & Mr. Singh, a Mexican-Indian restaurant in Bangkok. Gaggan recognised the similarity between Mexican tortillas and our breads. So his food plays on the similarities, especially in the wraps he serves.
This is great but it still intrigues me that our rotis have been excluded from this boom. I can think of only one exception: the kathi kebab roll.
I had never heard of the dish, till I moved to Calcutta in 1986. Nobody called it a kathi kebab in Calcutta. Instead, it was called the Nizam’s Roll. I stayed at the Oberoi Grand when I first arrived and I found a place called New Nizam’s, opposite the hotel, that served rolls.
I was alone in Calcutta, so there were many evenings when I would stroll across and watch them make the rolls. From what I remember, the cook heated a massive tawa and then put a half-ready paratha on it. As the paratha heated up, he broke an egg on the paratha and cooked it on both sides. Then he took ready-made kebabs, heated them on an empty portion of the tawa before placing them in the centre of a paratha. He added onions, which had been sliced long, and a little chutney, before rolling up the paratha so that it became a cylinder. He wrapped the cylinder in paper and gave it to you to take away.
Mexico-style wraps are super popular in Central America ( Shutterstock )
I was so hooked on the rolls that I began ordering them for lunch in my office. Except that the ‘bearer’ (the Calcutta term for what we used to call a peon in Mumbai in that era) said he had never heard of New Nizam’s. He insisted on going to what he said was the only real Nizam’s. The rolls were great so I didn’t really care where he got them from.
But I was intrigued enough to go to what was called “the real Nizam’s”. The first thing I saw was a sign that read “We have no branches”. So okay, “New Nizam’s” may have had nothing to do with the original.
The ‘real Nizam’s’ guy told me that they had invented the dish and that their version was special because a) it used charcoal-grilled kebabs, which others did not and b) it was made on an ancient tawa. (I was never able to establish how old the tawa actually was.)
I did some digging. As far as anyone in Calcutta could tell, the dish had really been invented at Nizam’s. That’s why it was called a Nizam’s Roll. Most non-Bengali meat dishes in Calcutta are always attributed to Wajid Ali Shah (the man who put the potato in biryani if Bengalis are to be believed) but this one, everyone agreed, had been created by Nizam’s around 50 years ago. (That would have made it the 1930s or so.)
As time went on and the dish began to spread out of Calcutta, I discovered that it was called a Kathi Kebab Roll. Ah, I said to myself, the fact that it has a name means that it exists elsewhere in India. But nobody would claim ownership of the KathiKebab Roll. No Delhi chef. No Lucknow chef. No Hyderabad chef.
But kathi kebab? Where did that name come from? The guys at Nizam’s had an explanation. They said that kathi referred to the sticks on which they would skewer the kebabs before cooking. Jealous people who did not want to give Nizam’s the credit, they said darkly, called Nizam’s Rolls, Kathi Kebab Rolls.
Indian sandwiches only became popular in the 1960s and 1970s ( Shutterstock )
I have no idea if the kathi-wallahs had such evil motives but it is true that fewer and fewer people call them Nizam’s Rolls now – even in Calcutta. I was there a few months ago and everyone just called them ‘rolls’ and directed me to various newer restaurants and outlets.
At the same time, there are restaurants that serve rolls and call themselves ‘Nizam’s’ all over India. Are they related to the Calcutta original or are they, like “New Nizam’s”, not quite the real thing? I have no idea.
But in my view, and I said so in one of the very first Rude Food columns I ever wrote, the roll is the great Calcutta dish. The puchka comes close (but there are other contenders in Lucknow, Mumbai and Benaras). Otherwise, if you want to search for Calcutta’s unique contribution to Indian cuisine, you’ll be reduced to discussing rasgullas and ras malai.
When I first wrote about the roll, I complained that it was not widely available outside of Calcutta. In the 15 years or so since that article appeared, that has changed. You get rolls everywhere from Delhi to Dubai to Nagpur to New York. The roll has finally been given its rightful status as a great Indian dish.
Gaggan Anand serves wraps at his Mexican-Indian restaurant in Bangkok
But the questions that started me off on this chain of thought remain. Why is the roll the one famous Indian wrap? Why don’t we have more wraps in any of our cuisines? We have all the ingredients – from the breads (rotis, parathas, makki rotis etc.) and delicious fillings. And yet, even as the world has embraced wraps, India never gets a look in.
I asked chef Manjit Gill, my guru in matters relating to the history of Indian food, if he could think of any other Indian wraps. He couldn’t. I asked then if he had heard of kathi kebabs outside of Calcutta. Manjit said he hadn’t. As far as he knew the kathi kebab was a Calcutta dish.
I then asked Manjit the big question. Why doesn’t Indian cuisine have more wraps?
I liked Manjit’s answer. Wraps are meant to be eaten on the go. In India, we rarely ever eat standing up, let alone on the go. We are not a fast food culture. We like to sit down and eat our meals. Many of us would prefer to eat the kebabs and the parathas separately, rather than combine them and wrap them in paper. For most of our existence, we have been the ultimate slow food nation.
Pav-bhaji was invented in the 1960s for traders at the old Cotton Exchange ( Shutterstock )
I reckon that till the 20th century, India was a country where nothing in the kitchen was done fast; all food was slow food. Even chaat, which is eaten standing, is serious food. You can’t really walk around while eating a golgappa as you can while eating a sandwich or a wrap.
The Nizam’s Roll is usually dated to the mid-1930s, which, I suspect, is when things began to change.
Pav–bhaji was invented in the 1960s for traders at the old Cotton Exchange who would stay up till early in the morning to see the New York cotton prices. It is not a cold dish. It has to be cooked on the spot. But they did eat it standing up and for many of the Gujarati bania traders, it was the only time they ate bread.
Indian sandwiches only became popular in the 1960s and 1970s. The Bombay sandwich (freshly made but cold), which you could eat on the run is really a ’70s phenomenon.
The vada-pav is essentially a Maharashtrian hamburger ( Shutterstock )
So is vada-pav. Both seized upon the industrialisation of baking and the availability of cheap (and fairly disgusting) bread to create new dishes. Both have Western antecedents. The sandwich is not Indian, by definition, and the vada-pav is essentially a Maharashtrian hamburger.
So, what happens in the 21st century? Now that we have lost out in the global wrap movement, will India just follow the rest of the world and make fast food based on hamburgers, pizzas and sandwiches (all suitably Indianised)?
Sadly, I think that we are headed in that direction. So, value the roll. It is a great dish.
And one that’s truly Indian.
From HT Brunch, July 12, 2020
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source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home> Brunch / by Vir Sanghvi , Hindustan Times / July 12th, 2020
Two hundred years ago, after 20 failed attempts, the first consignment of ice arrived in Calcutta from Massachusetts
Blocks of ice for sale in a market in India. / Shutterstock
This was not very long ago, but a period that may well now be time stamped as BC or Before Corona. The exhibits at the Jadunath Bhavan Museum and Resource Centre in south Calcutta were arranged in a certain way to present the history of ice in the city — yes, it wasn’t such a taken-for-granted item as it came to be.
The photographs on display were pickings from Fulbright-Nehru Scholar Christine Rogers’s research. Exhibit 1, a black-and-white-photo of a young man driving a rickshaw laden with blocks of ice through the streets of Calcutta. “The boy is carrying the ice to the fish market. It is a photo from present-day Calcutta,” said Rogers. The second exhibit, a photograph of commercial projects of snow parks that are now being created for entertainment. The third, people sitting on the banks of the Hooghly where the ice used to be downloaded after it arrived all the way from the US.
Once upon a time, ice was a rare commodity, procured all the way from America. The exhibition, in consonance with Rogers’ talk, is a detailed history of ice trade in India. The now, followed by the then.
In the 19th century, the British army in India and people in the administration found it difficult to cope with the intense tropical summer. In a letter dated May 1833, Daniel Wilson, the fifth Bishop of Calcutta and the man who built St. Paul’s Church, writes to his family in England: “The weather is perfectly suffocating. None can pity us but those who know our suffering.”
Wilson’s immediate predecessor had not been able to endure the extreme temperatures and had died in office. Thus, to ease things for their own, the East India Company set about arranging for a regular supply of ice for all seasons.
Those days, what was available in the market was “Hooghly ice”. It used to come from Chinsurah in the winter months and was so named because it was made from the river’s waters. Said Rogers, “This ice was filthy and more like slush. It was made by freezing water in shallow pits and was dirty and unfit for drinking. This was not the kind of ice that the British were looking for.”
In 1833, a businessman in Boston, Frederic Tudor, arrived in Calcutta in a large vessel stacked with ice. Bringing ice to India was no easy task, not even for as enterprising a fellow as Tudor. According to Rogers, he failed 20 times before he met with any success. The challenge was to keep the ice from melting the entire length of the two-month journey to Calcutta and thereafter.
Tudor was not in this project alone; he partnered with Nathaniel J. Wyeth, a supplier of ice and a businessman. Together, the two cracked issues such as the technology of cutting ice, thereby making large-scale ice exports from Massachusetts possible. The two evolved the technique of harnessing horses to a two-blade ice cutter to cut more ice in less time.
David G. Dickason writes in his book, The Nineteenth-Century Indo-American Ice Trade, how Tudor took up this project only because he was in dire need of money after failing to dominate the global coffee market. Dickason writes: “He inaugurated his India venture only after experiencing a desperate need for adequate cash flows and profits in order to repay enormous debts incurred through his misadventures in coffee.”
With ice, Tudor got lucky. He was based in Massachusetts that had the requisite climate for producing natural ice in excess. Ice was cut from the Walden Pond, a lake there, where pure ice was easily found. Also, the Boston port was close by.
In 1847, when American essayist, poet and philosopher, Henry David Thoreau, was staying near the Walden Pond, he witnessed the cutting of ice. In one of his essays titled “The Pond In Winter”, he writes: “Thus it appears that the sweltering inhabitants of Charleston and New Orleans, of Madras and Bombay and Calcutta, drink at my well.”
The route was a long one. The ice, according to records, would be covered with fly ash and salt and then packed in jute to keep it from melting. Tudor earned such grand profits from Calcutta the next two decades that he came to be known as the Ice King.
The trade continued for almost 50 years. The price of the ice was only 4 annas per pound (one pound equals half a kilo), much cheaper than Chinsurah ice. It later came down to 2 annas per pound.
Records show that the ice was hugely in demand during that period and it had to be rationed at times as the ships were delayed and there would be a crunch. In fact, people had to produce a doctor’s certificate to get the ice. The British living in Calcutta even raised funds to set up an icehouse to preserve the cargo. Around this time, many Bengali businessman also got involved in the trade.
Rajinder Dutta was one of the pioneers of ice trade in Calcutta. His progeny, living in central Calcutta today, however, has no related documentation. Sanat Kumar Ghosh, who is one of the eighth generation Duttas, rattles off names of some others who eventually joined the trade — the Debs of DarjiPara in north Calcutta, Chhatu Babu and Latu Babu, and the Mitters.
“Rajinder Dutta was more famous as a homeopath. He had treated Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, the Maharaja of Jaipur and also Raja Naba Krishna Deb of Calcutta,” says Ghosh as he hands over a book titled History of Homeopathy in India in the 19th Century. The book has a few lines on ice trade too. It reads: “In 1836, 12,000 tonnes of ice was shipped to Calcutta and 10 years later, the figure spiralled to 65,000 tonnes.”
That day at the Jadunath Bhavan Museum, Rogers spoke at length about how ice was transported to Madras and Bombay from Calcutta. Dickason also notes how eventually ice came to be used by Indians too. It was used to preserve food, for refrigeration, in drinks. Rounding up he wrote: “Even Hindoos, otherwise so scrupulous, do not hesitate to mix the frozen waters of America with the sacred stream of Gunga, whilst the stricktest Mohummudans use it with unlimited freedom (sic).”
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, online edition / Home> Heritage / by Moumita Chaudhari / March 29th, 2020
Epicentre of the renaissance and reform by day, the city was den of shocking behaviour by night, according to Hemendra Kumar Roy’s ‘Calcutta Nights’.
Clyde Waddell / Public Domain
In these times of social distancing, Calcutta Nights , a recently translated crisp vintage work from 1923, beams up from the past the whole human mess of city life as we may fail to experience for a long time now – enticing , contagious with its mirth, sorrow and decadence, yet ultimately safe. Calcutta-ness is both a cult and a code.
That Calcutta, totem pole of cult, is a distilled city, a Xanadu rich with local detail yet universal, contemporary yet not belonging to any particular period, a continuum of experience. No wonder then, that this wondrous city, simultaneous epicentre of renaissance, nationalism, reform movements and debauchery, should inspire city sketches, first made popular in the mid and late 19th century by the inimitable Hutum Pyachar Naksha. Decades later Hemendra Kumar Roy, prolific and popular author of detective fiction, adopted a nom de guerre to have a go at chronicling the scintillating night life of Calcutta in the 1920s.
If books were bordello windows, their sepia light beckoning, Calcutta Nights would be one such, quite literally. A salacious account of what the night unravels, the book takes you behind the scenes, reports on the microcosm of hedonism, the power plays, symbiotic relations, the intimacies of a prostitute with her regular customer, the paanwali bartering and trading with the police, the beggar, the opium-smoker. What sets this book apart is the flawed and reluctant author.
A warning, apparently
A prolific writer of detective fiction, primarily for children and young adults, Roy probably stumbled upon this diverse and rich material probably while researching for his more innocuous detective novels – armed with a stout stick, he says, and at great personal risk. Against his better judgment, he writes about city la nuit, worried and embarrassed about the task at hand, the adirasa or eroticism that he has failed to avoid while raising the curtains of hell.
In his introduction, he rushes to reassure his readers that none of them will find Calcutta Nights obscene. It is, rather, written with the noble intention of sounding a warning to “fathers of young girls and boys”. Our Meghnad Gupta, author in hiding, is no Samuel Pepys, the veritable diarist of 17th century London who wrote himself into his salacious scenes, boasting about his own ardour and peccadilloes.
The city Roy writes about is a city of men, consumed by men. In the author’s own words this book is “ written for an adult male audience,” a sweeping exclusion that predictably rankles this reviewer’s entitled, liberal, feminist bourgeoise self. Said outrage is difficult to cull at first. Then, as the book shines with its vivid portrayals, the puritan author becomes part of the setting and it is possible to turn the judging “gaze” right back at him, to see him in all his troubled light.
Here was an author writing about hedonism at a time when the wave of nationalism was peaking, his puritan acuity often criss-crossing with an awakening of socialism. His feelings about the women he writes about swing from condescension and humble misogyny (empathetic and damning at the same time – a tone often taken when writing about giants by the best of Bengali literary stars, Sarat Chandra Chatterjee included) to genuine insight.
Atmospheric ride
A pacy read, the depiction is vivid and colourful. Despite his protestations the author is clearly an insider – therein lies the strength and authenticity of this sketch. The description is atmospheric. Roy bring alive, with cinematic realism, the night in which “owls flutter away…and gradually the swarthy ugly faces begin to peep and snoop.”
And slowly Chitpur Road transforms itself – weary clerks disappear, the streets are filled with the scented babus, their faces aglow with Hazeline snow seeking verandthe a belles. Kapure babus, hothat-babus, ingo- bingos, the rich, the white, the Marwari, Chinese, European women of loose morals, courtesans of Chitpur, lustful ladies of Kalighat, the poor prostitute, the wanton widow – each scene, as the chapters are aptly called, presents to us a glossary of social categories.
One of the most striking sketches is that of the Bhikiripara or beggar’s quarters. There are fabulously sensational bits, revealing the author’s – Roy had translated Bam Stoker’s Dracula – penchant for the supernatural and the fantastic. Particularly recommended are scenes from the Nimtala Crematorium and the one featuring a prostitute who beckons men into her room where a dead man lies, his throat slit open.
Translator Rajat Chaudhuri craftily balances archaic words with new ones, never upsetting the tonal authenticity of a period piece. Ultimately he strikes the right cadence – the voice often changing as it travels from Chitpur bordellos to the jazzy evenings in the Anglo quarters or the dim Chinese taverns.
For its depiction of the crowded and dense interplay of lives in the Calcutta of those days, this book is a perfect curl-up for these epic-dammed solitary afternoons. A treasure trove for every city addict has been discovered.
Calcutta Nights, Hemendra Kumar Roy, translated from the Bengali by Rajat Chaudhuri, Niyogi Books
source: http://www.scroll.in / Scroll.in / Home> Book Review / by Lopa Ghosh / March 29th, 2020
“It was a magical time: gentlemen in suits and ties and ladies in evening gowns, all decked up to eat, drink, dance and sing-along. In the 1970s and ‘80s, Trincas was dominated by the Anglo-Indians. It definitely is Calcutta’s most nostalgic location.”
Usha Uthup has more reason than most to be nostalgic about the iconic restaurant and performance venue — her maiden performance at Trincas was what made her the darling of the city, and eventually the country.
Trincas, one of Kolkata’s most iconic venues for a family evening out, is celebrating its 60th birthday this weekend. It was established by a Swiss man, remembered today only as Mr. Trinca, back in the 1930s as a bakery and tea house, but was taken over by Ellias Joshua and Om Prakash Puri in 1959, then shutdown for extensive renovations before reopening in 1961. Famous for live music performances, fresh food and a wide range of drinks at the bar, it became Park Street’s main attraction.
Celebrating music
The Puris eventually innovated again, sectioning off a third of the floorspace to make a quiet area and pioneering Szechuan cuisine in the city in the newly christened ‘Ming Room’. But what Trincas has been known for most, are its legendary live music performances. Carlton Kitto, an Anglo-Indian jazz guitarist, was followed quickly by Usha Uthup, whose maiden performance at Trincas was in 1969. Returning to headline the Diamond Jubilee celebrations over three days, October 27, 28 and 29, Uthup recalls her four decades at Trincas — “The people and their dress have changed, Trincas has not. It’s the same great music, good food and drinks and people enjoying themselves”.
Uthup found her way to Trincas after she began her career in the erstwhile Bombay at the Talk of the Town bar, now known as Not Just Jazz By The Bay. Her father was Vaidyanath Someshwar Sami Iyer, so returning to Madras’ Mount Road to perform in the basement of what used to be the Safire theatre complex in a club called Nine Gems, was homecoming for her.
Cornel Bloud, the lead guitarist and occasional singer who has been gracing Trincas’ stage just about every night for the last 25 years, also has fond memories. “The crowd has changed a lot, we don’t see many older people like we used to, now it’s mainly younger people coming to relax with their friends, but they all come to enjoy themselves. Trincas is a brand: time will pass but people know to come here for a good evening out with their families.”
Today’s customers are far more relaxed, jeans and T-shirts have replaced suits and dresses, save for the handful who have been stalwarts for decades. Office goers throng the restaurant on weekdays, while those seeking an alternative to the thumping bars and nightclubs of the city come to Trincas to listen to the Eagles and other classics that walk them through the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. Weekends see the wooden dance floor in front of the stage cleared for those who can jive, twist and waltz — often gracefully, sometimes not so. Sing-alongs are also popular, with the band and lead singers frequently taking song requests scribbled on napkins.
Om Prakash Puri’s grandson Anand, having spent decades running similar establishments in Mumbai and Delhi, has now returned to the family business with a keen eye on keeping pace with changing customers. Tall with a managerial presence, Anand sits across the table from me narrating his plans for the coming decades. He coordinates the waiters with an easy flick of the wrist or tap of a finger. “I’ve seen Cal change. It’s not the sleepy town it used to be, so many venues for live music, ranging from rock to indie, have popped up everywhere. I see writers, poets, musicians all over the city. I need to let them know Trincas is for them too, while not altering where Trincas has come from.”
Anand’s calm exterior hides myriad plans milling about on a war footing below the surface. He is setting about replacing the flowery curtains with the old, blood-red velvet drapes, tied back with old-fashioned thick ropes. Old pictures telling the story of the restaurant are going up, as are small red table lamps. His eyes dart around his family’s pride — “See the wall here?” — he points at a creamy space between speakers behind him.
“I’ve dug up some old photos for it. And there used to be a mirror here, I am going to get that back up, too.” The back of the stage has also gone back in time. “Do you remember the mirrors?” he asks me, and I nod. “Well, they too have gone. The old photos showed a red velvet sofa-backing type of backdrop, so I copied that and this is what we now have.”
While other live music bars and restaurants try their level best to keep up with rapidly changing times, Anand strikes a fine balance between taking Trincas even further back in time, and looking forward. As Trincas celebrates 60, a new generation of Puris are looking at 100.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Life & Style / by Anthony Khatchaturian / September 25th, 2019
