The Greek community has long vanished from Kolkata. Besides the Greek Orthodox Church at 2A Library Road, the Panioty Fountain (named after Demetrius Panioty) at Curzon Park that is featured in Satyajit Ray’s ‘Paras Pathar’ still stands testimony to Kolkata’s Greek connection. Tucked behind the Metro construction at Phoolbagan rests the only cemetery meant for this community in India.
Locals vouch for its historic relevance and claim that the Greek President had also visited it in 1998. All the above addresses are Grade 1 Heritage Buildings in KMC records.
Yet, today the cemetery lies in neglect. Father Raphael, priest of the Greek Church which also takes care of it, is keen that the either the state government or any private organisation takes up the initiative of renovating this dilapidated cemetery that is a Grade 1 heritage building by KMC records.
In 1777, this cemetery had started functional at 105 Abul Kalam Azad Sarani. Curiously enough, the first tombstone belongs to that a Greek businessman named Alexander! In 1771, Alexander Argeery was sent to Cairo by Warren Hastings on a diplomatic mission to obtain permission for British merchants to trade with Egypt. Once he managed to do that, he was rewarded by Hastings with a permission to build a Greek church in Amratollah Street. Eventually, he shifted his business to Dhaka, where he died on August 5, 1777. Later, his body was buried at this Phoolbagan cemetery on August 7, 1777.
A blue tarpaulin sheet almost hides the entrance. Passers-by can easily overlook the inscription mentioning ‘Greek Cemetery’ beside the gate. Even those staying in the residential apartments, which literally surround the cemetery, wouldn’t think that this can be an attraction for tourists and students of world history.
But in reality, it deserves all their attention and more.
Built on 26 cottah of land, this cemetery is now home to some 300 odd graves. Caretaker Basanta Das, whose grandfather and father also worked here, says this includes even those that don’t have a tombstone.
Unfortunately, most of the tombstones are broken. They are either nameless or have illegible inscriptions. Some have inscriptions written in Greek as well. “Not all the graves have bodies buried underneath. Even when some Greeks died in other India cities and were buried there, their tombstones were erected here. That has been done so that memorial services for all Greeks in India can be collectively held here,” says Raphael.
A small chapel – Prophet Elias – stands inside the cemetery. Few sculptures still remain. Among the first one to draw the attention is the sculpture on the grave of Sir Gregory Charles Paul who was the advocate general of Bengal. Next to this grave rests his widow Lady Aglaia Elizabeth Paul. At the far end of the cemetery rests another grave with inscriptions written in Greek. A striking sculpture of a lady kneeling and holding on to a cross looks arresting.
The once-beautiful garden has now been reduced to just mini bushes. A well has been dug right inside the premises. That’s where Das and his family take a bath and wash utensils. Sometimes when guests come visiting, the graves serve as dining tables for their sumptuous lunches. Ask them if they are scared of spirits on rainy nights and Das and his family break into a peal of laughter. “Never have spirits bothered us here,” Das insists.
The fund crunch in renovating this cemetery is obvious. “The Greek community abroad has been financially supporting our church as well as the upkeep of the cemetery. But in recent times, Greece has been reeling under economic crisis. The community is still trying to help us but currently, we have had to cut down 50% of our projects because of the financial crisis,” says Raphael, adding that any initiative for the upkeep of the cemetery is welcome.
The only Greek representative in Kolkata is 66-year-old old Sister Nectaria Paradesi who is responsible for looking after two orphanages. In the absence of Greek families in Kolkata, the church allows people of other faith who now belong to the Greek Orthodox Community to get buried here. “It is difficult to get burial space in this city. Since this cemetery still has space to accommodate tombs, we allow those who have converted to our congregation to get buried here,” Raphael says.
That’s why one spots the tombstone of Philoythei Tina Khatoon. “The last burial – that of a lady in her 40s – happened some six months ago,” says Das, who gets a meagre salary of Rs 4,500. He is now pinning hopes on the Metro rail authorities to help with the renovation. He had heard that once the Metro Rail station gets built, the authorities might be interested in renovating this place. Das is now hoping these words will not just rumours.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Kolkata News> India / by Priyanka Dasgupta / TNN / March 25th, 2018
Prasun Chaudhuri meets the gentle spirit rallying for Chandernagore’s endangered heritage
HERSTORY: Neline Mondal poses where Antony Firingi had once performed Picture Credit: Prasun Chaudhuri
The 24-year-old Belgian scientist arrived in Calcutta one autumn 30 years ago. She was part of a Unesco delegation that was visiting India to raise awareness about the HIV virus in these parts. Like the rest of her colleagues, Neline Colassin was suitably qualified. She had a triple Master’s in Physiology, Cellular Biology and Biochemistry.
In her spare time, she wanted to explore her new habitat. Someone told her about the erstwhile French colony of Chandernagore, 50 kilometres from Calcutta. Neline remembers listening with rapt attention about the small Bengal town and its famed Jagaddhatri Puja. The spectacular fireworks that were part of the celebratory experience and how the tradition possibly owed itself to French administrators who would organise something similar to celebrate the Fall of the Bastille every year.
Neline, who had spent several years at École Normale Supérieure – a school of science in Paris – was fascinated, and one weekend, she decided to see for herself what Chandernagore was all about.
She was referred to a local, a certain Ujjal Mondal, who was involved in another Unesco project – something to do with the restoration of the French institute there. Reminisces Neline, “I did meet that certain Ujjal Mondal and have been meeting him every day ever since.”
In love stories, things have a pace of their own. There is no too soon or too late. Before a year was up, Neline and Ujjal were married.
Neline came to live in the Mondal Mansion, a 277-year-old family house of French colonial-style architecture on the banks of the Ganges, which had definitely seen better days. Says Neline, “Though I had been a scientist, my marriage into the Mondal family turned me into a heritage conservationist.”
As Neline explored the locale, she discovered how French architectural styles had mingled with indigenous ones. “There’s a confluence of French and Bengali styles in architecture, furniture and town-planning. You can see a similar blend of Tamil and French styles in Pondicherry,” she says in mellifluous Bengali with French top notes.
Most houses from that time retain a basic Indian plan – a courtyard in the centre and rooms built around it. The foreign influence is apparent in the facades, intricate stucco detailing – a fine plaster – decorative cast iron grilles, crafted murals and gargoyles. The Mondal Mansion is no exception.
The Mondals, we are told, were essentially traders dealing in salt, swords, wine and foodgrains, among other things. But they seem to have made most of their money from escorting merchant ships in the high seas. “The family had a small private army that fought Portuguese pirates in the Hooghly with expertise. In fact, the pirates were forced to sign a deal that they’d never attack a ship that carried this family’s flag. Thereafter, the Mondals would escort ships of other traders for a fee,” Neline explains.
According to the Mondals, their ancestors ranked among the 20 richest families of India in the late 18th century. The house itself was built in 1741. It took 10 years to complete all 85 rooms. In time, of course, a large part of the house was swallowed by the elements – earthquakes, floods and the changing course of the Hooghly.
Neline, who very graciously takes The Telegraph on a walk-through of the Mondal Mansion, points out the ornate staircase made of Burma teak, the colonnade, the grand Belgian mirror, centuries-old wine bottles and frescoes on the walls. “You’ll find the same frescoes in Napoleon Bonaparte’s house in Paris,” says Ujjal.
The ballroom is said to have hosted performances by Antony Firingi, the poet-singer of Portuguese origin, famed for his devotional songs to Kali. “He was a manager at the salt godown owned by my forefathers,” claims Ujjal. He has been told that Antony was encouraged notwithstanding the disapproval of the locals – they didn’t want a Christian to sing songs in praise of a Hindu deity. Adds Neline, “They [the Mondals] were liberals influenced by the French. Unlike the British, French colonialists were much more open-minded and loved the fusion of the two cultures.”
Despite the crumbling heritage around them, or probably because of it, Neline and Ujjal have become passionate members of The Heritage & People of Chandernagore, a heritage conservation project in association with the Embassy of France in India. Says Neline, “The unique cultural and architectural heritage is being systematically decimated here. Every other week you’ll find a structure demolished. Recently, a century-old printing press was razed.” And then there are all those real estate sharks casting their long shadows. “Several structures have disappeared but we can save the remaining few with a concerted effort,” says Neline.
The Mondal Mansion has managed to survive so far. On a moonlit night, while walking on the expansive terrace, Neline says she feels excited to be the inhabitant of such a grand old place: “The old walls talk to me. They tell me their stories.”
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> West Bengal / by Prasun Chaudhri / March 25th, 2018
Hundreds of species of plants that used to exist in India 200 years ago and are now believed extinct are not only alive, but well preserved in the UK. A team of senior botanists from Kolkata, which returned last Friday after a four-month tour to the UK, has found that these plants, samples of which had been carefully collected by the British and kept at the Royal Botanic Garden and the Natural History Museum, UK, are well preserved to this day.
The team has also made a startling find related to climate change: a large number of plants in the two herbaria used to naturally grow at lower altitudes 200 years ago, when they had been collected. Plants that used to grow in Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar have now gone up the slopes to Darjeeling and Sikkim, which the scientists ascribe to global warming.
The astonishing discovery to retrace the journey of these plants was undertaken by the botanists from the Indian Botanic Garden, Shibpur. The scientists were allowed access to all 8,00,000 specimens of Indian plants that had been transported out of the country from the time of William Roxburgh, the first superintendent of the Shibpur garden (1794-1812). His successor, Nathiel Wallich, continued the practice and the lion’s share of the specimens was sent out till 1899.
Roxburgh had tried to set up a herbarium inside the garden in Shibpur, but the plants suffered fungus attacks and couldn’t be preserved. So, he started sending them to the Kew Garden (the Royal Botanic Garden) and British Museum (out of which the Natural History Museum was born in 1881). Roxburgh and his successors, however, got artists to draw the likenesses of each species before sending them out, and these have been preserved as reference points at the Shibpur garden to this day.
“While we blame the British for taking away our treasure trove, the Kohinoor being a case in point, we were both emotional and ecstatic when we saw hundreds of these Indian specimens preserved in the Natural History Museum. But for these, there is no other way of physically knowing these plants,” said Basant Singh, one of the senior botanists in the team. He was accompanied by Gopal Krishna and Dilip Roy. The study happened under the guidance of Sandra Knapp, who heads the life sciences department at the museum and its curator, Rani Prakash.
“This is a ground-breaking project and we are grateful to the department of business, energy and industrial strategy of the UK government for facilitating this. For years, we have just spoken about these endangered plants and this time we got a chance to physically examine them,” said P Singh, director of the Botanical Survey of India.
The research team has also digitised the details of 25,000 specimens and brought those back with them, because rules say that no specimen can be taken out of its country of residence. So, despite the fact that these are specimens of native Indian plants, they cannot physically travel back to India. Some examples can be the Panax pseudoginseng, Picror kurroa or Podophyllum hexandrum of the Eastern and Western Himalayas, which have lost a large number of plants forever. The other two zones are the North-East and the Western Ghats.
“That is not all. We have found that over these 200-odd years, several changes have come about in the sizes of the plants, the shapes of their leaves, their flowering and fruiting patterns, the look and colour of the flowers and fruits,” Singh explained. The mammoth data that the team has collected will now be worked on for specific details of extinction and plant behaviour, he added.
The team has also found out that two of the country’s most unwanted weeds — Lantana and Parthenium, which are exotic in nature — got introduced by British botanists by accident. Lantana got introduced as an ornamental plant, whereas Parthenium was mistakenly introduced along with wheat.
On Tuesday, the additional secretary of the ministry of environment and forests, A K Jain, visited the Shibpur garden and took stock of the initial findings of the team, asking members to draw up a detailed report from the wealth of data that they have collected.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City> Kolkata / by Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey / TNN / March 22nd, 2018
A Bata wore a Bata at a Bata store in the city on Tuesday.
Christine Bata Schmidt, the granddaughter of Bata founder Tomas Bata, visited the store in South City in the afternoon to launch a CSR campaign.
It was no surprise that Christine chose Calcutta to launch the project. “Calcutta will remain our heart in India,” Christine, a director of Bata Shoe Organisation, the holding company of Bata India, said.
In the early 1920s, Czech shoemaker Tomas came to India to source rubber and leather. Most Indians walked barefoot then and he sensed an opportunity. In 1931, he set up a factory in Konnagar. The unit started producing rubber and canvas shoes for the first time in India. Later the factory was moved to what came to be known as Batanagar.
“His idea was to be the shoemaker to the world. Great shoes that were affordable,” Christine said about her grandfather. She will visit the country’s oldest shoe manufacturing unit in South 24-Parganas on Wednesday.
Thomas J. Bata, Christine’s father, was crucial in expanding the brand throughout the country and making it a household name.
She entered the store around 3.30pm. After looking at the models on display, she picked some shoes while interacting with the children who were there for the launch of the CSR campaign.
The project is being partnered by Nanhi Kali – an NGO managed by KC Mahindra Education Trust and Naandi Foundation that provides primary education to underprivileged girl children.
For this campaign, Bata India has introduced Ballerinas with illustrations by children from schools adopted by the Bata Children’s Programme, a global programme for disadvantaged kids. The shortlisted drawings have been displayed on the inner sole of the Ballerinas. The shoes will be available across more than 200 stores in India. With each pair of Ballerinas sold, Bata will provide Rs 65 to the project.
“Bata hopes to secure a brighter future for these girls by reducing school dropouts and improving learning levels,” Christine, a member on the board of Earthwatch, a global NGO that works for sustainable environment, said.
“Calcutta is historic. At the same time, it is very alive. I do enjoy that,” Christine, the chairman of Bata Shoe Museum, a footwear museum in Toronto that refects the evolution of footwear, said.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / by Debraj Mitra / March 21st, 2018
From ship builders, dentists, shoe-makers — to chefs. How did the Chinese in India get stuck with the identity of the Chinese chef? A report from Kolkata, the only Indian city with two Chinatowns where the Chinese came 220 years ago
(R) Monica Liu with her husband. Liu, an Indian Chinese, is one of the most successful restauranteurs of Kolkata. (Photo courtesy: Monica Liu)
You could almost say Tong Atchew was a good mushroom growing on foreign soil. A mushroom does wonders for the soup, the stir fry and as stuffing. No flash, no permanent dash, but it still stands on its own even as it adds to the flavours of the mix into which it is thrown.
Atchew, a middleman, believed to be the first Chinese immigrant in India, arrived in 1798. He managed to strike a deal with Warren Hastings, the governor-general of British India, and became the owner of a sugar mill near Kolkata.
In the late 18th century, Kolkata was the terminus, the port and the transit point to pretty much everywhere else. The Chinese in India, especially the Chinese of Kolkata, the only Indian city with two Chinatowns –– the first in Tiretta Bazaar has existed since the 1800s, the second, in Tangra since 1910 –– consider Atchew The Ancestor. Here was someone who made ‘leaving home’ a success story, in contrast to staying put, the established wisdom for that age. He consolidated the image of the Chinese as a hardy migrant who slogs for his success, is a credit to his community, and keeps his own counsel.
At Tangra, the second Chinatown, of Kolkata. (Samir Jana/HT PHOTO)
The Chinese who came to Kolkata were mainly from coastal China, then ravaged by civil wars; many landed in between the two world wars too. All had different skills and traditions, which they innovated, in order to survive. The Hubeis, who were “teeth-setters”, became dentists. The Cantonese were ship-fitters; by the ’50s they had moved into carpentry. The Hakkas were talented shoe-smiths and leather manufacturers. All of them came to India to work. None of them came here to cook.
But as the example of Monica Liu, a Hakka housewife who has become Chinatown’s most well-known businesswoman over the past 10 years, shows, the restaurant business can become an area where race or ethnicity may find accommodation, and success –– if it does not challenge established tastes too much.
In the ’90s, Liu cooked for the late chief minister Jyoti Basu at his home after his return from China. In 2012, writer Amitav Ghosh did a lunch with the Financial Times at Liu’s flagship restaurant, Beijing. Here, he discussed the opium trade, linguistic adjustments made by men who met at sea featured in his Ibis trilogy over beer and steamed bhetki. In 2018, Liu is preparing to face cricketing legend Sourav Ganguly in the popular Bengali television game-show, Dadagiri.
Two Bengali boys watching Liu, as she does the rounds of the tables at the Beijing restaurant, delay stuffing the last tiger prawns into their mouths and greet her saying they have seen her appear in some TV programme. In block heels, cropped hair and thinly pencilled eyebrows, Liu’s is as public a public face as is possible in a community that shuns the media.
Proprietor and head chef Monica Liu at her Beijing restaurant in Tangra, Kolkata. (Samir Jana/HT PHOTO)
Image issues
“Our food is suited to Indian tastes,” says the owner of five restaurants in and outside Chinatown, returning to our table. Liu opened Kimling, her first, in 1991. “In my restaurants, I always keep a chilli-garlic gravy, popular with customers, ready. Sometimes they want their chicken dry or with gravy. But this is not to say my food is Indian-Chinese. It is Chinese,” says Liu playing the elder stateswoman of Chinese cuisine to the hilt.
Restauranteurs in Tangra, riding the restaurant boom in the ’90s, had no problem saying they sell Indian-Chinese to create a space, as it were, for selling their food. “It was part of their entrepreneurial logic to boost saleability,” says anthropology researcher Piya Chakraborty. But the renown of many Chinese restaurants now owned by non-Chinese (such as hotelier Anjan Chatterjee’s Mainland China, which he started in Mumbai in 1994 and which he brought to Kolkata, and musician Debaditya Chaudhury’s Chowman chain in 2010) has produced a new kind of anxiety. So the assertion of ‘authentic Chinese’ to be got at Tangra, and not just at central Kolkata, the original Chinatown, is important now.
Food networks
The small eating houses in Tiretta Bazaar, central Kolkata, was originally meant to feed the local Chinese working men, numbering around 25,000 till the early ’60s, before the outbreak of the Indo-China war of ’62. Central Kolkata was a Cantonese stronghold. When a new throughfare split the area, the Hakkas, the other sizeable Chinese immigrant group, re-located to Tangra. The collective sense of security in mixed neighbourhoods, where each minority recognises the other as such (central Kolkata had substantial Anglo Indian, Jewish, Sindhi, Bihari populations), however, stopped many Hakkas from moving out.
Dominic Lee, a Hakka, who owns Pou Chong, one of the most well-known brands of sauce and noodles made by the community near Tiretta Bazaar, is perceived as Mr Lee, the sauce-maker, not the Indian-Chinese sauce-maker by the neighbourhood. His professional identity, he says, has never felt eclipsed by his racial identity. (That is why he is able to field questions of “authenticity” without feeling defensive about it.)
This is not to say that the Chinese do not maintain strong community networks. Lee’s products are used by Tangra outlets like Liu’s Beijing, as much as all over central Kolkata eateries. When casting directors of the Salman Khan-starrer Tubelight were scouting for a youth to portray “a Chinese”, Lee recommended Thomas Chen, a Cantonese mechanical engineer and singer in Kolkata, for the cameo.
David Rocco, the popular Canadian-Italian TV host, has interviewed Lee for his programme Dolce India. When quizzed about the ‘authenticity’ of his sauces, Lee’s answer is pat: “It’s authentic for this area. The Hakkas are gypsies. Each group of Hakkas has its own Hakka cuisine.” No two Bengalis, he says to further explain his point, make pulao or paturi the same way.
Owner of the Pou Chong brand, Dominic Lee at his shop at Tiretta Bazaar, the first Chinatown. The combination of the Pou Chong tomato and Pou Chong green chilli sauce is usually used with the Kolkata kathi roll. (Samir Jana/HT PHOTO)
The Pou Chong brand, started by Lee’s father to cater to the large Chinese population, was badly hit, a second time, when families were uprooted at the outbreak of the Indo-China war in 1962. “It was a collective trauma for the community, which may explain the wall of silence it maintains now,” says Chakraborty.
The war with China nearly emptied central Kolkata; hundreds of Chinese were deported to and jailed in camps in Rajasthan on mere suspicion of being ‘Chinese agents’. Monica Liu and her family were picked up and sent to a prison camp as was Thomas Chen’s mother in her teens; they were released without compensation or apology after several years. In a cruel twist of fate, the role he had to enact to crack the Tubelight audition was to play a Chinese soldier interrogating an Indian spy.
“I can never touch a potato or a gourd since then. Even the smell of their cooking scares me,” says Liu. They were a staple in her prison camp. For many Indian Chinese with similar experiences, family traditions around food have just not come together because of interrupted family life. Chen says he learnt to make a Chinese-style whole steamed fish, but not from his mother. The lack of schooling, because of formative years in jail, may also have pushed many of those from the earlier generation towards informal sectors like food, other than ‘office jobs.’
By the ’70s, the situation stabilised. Local Chinese boys entered the city’s five-star kitchens as hotels opened their first Chinese restaurants. “They popularised our products. Chinese, by then, had become part of the city’s street food. Every street corner had someone selling chow on carts. The combination of the Pou Chong tomato and Pou Chong green chilli became the Kolkata kathi roll sauce,” says Lee.
The eating culture of the central Kolkata Chinese developed in close contact with other migrant communities at the margins of Bengali society. Their restaurant clientele – fellow Chinese – was assured due to their still sizeable population in this area so they were under no pressure to suit their food to a ‘Bengali’ palate. Jayani Bonnerjee of OP Jindal Global University, a specialist on the Indian-Chinese community, talks of a dish called ngapi, a shrimp paste of Burmese origin, that was eaten at both Chinese and Anglo-Indian homes on Bentinck Street, though it’s not clear who influenced whom.
“The Chinese and Anglo-Indians had an affinity for one another; for ease of schooling and professional networks, many Chinese had become Christians. They shared schools, met each other in church, visited each other’s homes,” says Bonnerjee. When Waldorf, the famous Kolkata Chinese restaurant on Park Street, changed hands, the ownership went to an Anglo-Indian family, the Mantoshes, most probably in the ’90s, she points out.
At Bow Barracks, central Kolkata. The Central Kolkata Chinese stay in mixed neighbourhoods. (Samir Jana/HT PHOTO)
Indianisation
The Supreme Court ultimatum in 2002 to shift out 592 tanneries in Tangra, where the Hakkas on leaving central Kolkata went, was another big jolt for the community. It nearly emptied out Tangra. Most left for Canada. Those who could not; converted the godowns into restaurants. This is where the Indianisation of Chinese restaurants began.
The story of Tangra’s Indianisation is classic migrant-nama: left with lemons, they made lemonade. But when they did, that was inadvertently the first step taken by the community to build, with the Bengalis, a shared culinary mythology.
Chinese eating houses probably took their initial reluctant steps towards serving ‘Indian Chinese’ when Kolkata’s office-goers passed through the tannery areas in Tangra on their way home and showed up at the factory-cum-kitchens of the Chinese to request for fried chicken to go with booze.
Bengalis who frequented these Chinese joints wanted Chinese food, but on their own terms — fried, spicy and saucy. Enter the Chilli Chicken (chicken nuggets dipped in corn slurry, deep fried and finished up with soya sauce) and Schezwan Chicken (made by tossing deep fried chicken with a reddish sauce out of a bottle and Sichuan pepper, a key ingredient). Sichuan pepper, when it met Bengalis inside Chinese restaurants, began to be called ‘Schezwan’, so goes the joke.
Authenticity-seekers eat in Central Kolkata places like Eau Chew and Tung Nam now; Tangra is the spice-lovers’ haunt. Such customers might, says Monica Liu, on the rare occasion, ask her the passive-aggressive question, “what is your cooking medium?”, which she knows how to answer. “We use the same oil, or as much oil – the way you like your biryani,” she says fixing the customer with gimlet eyes.
The last Chinese waiter to take orders at the tables of Chinese restaurants like Liu’s Beijing, is not known. Till the ’70s, the Chinese restaurant was not the first place where Bengali boys looked for jobs. Now they do. This is now Beliaghata boy Babu’s stage. In Liu’s kitchen, Biharis are firing up the woks, and two Hakkas are chopping the vegetables and supervising them. The word is in many ‘Chinese restaurants’ Nepalis and south Indians are doing the cooking. Peter Chen, who runs the famous carpentry firm in Poddar Court, central Kolkata, says as much but won’t identify the restaurants. “They are doing a fine job, let them be,” he says.
Mechanical engineer Thomas Chen with his son, Travis, at his home in Bow Bazaar, central Kolkata. ‘I am almost Bangali,’ he says. Chen has done a cameo in a Salman Khan film and also sings in Bengali, Hindi and Mandarin. (Samir Jana/HT PHOTO)
The Chinese have taken up Indian food as well. When dal poori entered Chinese homes has not yet been documented, but Peter Chen, the businessman likes it. Chang Chen Fa, a Hubei chef loves it. Thomas Chen, the singer, eats it. Chen, who welcomes us into his home with tea and Chinese prawn wafers, says his pork is spiced with Everest turmeric masala. “I am almost Bangali,” says Thomas Chen, who speaks the flat, unaccented Bengali spoken in urban Kolkata.
Many young Indian-Chinese like Chen, especially those who were born in India, say experts, are increasingly trying to define their Chinese-ness in the context of their immediate surroundings. Chen and his family participate in community art projects around Tiretta Bazaar, the area he grew up in. He is not looking to be Chinese in China.
As we leave Kolkata, two images remain with me. Monica Liu barking at her employees to slice the carrots well, which pretty much sounds the same in every language. And Chen singing khayal at his home, which he says, helps him hit the high notes when singing in Mandarin.
People often say the Chinatowns of Kolkata are going or gone. Both, I think, daily renew themselves.
source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home> Lifestyle> Art & Culture / by Paramita Ghosh, Hindustan Times / March 10th, 2018
Across the ages: The Denmark Tavern in a painting by Peter Anker, dated 1790 | Photo Credit: Historical Museum of Oslo/Special Arrangement
After two years of renovation that cost ₹5 crore, the building is ready to host visitors to the historical town of Serampore in West Bengal
Mr Parr, who formerly kept the London Tavern, has taken the new upper-roomed house near the flag-staff in Serampore, directly facing the Barrackpore Cantonments and fitted up the same in an elegant and convenient manner, both as a Hotel and Tavern.
This was one of the advertisements published in the Calcutta Gazette on March 16, 1786, announcing the opening of a tavern by James Parr on the banks of river Hooghly.
Another advertisement, two years later on April 3, 1788, makes a mention of the establishment.
Noting a change of hands from James Parr to John Nichols, who formerly kept the Harmonick Tavern in Calcutta, the advertisement goes on to say: The gentlemen of cantonments, or parties going up and down the river, and all others who may honour Mr. Nichols with their countenance, may depend on the utmost civility and every endeavour to give satisfaction and very moderate charges. Bed, Lodging, and Board, by the week or month.
In 2010 – 11, more than 200 years after the tavern’s heyday, a group of restoration experts studied a building that stood in complete ruins, surrounded by debris.
“Nobody remembered the original name and function of the ruined building. It was like detective work to search the archives for information, and it felt great when I realised that it must be the well-known Denmark Tavern and Hotel, which was located at the Nishan Ghat where the Danes kept their flagstaff and salutation cannons,” said Simon Rastén, historian, National Museum of Denmark. It was decided that the building would be restored and reused.
Grand unveiling Across the ages: The Denmark Tavern in ruins in 2009.
After two years of painstaking restoration work, the Denmark Tavern was reopened on Wednesday. Ambassadors of a number of Scandinavian countries, including Denmark, were present on the occasion.
The renovation cost of ₹5 crore has been borne by Realdania, a private association in Denmark which supports philanthropic projects in the realms of architecture and planning, and the Department of Tourism, Government of West Bengal.
The State Tourism Department is in talks with an agency that will maintain the restored building, which will serve both as a café and a lodge.
The coffee house is inspired by the double height central atrium of the Indian Coffee House in Kolkata and five rooms have been opened for boarders. Officials are hopeful that within a few weeks the tavern would be buzzing with visitors as it was in the late 18th century.
Experts from the National Museum of Denmark, officials from the West Bengal government and conservation architect Manish Chakraborti have tirelessly worked on the restoration of the building since October 2015.
Bente Wolff, project head of the Serampore Initiative, National Museum of Denmark, said that Serampore was administered by Denmark under the name of Frederiksnagore till 1845, when Denmark sold its Indian possessions to Britain.
Stressing on the importance of maintaining the identity of old trading towns like Serampore, Ms. Wolff said that The Denmark Tavern was located on a peaceful stretch of the river, only a two-minute walk from Serampore’s main street. “This would be an be an attractive space for citizens and tourists where you go for shopping, restaurants and cafés, and a morning or evening stroll along the river front.”
Meticulous work
Mr. Chakraborti, whose work on the St. Ola Church in Serampore won the UNESCO Asia Pacific Heritage Award in 2016, said the conservation of the tavern was a more difficult job.
He said that archival research in terms of topographical maps, paintings and photographs were supplemented by building archaeology and sample excavations of foundations and plinth by clearing all the debris.
Along with the tavern, the experts have also restored an old registration building built by the British that will serve as a heritage canteen on the Court complex of Serampore.
Ms. Wolff said that the former Danish Government House built in 1776 and predating the tavern was being restored. “By the end of this year, we hope to put together an exhibition on Serampore’s history at the former Danish Government House,” she said.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Kolkata / by Shiv Sahay Singh / Serampore – March 01st, 2018
Man who made music at St John’s during Sunday prayers passes away UNFINISHED NOTES: The pipe organ at St John’s Church that Johnny Purty used to play. (Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya)
Calcutta:
The sonorous ebb and flow of pipe organ notes won’t fill St John’s Church this Friday. Johnny Purty, the dreadlocked wizard of the keys whose music churchgoers say elevated the soul, died on Tuesday aged 57.
Johnny had been an unmissable presence during Sunday prayers at the church for years, his back to the congregation but his music always upfront in its purpose. On Fridays and Saturdays, he would play almost all day. Over the years, he became as famous as the grand instrument he played.
Noel Ronnie Purty, Johnny’s brother, told Metro on Thursday that his sibling inherited his love of the organ from their father, who had also played the instrument in a church. An alumnus of Assembly of God Church School and St Xavier’s College, Johnny was wedded to music and so remained a bachelor in life.
“He had a cardiac arrest around 3.45pm. A doctor was called and he pronounced Johnny dead,” Noel said.
A memorial service for Johnny was held at Wesleyan Church on Thursday, from where his family and friends proceeded to the Bhowanipore cemetery for the funeral.
“The hall was packed today. He was a master at playing the organ,” said Peter Hyrapiet, a close friend of Johnny.
Johnny Purty on the pipe organ at St John’s Church Picture courtesy: Subhadip Mukherjee
The pipe organ at St John’s Church on Council House Street was installed in the early nineteenth century and remains the grandest in Calcutta. “I have seen Johnny play even when there was none in the church. He used to play the whole day because he loved doing so,” said Subhadip Mukherjee, a friend and member of the Church of North India (CNI) that runs St John’s.
A college teacher who had visited St John’s last winter with her colleagues remembers the warmth with which Johnny greeted them. “He escorted us in. As we went around the church, Johnny started to play the organ. He seemed so happy just playing for us. It’s shocking to hear that he is no more,” she said.
At least five churches in Calcutta have pipe organs but regulars say that the one at St John’s is the grandest in terms of the quality of sound. Johnny’s finesse had as much to do with it as the maintenance that is put in to keep the instrument in shape.
Johnny also played the pipe organ at Wesleyan Church on Sudder Street for two decades. He had been playing there before he first touched the instrument at St John’s.
Unlike a piano, playing the pipe organ requires the use of both hands and feet. “The chords are played using the feet while the lead is played using the hands,” said a church member.
Mukherjee, whose blog Indian Vagabond has a detailed guide to St John’s Church, explained that the instrument has “stops” on either side of the seat that are adjusted to produce the sound the musician desires.
Johnny knew how to adjust these to produce the right music at the right moment, he said.
While a pipe organ player sits with his back to the audience, there is usually a mirror in front that enables the person to see the congregation and play to it.
Johnny’s death means St John’s Church will have to look for a musician to take his seat. “We are looking for a new player as quickly as possible,” said Pradeep Kumar Nanda, the vicar at St John’s.
The church, whose construction started in the late eighteenth century, stands on land gifted by Maharaja Nabo Kishen Bahadur of Sovabazar.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / by Subhajoy Roy / March 16th, 2018
ISI team develops algorithms that promise higher accuracy than the competition
The automated system developed at ISI looks to be as accurate as Lionel Messi’s left foot when it comes to ball tracking. (AP)
Dunlop:
Advanced algorithms developed by a team of scientists at the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Calcutta, promise to do for ball tracking in football what tiki-taka has done for FC Barcelona.
Dipti Prasad Mukherjee of the institute’s electronics and communication sciences unit and PhD candidates Saikat Sarkar and Samriddha Sanyal have come out with a high-precision automated system using algorithms that “balance prior constraints continuously against the evidence garnered from sequences of images”.
The system, based on computer vision, aims to track and accurately calculate ball possession by a team during a game. According to Samriddha, it is at least 7.2 per cent better compared to competing approaches to ball tracking.
Samriddha had published a paper titled “On the (soccer) ball” with Mukherjee and Arnab Kundu in 2016.
“The problem of tracking the ball is when there is a sudden change in speed and orientation of the ball,” he said.
In a given video, the prior constraints would be the ball positions in previous frames. The paper proposes a particle filter-based algorithm that tracks the ball when it changes direction suddenly or travels at high speed.
“Our tracking algorithm has shown excellent results even for partial occlusion (blockage), which is a major concern in soccer videos,” Samriddha said.
Tracking a ball when it is being kicked or passed quickly from player to player like in tiki-taka remains a challenge for broadcasters.
Saikat, who is working on calculating ball possession, said: “Till now, the chess-clock method is used to measure ball possession. The other measure for ball possession is to count the number of passes. The ratio of the number of passes by a team divided by the total number of passes in a match closely correlates with ball possession stats.”
FIFA uses data from Deltatre, a sports media company that uses the chess clock method. In the Premier League, ball possession is measured on the basis of data from Opta Sports.
Deltatre has individuals using the three buttons of a chess clock to measure when the ball is with Team A, Team B or not in play. Opta uses a software overlaid on live feeds to track the number of passes.
The team at ISI uses raw broadcast video, measuring ball possession with close to 80 per cent accuracy.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / by Anasuya Basu / March 14th, 2018
The six-city tour of Bonjour India’s ‘Jazz meets Indian Classical’ started off in Kolkata with a packed audience and a mesmerising performance by the city’s tabla maestro, Bickram Ghosh, in collaboration with Mezcal Jazz Unit from France.
The programme was organised by Alliance Francaise at the Tollygunge Club’s main lawn recently. “I am happy that Alliance Francaise is organising such enriching events. I am really enjoying the night. I love tabla more than jazz,” said Fabrice Plancon, director, Alliance Francaise du Bengale.
Bickram Ghosh and Mezcal Jazz Unit had collaborated about 12 years ago.
The tabla maestro said, “Jazz and Indian classical are very similar in nature. Collaborating with top jazz artistes can bring out the best in each other’s culture. We have also recorded a video that will be out soon.”
Ghosh also added that he was very happy to see the audience enjoying the music. He added, “Kolkata still has an audience for good music. This show didn’t get much publicity yet the chairs were all full. I am glad that such collaborative projects interest the music lovers of Kolkata.”
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City News> Kolkata News / by Shrutanwita Chakraborty / March 05th, 2018
‘My grandparents, refugees from Bangladesh, have kept their house exactly the way they received it.’ | Photo Credit: Chirodeep Chaudhuri
Like many things in Calcutta at the turn of the 20th century, Park Mansions was built by Armenian merchant Thaddeus Mesrope Thaddeus
Can you love a beautiful thing without understanding what beauty is? I was eight years and something when I first saw Charulata, considered to be Satyajit Ray’s finest film and sometimes listed among the greatest films ever made. Ray had died that Calcutta summer, and Doordarshan was showing a retrospective of his films late at night, in remembrance. Those were the pre-DVD days, and even in VHS, Ray’s films were hard to come by. My parents would wake me late at night so I could watch with them, the only late-night activity I was allowed to participate in.
“Just watch a bit,” my mother would say, “it doesn’t matter if you don’t understand it.” At eight, even for the precocious, full-of-themselves Bengalis, I was a bit young for Tagore’s story of a young bored housewife falling for her brother-in-law, and recognising the loneliness of her marriage to an older, professorial man. (It was the typically uneven marriage of high-caste Hindus of the day — a young woman, a man at least a decade-and-a-half older.)
But I liked the film. I liked it from the start, because I liked Charu’s windows — the slatted windows through which she watched a man with a black umbrella on a Calcutta street, one of Bengali cinema’s most beloved scenes (and one of international cinema’s most recognisable scenes). My grandfather’s house had the same windows; windows operated with a spine to pry them open. The kharkhari, as we call it in Bengali, lets you glimpse the outside without letting the inside out. It is said to be designed specifically for tropical heat, and is typical of old, statuesque Calcutta homes from the turn of the 20th century.
Of stillness
I felt at home in Charulata’s world, though her emotional dilemma was several years of understanding away from me. I felt like I was in my grandfather’s house, 25 Park Mansions, with its books, and long corridors and curvaceous, dark wood furniture. (Today’s furniture is a lot more angular, a lot more straight lines, no?) More than anything else, the house has the same air of stillness and non-fidgetiness that you sense in the film. Despite Charulata’s emotional turmoil, you see her sewing or writing or playing cards, rarely fidgeting.
My grandfather’s house has that same quality — even now, it makes me forget my phone and the notifications on my post. It keeps the outside out, and holds me inside. I had little idea then that the building would one day be classified as “heritage” property, that I had grown up in something that deserves to be preserved for the public and the future. I had loved it without understanding it, much like I did with the film.
The foundation stone of Park Mansions was laid in 1910, one year before the British announced that the imperial capital would be shifted to Delhi. Like many things in Calcutta at the turn of the century, it was built by an Armenian, a merchant and philanthropist called Thaddeus Mesrope Thaddeus. Park Street, Calcutta’s iconic restaurant and bar street, has at least three other buildings credited to Armenians. Stephen Court, which stands diagonally opposite to Park Mansions, was built by Arathoon Stephen, who also built the adjacent complex, Queen’s Mansion. These three majestic mansions were conceived as residential quarters.
A little further down the street, close to the beloved Olympia Pub, is the Masonic (Freemasons’) Lodge and Hall, built by Johannes Carapiet Galstaun. Many of the city’s most loved and recognised hotels have also been built by Armenians — the Grand Hotel, the Kenilworth, the Astoria and the late Shashi Kapoor’s favourite hotel, the Fairlawn.
What is most interesting about this building spree is the timing — the turn of the 20th century was the zenith of the Raj in India. Calcutta is widely considered to be built by the British, and little credit is given to the Armenians. The early 20th century was also the time of the genocide of Armenians by the Turkish state — in her book A Problem from Hell, the American academic Samantha Powers describes this as the first genocide of the modern period.
The Armenian touch
But the presence of Armenians in Calcutta predates the 20th century. The oldest church in Calcutta is the Armenian church on Armenian Street. The earliest grave in the churchyard adjoining it dates to 1630, says Iftekhar Ahsan, who runs one of the most popular walking tour companies in the city. The Armenian college near Park Street still admits and educates children of Armenian origin only. Geographically, Armenia is a land-locked country, and the Armenians have been subject to invasions over the centuries. Waves of Armenians have left and settled across the world. They are among the most resourceful and successful immigrant communities worldwide.
According to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), “a heritage building means any building… which requires preservation and conservation for historical, architectural, environmental and ecological purpose…” This definition suggests that a heritage building is a public good meant to be sustained for the city as a whole.
When the heritage status came in for Park Mansions, a plaque was put in in memory of the company managing the estate. In the four years since, nothing has been put up about Thaddeus, about the Armenians of Calcutta, the style of Armenian buildings, or even the distinct architectural features of Park Mansions.
However, a whole lot of signage has come up on the façade of the building itself — advertising for commercial and institutional tenants. The KMC website on heritage specifically mentions that no display of signage or hoardings is allowed on heritage buildings unless it is approved, and in harmony with the building.
Gleaming new commercial tenants have arrived — the country’s largest car company has a showroom in Park Mansions, a store for a global computer giant whose favourite colour is white, the tech gadgets branch of India’s largest industrial conglomerate, a hip global café franchise known for live music performances. There are new institutional tenants too — the cultural wings of two prominent Western governments have set up office. In the course of these arrivals, the interiors of the mansion complex have been almost completely stripped. The hip café is set to its global décor template, and could well have been in a mall for all that it has retained of its 107-year-old setting. One of the cultural institutes has stripped the original floors and replaced them with a polished wood material. The arrangement of rooms and spaces has been wholly reimagined.
Crumbling edifice
My grandparents, refugees from Bangladesh who came to Calcutta with nothing, have kept it exactly the way they received it. Not a thing has been taken out. The laal mejhe (red floor) — red oxide mixed with cement — typical of old Calcutta homes is intact, still deliciously cold and creamy on bare feet. Our ceilings are still ages away, held up by criss-crossing beams and joists. They make the unreasonable Calcutta summers reasonable and the embarrassing winters a bit more draughty and respectable. His house is, perhaps, the only unit to have retained the space as it was originally conceived.
But the innards of the apartment are falling apart. The sewage pipes, after more than a century of use, often spill out waste in the bathrooms. They leak faecal matter into the walls and ceilings. The estate managers, puffed with the heritage tag, swat us residents away.
What is happening to Park Mansions is known as ‘adaptive reuse’ in urban planning language. A building conceived primarily for residential use is being refashioned for commercial and institutional use. In the process, the character of the building is changing. The interiors are being stripped away. The identity of Park Mansions is eroding.
I see this unfolding before me. When I walk down Park Street in the evenings, there is invariably a knot of people in front of the hip new café at Park Mansions. They wait to take selfies below the name of the café. Where they knock their heads close and ready their faces for the camera, they stand in front of the foundation plaque of the complex: “Park Mansions: The foundation stone of this building was laid by Lizzie, wife of T.M. Thaddeus, on the 1st May 1910.” Their photographs have no space for Thaddeus’ Park Mansions. It’s only the building housing the global café chain.
Park Mansions Adda: On a semi-regular basis on Sundays, my family welcomes people via a public post on Facebook to walk through our apartment, feel the red oxide floor, look out of our slatted windows, run hands along the spines of my grandfather’s library. And then we sit in the living room and talk, just like people still do in any apartment in the world.
The Kolkata-based writer and independent journalist writes on public health, politics and film. Her hobby is writing about herself in the third person.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Rubric> Society / by Sohini Chattopadhyay / March 03rd, 2018
