Time travel: A tramcar transformed into an air-conditioned service. The route will cover College Street
A book-laden air-conditioned tram offers a glimpse of the city’s academic corner
The Kolkata tram may be a pale shadow of its glorious days, but it is still an iconic image of the city. College Street happens to be the prestigious address of some of the oldest educational institutions in the country, and also boasts rows of bookshops on either side.
Now, a tram is set to recreate the academic ambience. It is built like a library and will roll down College Street, giving passengers a glimpse of the University of Calcutta, Presidency University and the hundreds of book stalls.
From Thursday, people can ride the tram library, an air-conditioned car converted into a library on wheels. It will make six trips on the recently restored Esplanade-Shyambazar route.
West Bengal Transport Corporation (WBTC), which oversees India’s only functional tramway, has introduced the service to rekindle the love for trams and reading. The initiative brings together unique aspects of the city’s cultural heritage: trams, which form an intrinsic part of the colonial legacy and its love for books on College Street, which is called ‘Boi Para’ (street of books) by many. While the first trams were launched in 1873, and were electrified in 1900, educational institutions on College Street like the Presidency .
Attracting students
“The idea is to make the tram the mode of choice for Kolkata’s students once again,” said Rajanvir Singh Kapur, MD of WBTC. In addition to the titles housed within, the tram library will provide readers access to online books. There will be no additional charge, the ticket provides passengers access. There will be 25 stops along the 5 km route, five of them on College Street.
The library is just a beginning this winter, says an official. It could be the venue of book launches and book readings this season. Kolkata hosts a number of literary festivals and there is a search on for new venues. There are plans to have a Literary Festival around the tram library in the next two months, in November 2020.
Cyclone Amphan, which battered the city on May 20 severely damaged tram infrastructure. After restoration, four routes have been opened. The library will be on the fifth route.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Other States / by Shiv Sahay Singh / Kolkata – September 24th, 2020
A 34-year-old Beleghata resident’s journey as a percussionist, a field still intrinsically attributed to males
Rimpa Siva at her Beleghata home / Shubhendu Chaki
Women are still a rare sight in a few places. One such spot is the one behind the tabla.
Women vocalists have earned their place on the classical music stage. But not so much as percussionists. Something about beating a surface with force strong enough to produce a sound, perhaps, is still considered an intrinsically male activity. (In older times, the beating of drums announced war, certainly a predominantly male activity.)
Rimpa Siva, however, began to play the tabla when she was about four. “I just took to it,” she says.
Now 34, the Beleghata resident is a star. She has performed in many places in India and abroad, solo, or with the biggest names in Indian classical music, and has received many awards. Numerous videos of her performances and interviews pop up on the Net, as do write-ups and at least two short films on her, one made by a French crew.
If she is still described as a leading “woman tabla player”, and if this description sounds discriminatory, even anachronistic, Rimpa brushes it aside.
To her the reference to her as a woman performer means quite the opposite. “I think it is an acknowledgment of the fact women are becoming visible as tabla players,” says Rimpa. She believes in this. But one suspects that how she is described does not really matter to her.
Very early, she surrendered her life to the tabla.
She grew up to the sound of music at her home, the top floor of the three-storey Beleghata house that belongs to her family, where she has been confined for the six months of the lockdown. Her father, Swapan Siva, a tabla player also well-known in the city as a tabla teacher. Their surname, unusual for a Bengali family, comes from the fact that a Shivalinga had been dug up on their property in Kumilla, in former East Bengal, where the family originally comes from.
Swapan was a student of Keramatullah Khan, the doyen of the Farrukhabad gharana, who lived in Ripon Street. At the beginning Swapan had thought he would encourage his daughter towards singing.
But Rimpa’s obvious talent on the tabla decided things easily. She was stunning from the start. Swapan took over her training and she became his most distinguished pupil. “My father has been my guru,” says Rimpa. She has a broad smile that lights up her face.
Her journey began early. “I performed at the Salt Lake Music Festival held at Rabindra Sadan when I was around eight. When I was about 12, I went on the ITC tour of Mumbai, Delhi and Jaipur,” says Rimpa.
Spotted by the best musicians in the country, including tabla maestro Zakir Hussain, she would soon embark on a life that would be a mad flurry of performances, travel and awards, not something every child experiences.
The French film, made in 1999, and called ‘Rimpa Siva: Princess of Tabla’, was made when she was 13. The film shows her as a student of Beleghata Deshabandhu Giris’ High School. She goes through school as if in a haze; her fingers drum on the desktop as the class is in progress. School education took a backseat. “But my school was very supportive. It postponed the selections before the class X board examination for me.” In 1997, she had toured US and Europe.
In 2004, she accompanied Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia as the main tabla player on his US tour. In 2006, she accompanied Pandit Jasraj on another US tour. She won the President’s Award in 2007 and the Sangeet Natak Akademi award in 2017. The years in between are crowded with performances and cities, which can run into pages.
“In 1997, in San Francisco, Ali Akbar Khan himself attended my performance at the Ali Akbar College of Music. He blessed me and said that I should keep a lemon and chilli in my pocket to ward off evil,” says Rimpa. She seems quite unfazed by her achievements, but also exudes a quiet confidence. She also holds an M.A. degree from Rabindra Bharati University in Instrumental Music.
The specialities of her gharana include kaida, rela, tukra and gat, words that have entered the Bengali language from music to indicate style or attitude. She practises for three to four hours every day. Her solo performances can last up to two hours.
The lockdown makes her feel claustrophobic. It has practically stopped performance art. “I haven’t performed in six months,” she says. “Of late, I would be even travelling every month within the country, and sometimes two times abroad in a year.”
But nothing really comes between Rimpa and her music. “I live for the tabla. Everything in my life happens around the tabla. It does not matter where I am performing, with whom. When I am playing, I transcend everything,” she says.
“At that moment, I only feel peace and joy. Those who feel music know that peace and joy.”
On stage, she appears to go into a trance, lost in the music. She also looks dressed like a typical male tabla player, in a high-collar kurta, and together with her hair, she almost suggests Zakir Hussain. That is a coincidence, she says. “I can’t play the tabla in a woman’s clothes. They are not comfortable.”
She adds that she always had short hair and never cared for anything “girlie”. She did not time for friendship either.
Rimpa is also not sure about the role marriage can play in a woman’s life if she is a musician.
She feels that a lot of young Indians are showing interest in classical music now. She mentions Aban Mistry and Anuradha Pal as her illustrious predecessors in tabla, as women, and also does not shy away from suggesting that she is a role model for girls who want to take up the tabla, whether they will still be called “woman musicians” or not.
She seems to say gender is not an impediment, but you have to strike out on your own.
“Remember, girls can play the tabla,” she says.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Online / Home> West Bengal> Calcutta / by Chandrima Bhattacharya / September 28th, 2020
there was a time when all of poetry was a wild and endless epiphany
before recollections rolled anger roiled and ardour spent
retreading bookstreet now where time is liquid and burning drowning infusions sugarblack melting argument
smoking love
— calcutta, crow III
Well-known academic Brinda Bose has published her 21 poems in a chapbook, collected over a small lifetime during the first part of this year’s pandemic lockdown.
The early poems bear an uncomfortable resemblance to TS Eliot; by the third poem in the collection Calcutta, Crow and other fragments she finds her voice in the poem about her ageing parents:
whoever knew that such an ageless street as this the ageing might reclaim hunting still
for themselves, for others, for books, coffee, grass, frenzy and rapture restless poems that spiral up and down those grimy stairs vomiting fear and tenderness fervent, insomniac —
calcutta, crow III
By the way, she mischievously informs us that around her ageing parent’s eyes are crowsfeet.
tracking bruises that broke and made you
fingering lightly all the laughter that birthed the crowsfeet at the corners of your eyes.
After the early four Crow poems – more indebted to Sylvia Plath than Ted Hughes – she gives us four idiosyncratically titled poems on months, a kind of truncated barah maasa, viz “november: water”, “december: tree”, “january: gravestone” and “february: pocket”.
there’s something solitary about november like dark smudges on still water
like waiting for a friend to return from the river of summer (or is it from some mountain fall) not knowing that a prewinter bite has swallowed him whole
he’s left behind in the chair that he would sink into a hole shaped like his laughing mouth
— november: water
Or the sound of you, ringing lightly in my ear at an odd moment of afternoon when I tossed my head for the comfort of earrings swinging against my neck. A low sound it was, almost a memory of a whisper unheard. And then you fell out silently like a word unspoken and I flailed a cupped hand under my ear, my palm curved to catch a shooting star.
— february: pocket
A poem of unrequited young love captures a sensibility that is disappearing:
you said my eyes were like cactus flowers … you said you’d wade into my cactus flower eyes slain again and again by pleasure and surprise
that was a poem I wrote in youth.
there were no flowers that were my eyes. there was no you. there were only wanton pauper-poems careening about till the pennies ran out
— reprise
Then come the two prose poems collected under “words that bleed and fly 1 and 2”. The second one, “aubade”, is worth the whole collection. It is dedicated to another Bangla woman writer, Taslima Nasreen, a woman people equally love and hate for her personality and her poetry. The central metaphor of this poem addressed to a bidrohi Third World poet is a white cotton saree which is a battle flag, and which just as well could be used to herald a truce in the culture wars. The submerged metaphor is a refugee clothes bundle flung across a barbed wire fence at a border where it is impaled.
so you may land there but you shall not forget the words you left behind you in the lands you call your own, many cities that you had to leave one by one dhaka calcutta delhi trailing garlands of poems and prose and loves and conversations and writing, always writing. where can you go, where must you go, light and heavy on wings of words sharing stories and wine and the nostalgia of white. white summer sarees left behind at home…but wait, was that home?
…lives old and new are rolled up and hurled at the barbed wire fencing to pierce holes and squeeze dreams that are dead and dying through them like camels through eyes of needles
…just as you begin to believe that the roots are taking hold you must pack up your sarees and your stories in a weary suitcase and fly away again… the words find you again and again and tear into you and out of you and speed away to slam into other faces and names and tongues. to beat and flay and form fresh flags
of words, just like all your white summer sarees waiting to be worn and crushed and soiled with and poetry, splendidly done and undone in beauty, sadness and rage
words that bleed and fly 2: aubade
In my opinion, this poem is worth the value of the entire collection. Women, gays and poets, when most poets are all three, are left to mourn unrequited love. Bose acquits herself in the task most unsentimentally and in a modern idiom. At the same time she touches her readers deeply:
a dream implodes like a fat gooseberry in the mouth
— invocation 1
And this is the whole of “invocation 3”:
passion is both enraged and tender it’s where the shadow falls that slays or spares that is all
— invocation 3
The last poem, “poetry. still.”, talks about the two of you.
I take it to be a domestic setting in which a poet reconciles to everyday life inside the home and surrounding it even as she listens to “a snatch of voice” carrying her to a (fading) place where she wants to be, when
blood, skin, stone and bone batter homes and hills, roads and trees, rivers and seas.
Bose has heard whispers in an adjacent room, freedom and commitment are not watertight compartments. They feed into each other – “Les Vases communicants” as the surrealist André Breton put it, “Nirvana’s in Samsara” as our rishis tell us. So though there is a steady acceptance of life and its domestic realities there is an emerging into the writerly life…The poem, and the collection, ends with an extended mutating image of liquid red, flowing like scarlet fruit juice from the mouth in an exultation of drinking. There is rebellion yet in colour, and there is poetry, say its last lines:
cries and whispers gutted in a red room. the colour spills out of the door and runs like a river down the road outside your home into the neighbour’s house like the juice of a crushed pomegranate cruising down a chin poetry. still.
Calcutta, Crow and Other Fragments, by Brinda Bose, Hawakal Publishers.
source: http://www.scroll.in / Scroll.in / Home> Uses of Poetry / by Hoshang Merchant / September 18th, 2020
Sharbari Datta with Dino Morea, dressed in one of her creations / Telegraph picture
Every time I would drop by her Broad Street residence for an interview, which would more often be a straight-from-the-heart adda lasting hours, she would be seated on one particular intricately carved wooden chair in her home studio, nestling her cup of tea, and urging me to munch on the carefully laid-out platter of snacks in front of me.
The chat would essentially be followed up with a lunch, often cooked by her with keen care for my preferences. Hospitable, humble and immensely talented — that was Sharbaridi for me, whom the world knew as the legendary menswear designer Sharbari Datta.
Rightfully credited to have introduced the Indian man to the world of fashion, Datta started her journey in designing rather informally in 1991 with a small exhibition that received unexpected commercial success. One exhibition led to another and the Sharbari brand was born. The first Indian fashion brand that solely focussed on men’s clothing.
“I always felt that Indian men were very inhibited when it came to dressing up. Due to the colonial hangover, the British influence, we always considered grey, pale blue or navy blue as the masculine colours that make for smart outfits. But nowhere else is it so. Be it Japan or Africa or Afghanisthan or Pakistan… the men always dress in bright colours… so are they feminine? I wanted to prove that there’s no clash between masculinity and bright colours. Our Indian tradition in menswear is of bright colours and nakshas. So why have we ignored it completely? A three-piece suit is not the only fashion statement for an Indian man. He can also make a statement in traditional Indian clothes,” she had told The Telegraph in an earlier interview, when asked about her bold decision to tread uncharted territory.
With hand-embroidery over hand-sketched motifs that drew inspiration from rustic and folk cultures as the mainstay, the Sharbari Datta school of design became the go-to for the Calcutta man for his wedding outfit, who even dared to don the brightly coloured dhoti that she introduced, breaking the norm of the beige or white piece of traditional drape.
Not just Calcutta, her unique aesthetics drew men from all parts of the country — from Ismail Merchant (among her first celebrity clients) to Sunil Gavaskar, Imran Khan, Sachin Tendulkar, Shoaib Akhtar, Sourav Ganguly, Leander Paes to Abhishek Bachchan and many other Bollywood and Tollywood stars, they have all proudly worn a Sharbari creation.
But the artist in her was always that wee bit more excited when somebody from the art world would choose to wear her creations.
“I feel extra special when artists buy my work. Since I consider my work as artwear, I have felt that my work has been certified when people like M.F. Husain, Ganesh Pyne, Manjit Bawa, Paresh Maity and Bikash Bhattacharya have bought my clothes,” Datta had told us. Datta was the daughter of famous poet Ajit Datta.
Showcasing her work in exhibitions across the world and winning innumerable awards — including The Telegraph She Awards in the Creative Art category in 2016 — Sharbari became a name to reckon with in the Indian fashion fraternity.
Conquering the world from her home studio, she resolutely refused to expand into other areas of design, keeping her focus firmly on menswear for the most part of her career. “I have always refused to diversify into other areas. I have always been very focussed.
Menswear is a very difficult area because men are difficult to deal with when it comes to fashion. Most of them are rigid and not adventurous. Women are much more open and receptive, so that’s a much easier area,” she would tell us.
In 2017, Datta distanced herself from her brand Sharbari Studio, which she co-owned along with her son Amalin Datta and daughter-in-law Kanaklata Datta. She launched another brand called Shunyaa, along with partners, making the signature Sharbari aesthetics its design DNA. With an opulent store in Hindusthan Park, Sharbari had built a new world for herself.
But for me, the picture of Sharbaridi that would remain forever etched in my heart would be of her sitting on that intricately carved wooden chair in her home studio, nestling her cup of tea while chatting her heart out.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, online / Home> West Bengal> Calcutta / by Smita Roy Chowdhury / Calcutta – September 19th, 2020
If you don’t mind the old, if you find it elegant, not to say comforting, Broadway bar is the best party in town
Sandeep Sehgal at the bar at Broadway Hotel. Picture by Subhendu Chaki .
As the metal clinks against the glass, and the buzz mixed with laughter rises from the low tables covered in maroon or yellow tablecloths, and the shaded lamps throw light on black- and-white old Calcutta pictures, and the draught beer taps are placed on your table, and moonlight blended with electricity cracks in through the large glass windows on the front, you only miss live music. But then a tall gentleman enters the bar at Broadway Hotel through the side entrance.
He is very tall indeed. He appears silently at the door and then glides from table to table, ensuring that everyone gets a seat quickly, especially the ladies.
Sandeep Sehgal is the current owner of Broadway Hotel on Ganesh Chandra Avenue. Apart from lending his graceful, welcoming and slightly mysterious — he hardly speaks to a guest — presence to the place, he has also rendered a great service to the city.
He has kept Broadway Hotel and the bar, one of Calcutta’s most-loved places that started in 1937, the way he found them. Almost. Since he took over the hotel three years ago — the bar is on the ground floor; the four floors on top have rooms to stay in — Sehgal has just added one or two necessary, unobtrusive facilities to the bar and to the hotel. Such as the draught beer, AC, new crockery and a new menu that only adds to the old items, which include boiled eggs and the famous “Stock Market Toast” (named after bakery bread that was found near the Calcutta Stock Exchange building).
In the process he has assured old Broadway faithfuls, who form a substantial number of Calcuttans, that their refuge remains undisturbed. He has also performed an act of conservation — of a dear piece of the city, where “development” is a euphemism for demolishing the old.
Broadway, now, is exceptional in another way, as most bars in this part of the business district have either renovated themselves into a new-age tackiness to become unrecognisable or have turned into crooner bars. Or both.
I finally get to talk to Sehgal, 53, in his large and plain office on the first floor of the hotel. He was born to a Punjabi family in the city and educated here and abroad. “I am not going to change any of this. Because there is going to be no other place like this,” he reassures me personally.
Broadway always defied change, even in the hands of the earlier owners. Since the early 2000s, when most of the bars in the neighbourhood turned into crooner bars, Broadway stood its ground. Then, too, the bar had a loyal following, but mostly of office-goers.
It remained stodgy and refused an image makeover. Because it was confident of its charms, which begin with the old wooden doorway at the Ganesh Chandra Avenue entrance. It is a small cubicle by itself, possibly unique in Calcutta.
After Sehgal took over, the bar looks a little spruced-up, but still old and plain. So what is it that is so inviting?
Once you get in, if you are lucky, you may get a table by the large front windows. Or by the wall-to-wall mirror on one side. It does not matter really. The waiters will not trouble you with excessive attention, as in a snazzy restaurant, but will not neglect you either. The menu is exciting — you get everything from a robust Chicken-a-la-Kiev to succulent pieces of deep-fried Katla fish, and at prices that are quite old world too.
The old bar stands in a corner. On some evenings, you may spot another tall gentleman, much older, taking the same rounds as Sehgal. He is Mr Sehgal Sr.
But it is not one single detail. Here you are never rushed. They will let you be. Everyone is welcome. You feel good. You feel looked after.
Most of all, you feel free of the shiny oppressiveness of synthetic wood, glass and metal that defines the new restaurant chic. The new breeds such anxiety. It makes you feel that you are not up to it.
Broadway tolerates the old. You relax.
If you don’t mind the old, if you find it elegant, not to say comforting, Broadway bar is the best party in town.
That does not mean it is not cool. Far from it. The young, the trendy and the different are being increasingly spotted at Broadway. Some celebs too. A few scenes from the recent Bollywood film Dhadak were shot here.
Sometimes saving the old is good business as well.
Sehgal takes me on a guided tour of the hotel. The rooms are spacious ones, with old, unfussy furniture, very clean.
The previous owners, who were deeply attached to the property, had asked Sehgal, who also owns the restaurant Flavours of India on AJC Bose Road, Calcutta, and Hotel Utsav in Santiniketan, if he would make any changes.
“But I would not change anything,” Sehgal repeats. “We can’t make another property like this.”
“I will have to replace the furniture when they become too old. But this red oxide floor? These beams? Where will I get them now?” he asks.
Sehgal was also particularly careful in retaining all the staff. “In the hotel we have third-generation guests coming,” Sehgal says. The waiters and the visitors know each other. Besides, Sehgal did not visualise the hotel without the people who were a part of it.
If he has to renovate the hotel, the old Great Eastern Hotel will be his model. “Not the new one,” he stresses. “The old one.”
Sehgal reveals his height is 6ft 6”. He walks tall.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Online / Home> West Bengal / by Chandrima S Bhattacharya, Calcutta / September 15th, 2020
Saha is dreaming of developing a modest museum in association with the state government where he can display his collection and ensure that the rare coins are preserved properly for the future
Subir Saha with coins at his home in Malda on Thursday. / Soumya De Sarkar
Hundreds of coins dating back to the Sultanate era and of the current age have helped librarian Subir Saha spend his days indoors during the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown.
Saha, a known numismatist who stays at Green Park here, is now dreaming of developing a modest museum in association with the state government where he can display his stock of coins and ensure that the rare coins are preserved properly for the future.
A visit to his residence, and one would be delighted to see the “Gani” coin used during the regime of Mohammed Bin Tughlaq, “Tanka” of Kutubuddin Aibaq to “Dam” of Akbar, Jahangir and Aurangzeb.
The repertoire also contains “Falus”, a coin used during regimes of emperors Humayun and Shah Jahan, “Paisa” used during the rule of Sher Shah Suri and also coins used during the eras of rulers like Alauddin Khilji and Gias Uddin Balban.
A postgraduate in economics and a postgraduate diploma holder in business management, Saha, who is posted as a librarian at a state-run library in Old Malda, also takes the pride of displaying coins used during the rules of King George V and George VI and King
“I also have a gold-plated replica of ‘Mohor’ that was used in transactions during the regime of Queen Victoria. I have coins made of silver, copper, nickel, blending of aluminium and magnesium and stainless steel,” said the numismatist, who is in his early fifties.
His collection of coins which have been minted in India post-independence is no less surprising.
He has the coin of 1,000 rupees denomination that was introduced to celebrate the 1,000th anniversary of a temple in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, and also the coins of Rs 500, Rs 200, Rs 150, Rs 125, Rs 60, Rs 25 and Rs 20, introduced as souvenirs to celebrate occasions like Indo-African summit, sesquicentennial anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore and platinum jubilee of the Reserve Bank of India.
“During the recent lockdown, it is these coins with which I had spent most of my time. These coins keep me busy as I also make different models with the coins which have turned outdated in our country. I had developed the habit of collecting coins since my university days and I feel equally enthusiastic even now to collect rare coins,” said Saha, who has created a collection of over 2,000 coins during the past 30 years.
At his home, there are at least 50 such models made of coins, which include a coin plant, decorative pieces and figures.
The librarian-cum-numismatist also has coins of over 20 countries with him, including coins of the US, France, UK, Canada, Japan and Thailand.
“My aspiration is to make a permanent display of these coins so that more and more people can see the collections. Each coin carries a piece of history with it. Once the situation normalises, I will approach the administration and the state government with a proposal of a museum that can be set up jointly in Malda,” he said.
His collection has also made some local youths propose an exhibition in the town.
“However, we can think of it only after this pandemic is over,” said Saha.
Interestingly, the numismatist is a phillumenist as well and has a collection of thousands of matchboxes.
“This is yet another collection that I have. In the past few months, we often heard that people feel bored or are depressed as they have to spend hours and days at home. I believe they can utilise their time and develop some hobby or other to remain mentally fit,” he said.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, online edition / Home> West Bengal / by Soumya De Sarkar / Malda – September 11th, 2020
In Breaking Through Ahluwalia writes an account of her extraordinary life, career and fight against an implacable disease
n this together: A file photo of Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Isher Judge Ahluwalia at the Brihadisvara Temple in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu. (Photo: PTI)
At almost the end of her long innings, wracked by grade IV glioblastoma, among the toughest of all cancers, Isher Judge Ahluwalia — grace, charm and subtlety personified, and, with widespread connections — took it upon herself to write this book. Courageous as she is, Isher did so in the most trying circumstances, while she was losing the ability to read and write on her own, relying extensively on help from the family to put down her thoughts.
Yet, thank God that she has written this book, for it is a story of grit, love, care and commitment. Grit, because who would have bet that a daughter of simple, traditional Sikh parents — one of 11 siblings — living in a small, rented flat near Purna Cinema, not far from Calcutta’s Kalighat, would reach where she did, entirely on the strength of her efforts and her intense determination to succeed?
Or, that she would in 1962, finish her West Bengal Higher Secondary Board examination from the highly-regarded Shri Shikshayatan Vidyalaya, coming eighth in the state? She writes, “My father had never shown any interest in our education but when I did well in the exams, he would often tell his friends with some pride that I had got the third rank among girls. While I approved of his new interest in education, I objected to the gender differentiation; I would correct him, saying I was eighth, not third.”
Breaking Through: A Memoir by Isher Judge Ahluwalia
Isher then went to Presidency College, Calcutta, to study economics with a scholarship of Rs 35 per month, which paid for her college fees and the tram ride from home and back. After the Presidency, she joined the Delhi School of Economics for her Master’s degree. “My family would never have let me go to Delhi to live in a hostel. At this point, I had a lucky break. In 1964, my brother decided to move to the capital with his family to start a business and my parents agreed to my going to live with them, attending DSE as a day student.”
As was the case with many of us, DSE was Isher’s road to Damascus — a point of revelation when she was determined to study further and apply for a PhD. Armed with a high first division in a year when seven of the eight ‘first-divers’ were women, Isher applied to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she was accepted with a fellowship. Thus began her journey in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a passage that took a bit longer than necessary because of an interlude in Washington, DC.
In the summer of 1970, Isher applied to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a summer internship. Instead of the usual three months, she got a special six-month break from MIT. With that came to love. Soon after moving to DC, she had a date with a super-bright young man, the clever, erudite English-speaking debater from St Stephen’s and winner of a congratulatory first in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford, one Montek Singh Ahluwalia, who had joined the World Bank as a part of its Young Professionals Program.
Montek impressed Isher sufficiently enough — lunch in the Bank’s Executive Dining Room, films, dinners, walks and drives. “It was during one of those drives, while we were picnicking off some bread and cheese and a glass of wine, that I decided that Montek was the man for me.” Soon, Isher secured a full-time job at the IMF; and, in 1971, she and Montek married in Washington.
Four years passed in setting up home in Georgetown, going with IMF delegations for Article IV consultations in the Caribbean, and working long hours at the Fund. Suddenly, it dawned upon her that she had left her PhD programme behind. So Isher applied for a fellowship at Brookings and completed her MIT thesis from there in 1976 — which was published in 1979 by Macmillan, titled Behaviour of Prices and Outputs in India: A Macro-Econometric Approach.
Then came care. Of parenting two boys — first Pavan, who was born in November 1977; and, then, Aman in October 1979, after the three of them had returned to India for good. Of taking charge of what was an immaculate home and hearth; of looking after a growing family that eventually extended to daughters-in-law and grandchildren; of being a partner to Montek, who would return late at night with stacks of government files.
Then, there was a commitment to her profession. “Being a mother is a full-time job. Being a working mother is two full-time jobs.” Even so, Isher completed two major books: Industrial Growth in India: Stagnation Since the Mid-Sixties (1989, Oxford University Press) and Productivity and Growth in Indian Manufacturing (1991, OUP).
She worked at the Centre for Policy Research, then took over as the head of Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), an institution which she strengthened by attracting excellent full-time fellows and garnering some very serious grants from abroad and the Indian corporate world, that made ICRIER financially comfortable. If these were not enough, Isher got into urbanisation and published two books on the subject.
Breaking Through is a beautiful read because it is so honestly written, so touching in content — a wonderful mélange of the personal and the public. It is, in effect, a signing off. Of a great life. Of struggles. Of success. Of love and caring. Of building families, values and institutions. And, of Montek.
Thank you, Isher.
The author is the founder and chairperson of CERG Advisory Private Limited
source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Books and Literature / by Omkar Goswami / August 30th, 2020
The 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
Along with the rest of the world, the Queen of the Hills commemorated the 110th birth anniversary of St Teresa of Calcutta popular as Mother Teresa. Darjeeling occupied a special place and was a turning point in the life of the Saint.
“We had Mass (prayer service) in the Houses in Darjeeling, Tukdah, Tindharia, Kalimpong, Siliguri and Sikkim on Wednesday to commemorate her birth anniversary” stated Sister Marjelle of the Missionaries of Charity.
Agnes, who later became Saint Teresa of Calcutta had arrived in India in 1929. She had then joined the Loreto novitiate in Darjeeling.
She took her first religious vows as a Nun on May 24, 1931 in Darjeeling and made her final profession as a Loreto nun on 24 May 1937 in Kolkata, and hereafter was called Mother Teresa. While in Darjeeling she used to teach at St Teresa’s school under the Loreto Convent.
The school was founded in 1921.
On 10 September 1946, on a train journey from Calcutta to Darjeeling during annual retreat in between Siliguri and Darjeeling, Mother Teresa received what she termed the “call within a call,” which prompted her to start the Missionaries of Charity. Thus she had stepped out of the Loreto Convent in Darjeeling into the slums of Kolkata. She was canonized on September 4, 2016 as St Teresa of Calcutta.
The Cathedral of Immaculate Conception located at the Loreto Convent in Darjeeling also houses an Oratory (a place of worship) in her name. On December 3, 2016, Darjeeling had named a road after St Teresa of Calcutta. The road connecting Gandhi Road to Dr. Zakir Hussain Road (TV Tower) has been named the “Saint (Mother) Teresa Road.” The Missionaries of Charity House of Darjeeling is located on this street.
“People of her stature cannot be confined to any religion, color, caste or creed. She was a world citizen. She inspired people to become better human beings, to love and serve others. Let us strive hard to continue her legacy” stated Reverend Stephen Lepcha, Bishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of Darjeeling.
source: http://www.millenniumpost.in / Millennium Post / Home> Kolkata / by Amitava Banerjee / August 27th, 2020
…being on the Academy voting panel and lockdown lessons
Tess Joseph / sourced by the Telegraph
Calcutta girl Tess Joseph, who had found Sunny Pawar to play little Saroo Brierley in Lion that went on to the 2017 Oscars with six nominations, will now be in the powerful Academy voting panel. The casting director has recently received the invitation to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. An alumnus of Loreto House and St Xavier’s College, Tess started her career as a casting director in Calcutta with Mira Nair’s Namesake in 2006. She tells The Telegraph about her profession, recent works, accolades, lockdown days and more…
Getting an invitation from the Academy to be a member…
I remember tweeting on July 1: “I feel like I made the valedictorian list of 2020”. I feel humbled and grateful to be recognised by my peers globally. It’s truly a great honour. The Casting Directors Branch is the one of the newer, youngest branches at the Academy, so it’s great to be a part of it.
Life after Lion…
It’s been busy days for me and my team! After Lion, we worked for Guy Ritchie’s Aladdin. Then we cast Netflix’s biggest success of the year, Extraction. Yeh Ballet by Sooni Taraporevala was also very special with a young new cast at the helm. We have Ramin Bahrani’s The White Tiger coming up, which is based on Aravind Adiga’s book. We cast Apple TV+’s Shantaram and we have also been part of the casting team for Foundation, a science fiction series for Apple TV +, and the Amazon series The Wheel of Time.
The journey from a Loreto House girl to an Academy member…
I would say it’s been a serendipitous and ever-changing journey. Loreto House is in many ways the foundation of who I am as a person. Among scores of uniformed girls, I do believe, I found my voice at Loreto House. I discovered who I am, what I love doing, how to communicate that well. I had picked up most of the awards for extracurricular activities. My schooling exposed me to literature, musicals and movies as my family cemented my love for the art. Loreto also helped me discover the “rebel” in me, from debates to breaking the rules. I feel that’s an integral part of schooling. Everything that I loved as a “hobby” plays a role in what I do today, probably that’s why I love what I do as “work”. Nothing goes to waste. Whatever you discover and explore will connect to your future in ways you can only understand when you look back!
When I was growing up, TV, films, media, these were careers no one spoke of. Like many others, I too wanted to be a doctor. My Ma pushed me to give the entrance examination for mass communication which had just started as a graduation course at St. Xavier’s College. The course was supposed to be my stop gap while I prepped for medicals. Once I joined, there was no turning back. Serendipity has always played a role in my choices.
Memories from school days…
I wasn’t a very good student till Class V. Then I realised that if you are good at your studies, you can get away with a lot of things. I was talkative and often got into trouble in class. The Famous Five and The Secret Seven were my favourite books and I used to go to places in the school where we were not allowed to go. So it was like we were living the books we were reading. However, my most favourite school memory till date is when I was in Class IX, there were three certificates for the top three students of the class — one is for excellence, one is for doing well and the other is for best improvement. So one day I stood up in the class and asked my class teacher, who was also our math teacher, as to why the girl who came third got the most improvement certificate and why the girl who worked the hardest won’t get it. For example, if a girl who was failing got 60 per cent, she should get the best improvement certificate. On the basis of that beautiful discussion, our school decided to change the certificate that year and one of my close friends got that. My school taught me to stand up and express myself. It allowed me to do what I believe in. I was in love with music, dance and basketball. I played district-level basketball, performed in several inter-school fests in Calcutta and also won the best performer in the Eastern region award once.
Missing Calcutta…
I always miss Calcutta. Though I’m settled in Mumbai now, Calcutta is my home, comfort, familiarity, and “reset” button. My parents are in Calcutta and they, along with the city, have shaped me in so many ways. I feel blessed that I grew up in Calcutta where art was treated with respect, always encouraged and celebrated. I do feel if I had grown up anywhere else, I would be a different person today. My baba was a Cine Central member and always saw film as an art form. My brother and I were reading subtitles once we knew how to read! From Bicycle Thieves to Chaplin, musicals to horror and documentaries, baba encouraged us to watch everything and we would end our film festival days with dinner at New Cathay or rolls from Badshah! I was more of an auditory learner than reader and my father gave lyrics the same standing as poetry. I was always encouraged to listen and remember Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Hasrat Jaipuri.
Choosing to become a casting director…
Even today if you ask my parents or friends how I relate or remember cinema, books or stories, they will tell you that I’m constantly in love and raving about characters and performances and now, I get to make those memorable performances happen. As a casting director, my team and I bring to life the one living and breathing aspect of all cinemas — the actors! It’s often daunting because I get to be the first person to show the director what his/her film could potentially feel and sound like. I love watching and fine-tuning performances, discovering and elevating talent and now I get to do that all day!
My job is to collaborate with producers, directors, networks and studio executives to cast the best talent for each part. We need to be the biggest supporters of actors. We want actors to succeed, and often the perception can be the opposite, but the truth is, if life were perfect, the right actor would be the first actor walking into our rooms for the audition!
Beating lockdown blues…
Generally I don’t approach things I cannot control with panic. My fears were mostly heightened for my parents, senior family members, friends’ parents and those I knew who were stuck in other countries. Of course I first treated it as a break, which I desperately needed because we had been working non-stop for six months. After a couple of days off, I found a routine very quickly that has been integral to my lockdown days and beating the blues! I have been learning during the lockdown and I’ve been writing and listing them as I discovered each one. They are:
Stay close, while in distance: The pandemic doesn’t dictate your relationships, so remember to stay close always and remember the distance just shows you care, be it 6ft apart or choosing not to travel home, you’re doing it to safeguard the people you love and yourself.
The extra hours mash-up: I had a little cube or dice which I wrote things on to decide what to do with my extra hours. The cube had things like meditate, binge watch, read that book, course/workshop, write, go walk etc. If I ever felt the “I’m bored” or the “I’m not feeling inspired” coming on, I’d roll it!
Remote working is an option, not a reactive solution: We never treated Zoom like a sad solution to casting, instead we adapted fast and moved our casting online, constantly pushing and learning to make the process better and more intimate for actors.
Listen and notice: This time has shown me a thousand things, from epic sunsets, silence, greed, claustrophobia, kindness to the crack of an egg as I relearnt to cook, fold, clean and even talk to myself. I’ve seen a myriad of things — empty roads, a nation coming together to show gratitude to essential workers, watched migrants left to walk home, I’ve also been the person feeding stray dogs in the afternoon sun and answered appeals from friends reminding me to donate, to help and to share. More than anything, I’ve learnt that progress is an elastic word, sometimes it meant just getting through a day, finishing chores and cooking to the efficiency of 10-hour work days — both are progress.
Be relevant: Be relevant by contributing your time, your learnings. I’ve been mindful of what I’ve shared on social media to how we help others cope at a time which might be very different and difficult for them. From learning sessions to workshops to helping people discover their stories and voices, I’m glad I could use this time to be relevant to make someone’s day better.
Looking forward to the post-pandemic world…
I miss my friends and family, I miss hugs, I miss that feeling of shared energy in a room, of shared laughter in a room and the shared experience of watching a movie with strangers. I just want to rediscover a sense of trust that allows me to experience all these simple things without questioning my health and safety while doing so.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, online edition / Home> Entertainment /pix Tess Joseph, picture sourced by the Telegraph / by Ayan Paul / August 28th, 2020
