Mountaineers, models, medical students and some well-known doctors are part of this “Covid Care Network”, which has more than 200 members.
Both mountaineer Satyarup Siddhanta, who has spent most of his life scaling the world’s highest peaks and setting records, and climber and model Madhabilata Mitra are part of this network. (Representational)
With the state struggling to contain Covid-19, the pandemic has brought together people from diverse fields on a common platform to provide assistance to thousands of patients who need help. Mountaineers, models, medical students and some well-known doctors are part of this “Covid Care Network”, which has more than 200 members.
Both mountaineer Satyarup Siddhanta, who has spent most of his life scaling the world’s highest peaks and setting records, and climber and model Madhabilata Mitra are part of this network.
“We want to improve access to healthcare, provide social support to the Covid-infected and their family. We have a 24X7 helpline where people can call anytime and get real time assistance,” said Siddhanta.
The group has now formed a crisis management team, and attached two ambulances with it.
“We regularly see how people suffer due to the non-availability of proper ambulances, and some have even died. There is a stigma attached to this disease, which is making it more challenging for the government to tackle this pandemic,” said Siddhanta.
The group’s members said they provide prompt action whenever they are contacted for help. Medical students Suchismit Bhattacharya, Parijat Bera, Antarup Haldar and Lopamudra Bose said fear was the “deadliest virus” of all.
“Covid-19 is not always related to death. Many only see mild symptoms and get cured as well. We should understand that it is curable and panicking over the situation will have an adverse effect. I work in a Covid ward and when I come back I am exhausted. But when I get calls, I answer their queries and try to calm them and advise them. Everyone has to contribute to end this situation,” said Somdutta Satpathy, an intern at SSKM hospital.
Physician and public health activist Dr Abhijit Choudhury told The Sunday Express, “Half of the Covid battle is fought in hospitals, and the other half in the community. Covid Care Network is looking into the social aspect of this pandemic. They also share information about patients’ relatives admitted in different hospitals, depending on the request. The team gives them medical advice and enlightens them about the pandemic.”
The group organises small gatherings to lift people’s spirit. Those who have gone through similar experiences at hospitals share their expertise so that others do not repeat their mistakes.
“It is not possible for the government to fight this pandemic alone, and it is good to see people from diversified fields joining hands,” said a doctor at a private hospital who did not want to be named.
source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Cities> Kolkata / by Express News Service / August 23rd, 2020
The centenarian, who had been active even in her early 90s, was awarded Banga Vibhushan by the Bengal government in 2011 for her contributions in the field of art.
Amala Shankar, renowned dancer died in Kolkata on Friday. (Express file photo by Subham Dutta)
Renowned danseuse Amala Shankar passed away in Kolkata at the age of 101 on Friday. Wife of legendary Indian dancer and choreographer Uday Shankar, Amala learned to dance during the 1930s, when women from “respectable households” were just about beginning to perform classical dance on stage.
Amala Nandy was born in 1919 in Jessore (present day Bangladesh) to a merchant family, which was interested in education and arts. It was a chance encounter in France in 1930 when she met her guru and future husband Uday Shankar. At the tender age of 11, when she had accompanied her father, Akshay Nandy, at the International Colonial Exhibition in Paris, she met Uday Shankar for the first time, totally unaware what would follow next. Uday Shankar was there at that time with his troupe.
On the request of Uday’s mother Hemangini Devi to leave Amala with the troupe, her father agreed. On a day during this trip, Shankar, then 30 years old, asked the demure girl, dressed in a frock, to try out a few steps and twirl a stick in the air. Amala nailed every movement, as well as the expressions flitting on his face — it impressed him and he had said that she’ll be a dancer, that’s how her journey began as a dancer in the Shankar troupe.
Amala Shankar along with husband Uday Shankar (centre), son Anand Shankar (L), and daughter Mamata Shankar. (Express archive)
The following year, Amala’s first performance as Kaliya in ‘Kaliya Daman’ was staged in Belgium in 1931. A long-lasting association with Uday started and later she became the stalwart to keep Shankar gharana of dance alive.
In 1939, when she was with a dance group in Chennai, Uday came to Amala one night and proposed her for marriage. The duo finally tied a knot in 1942. They had two children — Ananda, who went on to become a reputed composer and dancer, and daughter Mamata, who is also an actor and dancer.
Amala also played the lead role in ‘Kalpana’ (1948) — a film by Uday Shankar about a young dancer’s dreams of setting up a dance academy. She also graced the red carpet at prestigious Cannes Film Festival.
Legendary danseuse Amala Shankar on her 100th birthday on June 27, 2018. Daughter Mamata Shankar along with other family members, relatives and her students celebrated the birth anniversary at Udayan Kala Kendra. (Express file photo by Partha Paul)
The restored print of ‘Kalpana’, which was screened at the festival’s Cannes Classic Section in 2012, the then 93-year-old star arrived at the event saying, “I am the youngest film star in Cannes”. The film had been brought to life after four years of concerted efforts. It was Uday’s brother, renowned sitarist Pandit Ravi Shankar, who had got in touch with Martin Scorcese’s World Cinema Foundation for support and funds.
The centenarian, who had been active even in her early 90s, was awarded Banga Vibhushan by the Bengal government in 2011 for her contributions in the field of art. In 2012, she received Sangeet Natak Akademi Tagore Ratna award for her contribution to dance.
Expressing her condolences, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said her demise is an irreparable damage to the world of dance.
source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Cities> Kolkata / by Express Web Desk / Kolkata – July 24th, 2020
Rajendra Mullick built the museum and zoo because he was a botanist, ornithologist and an art lover
Inside Marble Palace / Telegraph file picture
In the heart of Calcutta lies a quaint time-bubble, the Marble Palace. I walked in to see and feel what the walls, pillars and statues of the Marble Palace had seen through the many generations they had endured.
Rajendra Mullick, one the pioneers of modern Bengal, founded this Western art museum and a private zoo at Chor Bagan, North Calcutta in 1835 and 1855 respectively. This establishment came to be known as Marble Palace. Walking in was like walking into many cultures and histories simultaneously.
Hirendra Mullick, resident and curator of Marble Palace, helped me go back in time and space. He said Rajendra Mullick built the museum and zoo because he was a botanist, ornithologist and an art lover.
“Rajendra Mullick was also religious. He built six halls for prayer and mid-day meal centres, all depicting different times and myths, all designed in different architectural patterns,” he said.
There are only five rooms for family members and they are in the five corners of the palace. Misra Gharana, he called the style of the architecture, which calls for the bedrooms in the corners. It’s easy to lose your way trying to navigate your way through the corridors. It feels a lot like the maze outside the Overlook Hotel in The Shining.
Mullick says the land was given by the British in exchange for land around Fort William in central Calcutta. “An agreement between Job Charnok, Charles Sayer and Shabanya Roy Chowdhury’s family was signed in 1698, which permitted the government to take land for an amount of Rs 1298. These lands were taken from Sils, Borals, Tagores, Mullicks, and Sheiks. In exchange, they were given undeveloped lands in Jorabagan, Jorashankho, Kolabagan, Mechuabajar, Bnashtola and Chorbagan.”
The museum is a combination of various styles of architecture like the doory columns, the Corinthian style, wage-wood style and the French arch style. There are two gardens, larger than two football fields-length. They are filled with cast iron chairs and tables. There are three fountains as well in the courtyard, all made of marble. That leads visitors to the main worship hall, thakurdalan, which was made for worshipping Jagannath, one of the ten avatars of Vishnu.
Outside the hall stand marble representations of Greek gods Phoebus Apollo and his twin sister Diana — offspring of Zues and Latona. Cupid and Psyche from Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis’s Metamorphoses are the next representations that my eyes go toward. Cupid, also known as Amor, is not the spitting image of a baby in diapers with a quiver full of arrows with hearts on the tips. His statue is just as large and erect as he was in the story.
Then there are also sculpted figures of Antigone and her sisters, which have been inspired from The Theban Plays by Sophocles. The sculptures are replicas of Praxiteles Phidias, an ancient Greek sculptor. Replicas of Dancing Girls and Dancing Fauns are present throughout the palace.
Hirendra Mullick said most of the sculptures and paintings were purchased from auction houses and art collector houses.
One of the halls with replicas by Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Josho and Praxiletes Phidias, is floored with 76 kinds of Italian marble. The adjacent reception hall displays a 12-feet statue of Queen Victoria, which was carved out of a single block of wood.
Each hall has Austrian chandeliers and Venetian candelabras. The entrance of the museum side of the palace displays sculptures made in Miroy Foundary in France. Four statues of women depicting the four seasons of summer, autumn, spring and winter.
While looking at these figures, Antonio Vivaldi’s rendition of the Four Seasons rings in my ears.
Now, imagine.
A different work of art.
In a scene in Satyajit Ray’s Charulata, there is a scene where the protagonist is on an old-schooled swing reminiscing about what had happened in her life and what could have happened. I feel the same nostalgia walking down the winding path in the garden and into the private zoo, which is more or less an aviary now.
The zoo, called Nilmani Niketan after Rajendra Mullick’s father, displays rare animals and birds. Mullick brought animals and birds in exchange of money and through submission of legal papers and approval of the Zoo Authority of India. The zoo was made for preserving and displaying herbivorous because the institution was vegetarian.
There are rare birds like albino peacocks, Hyacinthine Macaw, bird of Alexandria, Trucan, Hawk-headed parakeets, silver and golden pheasants, magpies, hornbills and mute swans. Birds of Paradise are missing because they have become extinct. There are also long-tailed monkeys, spotted deer, barking deer, red-butt baboon and porcupines.
Hirendra Mullick tells me proudly that this is the only private zoo in India. “I visited one in Bikaner in the ‘80s, but now that has closed down,” he said.
Mullick, who has been looking after the museum and zoo for the past 30 years, says the founder laid guidelines for maintenance that have been followed rigorously. “Everything is preserved to protect the glamour and glory of the tradition, history and ambience of the past. Everything is religiously followed as instructed by the founder.”
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, online edition / Home> Culture> Heritage / by Saurajit Mazumdar / Calcutta / October 31st, 2018
White hair billowing around him, with no attention to give to a gaping audience, Jasraj on stage often took the form of a singular devotee.
Pandit Jasraj. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
In 1946, Pandit Jasraj (1930-2020) moved to Calcutta, to work at All India Radio. I was born in 1965 and his voice on the radio wafts through all my early memories.
My father, in the first flush of relative financial comfort since travelling to Calcutta from Barisal in Bangladesh during 1947, had brought home a radio. Until I was 26, it was the only technology that offered entertainment in our household.
Pandit Jasraj at Bhopal. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
My father played the sitar and sang north Indian classical. He had a deep disdain for exhibitions of any sort, and seemed to thrive only on minimalism. But he filled our mornings with the Bhairavis and Lalits that the likes of Bhimsen Joshi and Jasraj would sing. By the time I started learning classical music, I was six years old and knew that the dark voice was Bhim’s and the softer one, Jasraj’s.
In 1974, my father pulled a surprise and took the family to our first concert. Stages in those days had few lights. But in the middle sat Jasraj, affable and jocular, conversing freely with the audience as if they were his friends. I remember him as iridescent. I was just learning Raag Yaman, and in a coincidence that children are prone to consider magical, Jasraj sang it too on the day. Listening to him live, my ears opened to a quality of his music that I have believed in to this day.
Even for a vocalist of such renown, a word that must be repeated to describe Jasraj’s unique voice, is ‘sweet’. His renditions were pleasing to the ear, that was the simple truth.
I went on to study Hindustani classical with a singular passion, picking up the flute along the way.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
By the time I watched Jasraj live again, it was 1983. A lot had changed. My father had lost his wife, my mother. But the morning radio kept up with its song offerings. I was 18 and the concert was at the Netaji Indoor Stadium in Kolkata. Back then, the Bengal government would organise four-day music festivals that would continue till midnight. Jasraj was the main draw of the day and performed last.
This would be my first brush with an artist’s temperament. Usually, musicians make a brief announcement of what they would sing. He didn’t and instead stared fixedly at a point on stage while the musicians checked the sound.
It was quite late and I had been meaning to leave. Then, suddenly, he broke into song. First, was Raag Bhim Palashree. But he ended it soon and without a single word, began chanting the ancient syllable, ‘Om’. I stood near the door, thinking, “Let me hear this for five more minutes, and then I will leave.”
For the next hour, with just that one syllable, Jasraj travelled at maddening pace through a maze of influences, fusing styles, merging elements and making no bones of the fact that little mattered to him that night other than his own artistic satisfaction. Yet for all the vocal fireworks, the chant retained its sublime essence throughout, renewing itself for the audience each time yet smoothly travelling through the whole range of all that the Mewat gharana held sacred. I stood near the door the whole hour, transfixed and unable to make any real attempt to exit.
On my way home that day, I did not know that I would not go on to hold fast to my passion for classical music. I did not know that I would listen on the tape recorder to the bhajan Govinda Damodar Madhaveti and marvel — as an atheist — at the divinity that possesses its singer. I did not know that amidst life’s many turns I would sing the same Om Namoh Bhagwatey Vasudevaya under my breath while waiting at the grocery, cooking a meal or making the bed.
But I did know that I had witnessed the work of a singular devotee. White hair billowing around him, with no attention to give to a gaping audience, Jasraj on stage that day took the form of the saint that he is. His voice was enormous, so enormous that it filled spaces as small as my childhood home with hope. And now the saint has returned to his ashram.
The writer is a gold medallist of the 1985 batch of the Bengal Music College.
Translated from the Bengali original.
source: http://www.thewire.in / The Wire / Home> Culture > The Arts / by Debasree Sarkar / August 17th, 2020
Kolkata’s decision to rename Park Street after Mother Teresa is a perplexing one, since she had little to do with the thoroughfare and its environs, but the street’s name change is hardly a new occurrence.
Park street’s colonial nomenclature is as iconic as the street itself. (Express Photo: Shashi Ghosh)
In 2004, Mayor Subrata Mukherjee announced that the Kolkata Municipal Corporation would be renaming several streets and roads in the city after prominent Indians and residents of the city, a change that would divest street names of their colonial identities. The renaming of city streets continued for the next decade by subsequent governments but for residents of the city, British colonial street names have been remnants that have been hard to shake off. Despite the name change, one of the city’s main thoroughfares, Park Street, is rarely referred to by its relatively new nomenclature, Mother Teresa Sarani, even on most government documents and during government-organised street programmes. The street’s colonial nomenclature is thus as iconic as the street itself.
A view of Park Street, Kolkata. (Express Photo: Shashi Ghosh)
Documented records of the street itself can be traced to 1760 when the city was still called Calcutta and was the capital of British India. The city’s decision to rename Park Street after Mother Teresa is a perplexing one, since she had little to do with the thoroughfare and its environs, but the street’s name change is hardly a new occurrence. Since 1760, the street has seen several name changes as Calcutta consistently swelled and developed into a larger metropolis. The first known name of the street can be found in the ‘Bengal & Agra Directory of 1850’ where it went by the name of ‘Ghorustan ka Rastah’ or ‘Badamtallee’ and “open(ed) on Chowringhee opposite the ‘Chowringhee gate’ of the fort, (ran) easterly to circular road.”
A survey of the eastern bank of the Hooghly, from Calcutta to Budge Budge, including Fort William and the river at low tides, between January to May, from the year 1780 till 1784. This map is a part of the King’s Topographical Collection and was the product of a survey of Calcutta undertaken from 1780 to 1784, produced by Captain Mark Wood for the East India Company, in watercolour and pen and ink. (Courtesy: British Library)
In 1760, the East India Company appointed Henry Vansittart as the Governor of the Presidency of Fort William in Calcutta and set him up in a large three-storey colonial mansion at No 5, Middleton Row, a relatively small street that was a bylane off the main thoroughfare that is now Park Street. That three-storey residential structure had a large garden attached to it, as was the common architectural layout during that time and served as the residence of Vansittart during his four-year governorship in Calcutta.
Vansittart’s tenure in Bengal was rife with misconduct and reports of widespread corruption that resulted in him being forced to step down followed by his departure for England in 1764. His residence was emptied and occupied by Elijah Impey, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William, Calcutta in Bengal.
The last burial ground of Park Street may soon be the only remaining witness of what the thoroughfare once was and its history. (Express Photo: Shashi Ghosh)
Impey too took advantage of his position as Chief Justice. A friend of the then Governor-General of Bengal Warren Hastings, Impey tried Maharaja Nandakumar, a diwan in Birbhum, on charges of fraud. But Hastings had framed the charges after Nandakumar reported him for wrongful appropriation and embezzlement of public property. Impey himself oversaw the trial and pronounced Nandakumar guilty of the charges. The Maharaja was hanged in Calcutta in 1775.
After the hanging of Nandakumar, Thomas Macaulay accused Impey of judicial misconduct and Hastings of misconduct and corruption and brought on a seven-year-long impeachment hearing against the two. At the end of the impeachment process, both were exonerated by the British House of Commons, mainly owing to domestic political reasons in Britain and not because of findings of any investigation. Both went on to live comfortable lives in Britain.
Historian P. Thankappan Nair traces the origins of the name Park Street to the expansive gardens around Impey’s residence. The area occupied by Impey’s residence and the adjoining gardens were so large that it included the grounds on which Loreto College now stands. Some records say the residence extended all the way from Middleton Row to Russel Street and included the grounds that now belongs to the Royal Calcutta Turf Club, now unused and in dire need of maintenance. Other records claim the gardens had deer running around, because of which the grounds began to be called a deer park, but there don’t seem to be any existing documents that confirm this.
In A. Upjohn’s ‘Map of Calcutta & its Environs’, Park Street is referred to as Burial Ground Road. Upjohn’s map of Calcutta was developed as a result of a survey undertaken in 1792 & 1793 by A. Upjohn. (Courtesy: Victoria Memorial Hall museum archives, Kolkata)
Other names of the street through the city’s history have included Badamtalla, or Almond Street, Vansittart Avenue, Burial Ground Road and Burial Ground Street. Henry Ferdinand Blochmann, a German scholar who was fascinated by the Indian subcontinent and studied and taught Persian during the 1860s in Calcutta, has documented the history of the city and it’s streets during the 18th century in his book ‘Calcutta During Last Century’. Park Street, writes Blochmann, was called Burial Ground Street and “had about ten houses lying along it”.
In A. Upjohn’s map of Calcutta, 1794, Park Street is referred to as Burial Ground Road, because it was the path that funeral processions took to reach the South Park Street Burial Ground that opened on August 25, 1767. Due to this, for a long time, the street was not a preferred choice of residence. The Park Street area also had the North Park Street, Mission and Tiretta burial grounds before they were flattened to make way for other establishments. The Apeejay School now stands on the remains of a razed French cemetery and while the Assembly of God Church Tower stands on the site of the North Park Street Cemetery. The only visible remnant of the North Park Street Cemetery is the Robertson Monument, a grave for the Robertson family whose members served in Kolkata Police. According to historians who have traced the structure’s history, it was only this connection of the family with the Kolkata Police that prevented the monument from being served the same fate as the rest of the tombs on the North Park Street Cemetery. Today, the monument stands in one corner of the pavement, outside the Assembly of God Church Tower, coated in grime from passing vehicles and drowning under surrounding billboards and the hanging mass of tangled wires and cables, easy to miss if one isn’t paying attention.
A hand-coloured print of tombs in South Park Street Cemetery, Calcutta from the Fiebig Collection of Frederick Fiebig, from 1851. (Courtesy: British Library)
It isn’t clear when the name changed from Burial Ground Road to Park Street, but given its association with Impey’s “deer park”, it can be assumed that the transition occurred sometime around the 1760s during Impey’s tenure in the city. According to city records, Park Street extended from Chowringhee to Lower Circular Road till 1928 when the Calcutta Improvement Trust extended the portion on Lower Circular Road to the city’s railway lines at E.B Railway Bridge Number 4. The extension of Park Street at its southern end was completed in 1934 and found mention in that year’s government gazette.
Park Street, writes Blochmann, was called Burial Ground Street and “had about ten houses lying along it”. (Express Photo: Shashi Ghosh)
Despite its earlier association with the four burial grounds in its area, the long stretch of the street rapidly developed over the centuries to accommodate residential mansions and educational and religious institutions like St. Xavier’s College, the Freemason’s Hall, the Asiatic Society of Bengal etc. In recent decades, especially post the Second World War, many of the city’s iconic structures on Park Street have been steadily razed to make space for modern construction and the architecture of the street has changed. Today, the mansions are fewer, as are the neighbourhood’s residents who have seen Park Street rapidly change over the past four decades. Restaurant chains, cafes and sari shops with neon sign-boards have taken over the colonial structures that once housed residential apartments and government offices. The last burial ground of Park Street may soon be the only remaining witness of what the thoroughfare once was and its history.
source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Cities> Kolkata / by Neha Banka, Kolkata / December 03rd, 2019
Kings and priestly classes developed a way of recording transfer of property ownership in strikingly parallel terms
While the copper plates had the Sanskrit word “danam” inscribed in them, the parchment charters bear the word “donum” in Latin. / Both Telegraph picture
In the medieval societies of Bengal and Scotland, kings and priestly classes developed a way of recording transfer of property ownership in strikingly parallel terms using related vocabulary and philosophical concepts.
In Bengal, land gifts were recorded in Sanskrit etched in copper plates and stone inscriptions. In Scotland, it was recorded in charter parchments in Latin. In both societies, it was the king who made the donations of land to the priestly class.
John Reuben Davies, a research scholar at Glasgow University, came to Calcutta in 2011 and was surprised to find in Asiatic Society copper plates from the Pala era in Bengal (10th to 12th century CE) that had close similarities with parchment charters from Scotland belonging to the same period. Charters are written records of transfer of property.
While the copper plates had the Sanskrit word “danam” inscribed in them, the parchment charters bear the word “donum” in Latin. Both of giving as a gift is ‘danam’. Latin, the same Indo-European root, provides the noun ‘donum’, a gift, indicate a gift of land from the king to the priestly class for eternity.
“In Sanskrit, the word for the method and the verb ‘dono’, I give as a gift,” said Davies.
“The concept of transferring ownership of property by giving as a gift is at the heart of property records both from Bengal and Scotland. And both in Bengal and Scotland, a word that has the same origin in Sanskrit and Latin was used to describe the transaction and give it legal force. So in two early medieval societies, 6,000 miles apart with no known contemporary connections or influences, had evolved an almost exactly similar way of recording transfer of property in strikingly parallel terms and using directly related vocabulary and philosophical concepts.”
Davies made the statement during a recent online lecture as part of the Stories of World Culture, an Indian Museum’s virtual initiative during the pandemic.
Davies and retired Calcutta University professor Swapna Bhattacharya, who has worked on Indian copper plates and European charters, collaborated and co-edited a book on these findings, Copper, Parchment and Stone: Studies in the Sources of Land Holding and Lordship in Early Medieval Bengal and Medieval Scotland, published by the Centre of Scottish and Celtic Studies of Glasgow University.
Glasgow University has decided to include the findings of Davies and Bhattacharya in the first-year undergraduate and postgraduate syllabus. Classes on the topic will start next year.
Regarding its inclusion in the history course, Joanna Tucker, a history lecturer at Glasgow University, said in a WhatsApp message to Metro: “The digitisation of texts and the surge in availability of digital resources have partly (and paradoxically) led to a new appreciation of the ‘physicality’ of our manuscript sources…. One recent publication (Davies, 2019) compares Indian and Scottish gifts of property in parchment charters and in copper and stone inscriptions. This provides a way to show our students that recent work in the field of medieval Scottish history has been taking a global perspective….”
Davies found further similarities like properties could be owned outright forever. A very similar conceptual, linguistic and textual framework evolved to guarantee the conveyance and ownership of property. The king was the supreme authenticating authority, provided he is the legitimate heir proved by the publication of his genealogy in copper, stone or parchments that he could govern and guarantee the rights of his subjects.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, online edition / Home> West Bengal / Calcutta
Women’s Day Special: Inspired by Surya Sen, the 21-year-old led the raid on the Pahartali European Club in Chittagong.
In a re-reading of historical accounts on Waddedar’s life and contributions, it is easy to forget how young she was when she threw herself fully into the cause of liberation of her motherland. (Photos: Wikimedia Commons; Designed by Gargi Singh)
Born in Chittagong, now in Bangladesh, Waddedar was a promising student, having spent her school years in her hometown. While a student at Eden College in Dhaka, Wadderdar’s anti-British sentiments began to take a more form as she slowly developed connections with other women who were spearheading semi-revolutionary groups. One such was with Leela Nag, a student at Dhaka University and an associate of Subhash Chandra Bose, who established the Deepali Sangha, a revolutionary group that provided combat training to women.
Waddedar came to Calcutta for higher education and enrolled as a student of Philosophy at Bethune College under the University of Calcutta. In the city, Waddedar was introduced to revolutionary leader Surya Sen, affectionately called ‘Master da’ by associates. Inspired by Sen, Waddedar soon joined his underground group. According to various accounts from the 1930s, members of Sen’s group initially objected to her membership, but appear to have eventually relented when they discovered her devotion to the cause for the motherland’s freedom, as well as her abilities to carry out assignments undetected by the police.
During the Chittagong Armory Raid of April 1930, 20-year-old Waddedar, along with Surya Sen, Ganesh Ghosh, Lokenath Bal, Ambika Chakrabarty, Anand Prasad Gupta, Tripura Sen, Bidhubhusan Bhattacharya, Kalpana Dutta, Himangshu Sen, Binod Bihari Chowdhury, Subodh Roy, Monoranjan Bhattacharya among a others in a group of at least 65 people, devised plans to raid the armoury of the British forces and destroy telegraph and telephone lines. Although the group did not manage to locate the armory, they succeeded in ruining the telegraph and telephone lines. Many members in the group were very young at that time, Subodh Roy being the youngest at just 14.
The tall statue depicts Waddedar, clad in a khadi sari, beset with sharp folds, with one arm outstretched and another balled up in a fist, perhaps signalling her determination for the cause of freedom. (Express photo by Shashi Ghosh)
While some members of the group were captured and arrested, Waddedar and a few others managed to escape and regroup over the next few months. In 1932, the group, following Surya Sen’s original plans to attack the Pahartali European Club in Chittagong, assigned Waddedar as the leader for this assignment. The social club for Europeans had been specifically targeted because of its racist and discriminatory practises towards Indians, especially its use of the signboard that read “Dogs and Indians not allowed”.
Under Waddedar’s leadership, a group of 10 was trained in the use of arms and taught how to consume potassium cyanide if the need arose. They attacked the club on the night of September 23, 1932. Several members of the club were injured, while the group was shot at by the police guarding the club. Waddedar sustained a bullet wound that prevented her from escaping with her group. In those circumstances, she consumed potassium cyanide to evade arrest and ended her life. Waddedar was only 21.
Like her contemporary, Bina Das, Waddedar too had been denied her graduation degree by the British authorities of Bethune College under Calcutta University. In March 2012, almost eight decades after her death, the University of Calcutta posthumously awarded Waddedar her pending Bachelor of Arts degree with Distinction for the year 1932. On her graduation certificate, Waddedar’s name is mentioned with a misspelling, ‘Pritilata Waddar’, perhaps an indication of how her name was recorded in university records.
In March 2012, Calcutta University posthumously awarded Pritilata Waddedar her pending Bachelor of Arts degree with distinction for the year 1932, that the British administrative authorities had withheld from her. (Express Photo by Neha Banka)
Dr Soumitra Sarkar, Librarian of Calcutta University, who oversees university archives told indianexpress.com that he did not have much information concerning why this may have occurred. A copy of Waddedar’s graduation certificate and marksheets were provided to the Birkanya Pritilata Trust in May 2018, based in Waddedar’s native village, Dhalghat, Patiya, Chittagong, established in her memory.
Calcutta University provided indianexpress.com a copy of Pritilata Waddedar’s marksheets for the year 1932, a detailed document that indicates that Waddedar was a student at Bethune College, reproduced by university authorities in 2018 for archival purposes. (Express Photo by Neha Banka)
The large expanse of the Maidan area in the heart of Kolkata, is dotted with statues of individuals associated with the freedom struggle. Between 1947 and 1983, the West Bengal government replaced statues of British officials and East India Company employees with those of revolutionaries, men and women who had devoted their lives to the freedom of the nation.
One such statue is that of Pritilata Waddedar, the only commemorative structure dedicated to her in the country. The monument does not have an address; to find it, one would have to walk down the long stretch of Indira Gandhi Sarani in the Maidan. The tall statue depicts Waddedar, clad in a khadi sari, beset with sharp folds, with one arm outstretched and another balled up in a fist, perhaps signalling her determination for the cause of freedom.
In a re-reading of historical accounts on Waddedar’s life and contributions, it is easy to forget how young she was when she threw herself fully into the cause of liberation of her motherland.
source: http://www.indianexpress.com / Indian Express / Home> Lifestyle> Arts & Culture / by Neha Banka / Kolkata – March 08th, 2020
To talk about public theatre in colonial Calcutta is to encounter its actresses.
The very first recorded women actresses that appeared on the stage of the new public theatre in Calcutta were Golap, Elokeshi, Jagattarini, and Shyama. They starred in Michael Madhusudhan Dutt’s Sharmishtha in 1873.
Their arrival on the public stage was a greatly contested matter for society at large — and especially for the elite men who had the means and ability to engage with the theatre as creators and patrons.
Some, like Girish Chandra Ghosh, the actor-director who towered over the early Calcuttan stage, not only supported women acting, he personally trained and worked with them. (This relationship was not straightforward, and is not meant to position him as some kind of feminist champion as we understand the term now — but simply to demonstrate his attitude towards the issue of cis-women acting on stage). Others, like Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, who participated in social reform movements, vehemently opposed the idea. Vidyasagar, remembered as a social reformer who supported causes like widow remarriage, was so aghast when it came to pass that he resigned from the theatre.
As Lata Singh points out in an essay on modern theatre, an actress was not the intended beneficiary of the social reform movements led by people like Vidyasagar. Singh has pointed to the formation of the oppressive archetype of the ‘ideal’ Indian woman by the Indian nationalist movement, which demonised any woman who fell outside of its narrow criteria. This included any woman who would perform in public. “Women performers were kept out of the frame of the nation in the making,” writes Singh.
Scholars have shown us the dichotomy that this engendered in the lives of actresses. Although the actresses of the time were extremely popular and acclaimed for their work, stigma would dog them in their lifetime, and continues to in their afterlives in our collective memories.
It is in this uncomfortable space that we encounter Tarasundari, one of the most successful and accomplished actresses of her time.
Born in 1878, Tarasundari was introduced to theatre by her neighbour and friend, Binodini. Binodini was 15 years older than her, and was already a well-known actress when Tara started acting. Her first role, at age seven, was that of a little boy in Girish Chandra Ghosh’s Chaitanya Lila, beginning a career that spanned decades.
Despite her professional success, the context in which Tarasundari was performing was extremely difficult.
The translator of Binodini’s two memoirs, Rimli Bhattacharya, who has studied the pivotal role of the actress in Bengal’s theatre history, writes, “[The] professionalisation of the stage with the hiring of actresses provoked a spate of letters, editorials and speeches at public meetings…The greatest fear was that they would corrupt the youth of Bengal… there was a constant fusillade — sometimes bitter and often ludicrous — directed against the actresses.”
The actress was immediately and vehemently derided, and regarded with fear and suspicion. The chief anxiety was her supposed “influence” over young men who were in reality far more socially powerful than her. “The vulnerability of women becomes apparent in this context: almost every little girl who joined the theatre came from what were designated as a-bhadra (‘dis-respectable’) households, usually those of women abandoned by husbands or lovers, or widows without any source of support,” writes Bhattacharya.
In addition to the constant public attacks, professional actresses were not paid equitably, or even enough to be financially secure. They were constantly under pressure to become the mistresses of elite men — entanglements that necessitated the managing of these men’s egos and negotiating with their dictates.
At the same time, the women on stage made pioneering cultural and material contributions to the theatre. Aside from their creative work on stage, they contributed in monetary terms, and by mentoring actors. Tarasundari was part of this — she was acknowledged for teaching, and later in her career, for financing theatrical productions.
But what she was most known for was her prowess as a performer.
Aside from being an actress, Tarasundari was also a dancer, a formally trained singer, as well as a published poet. Like her peers, she played a wide variety of roles — historical figures (Razia Sultana), to literary heroines (Desdemona ), to mystics (Jana), to neo-mythical figures (“Mata Banga Bhasha” — Mother Bengali Language).
Ironically, this last role as the personification of the Bengali language was part of a play to honour Vidyasagar. The editor of Nachgar wrote that the role earned her “a permanent place on the Bengali stage”.
So popular and skilled was Tarasundari that she could save the fortunes of a floundering theatre company or show with her participation. She was given the moniker “the Divine Sarah of Bengal”, after Sarah Bernhardt, the famous 19th century French actress — a move that Bhattacharya reads as “an effort to ‘internationalise’ her”.
Yet Tarasundari has been sidelined, her artistic contributions near-forgotten except in specialist spaces like academia. When Bhattacharya went to meet Prativa Devi, Tarasundari’s daughter, in Bhubaneshwar, she found that “the only material legacy” of the legendary actress that remained was a huge framed photograph. Many researchers had visited before her, and Prativa Devi had found that they had not stopped writing about her mother as “a fallen woman” while Tarasundari’s male colleagues and detractors were remembered with reverence.
Sarvani Gooptu, too, argues in the essay “Memory and the written testimony: The actresses of the public theatre in Calcutta in the 19th and 20th century” that most actresses of this time, including Tarasundari, are remembered in relation to their romantic relationships rather than artistic legacy.
Gooptu criticises the actresses for describing themselves as “lowly” in relation to their mentors and suggests that that is why their achievements were erased. But this self-fashioning cannot possibly be divorced from the context in which they existed, in which they were the targets of constant revulsion. Nor can we accurately assume this was the only way they articulated themselves.
In the context of the constant public attacks against them in the press and in public meetings (despite newspaper reviews that seriously engaged with their work), and the constant questioning of their authenticity (Gooptu points out that the “actual” authorship of the actress and playwright Sukumari’s play was constantly attributed to men she was acquainted with, rather than rightfully to herself), this erasure is part of a venomous legacy that seeks to reduce, to deride, to erase.
One antidote is remembrance — to seek out the material that still remains with us, and to acknowledge the formative influence that an artist of Tarasundari’s stature had on theatre.
source: http://www.firstpost.com / FirstPost. / Home> Long Reads / by Shreya Ila Anasuya
With a career of about fourteen years, Dasgupta have approximately 8,000 songs under his belt including 80 Bengali movies – his unique contribution was the invention of a shorthand method for swaralipi.
In the 1940s, he was a star composer. He had many firsts to his name. He was the most educated man across the industry in those days. He came to the rescue of singers who were trying to break into the music world. He gave music in the most successful films of the 40s. The sale of his private records touched an all-time high. Yet the man behind many unforgettable melodies has been forgotten – he was Kamal Dasgupta.
Kamal was born on July 28, 1912, in Kalia village in the district of Jasore, then in British India (now in Bangladesh). He was initiated into music by his father Prashanna Dasgupta. He later learnt it from his brother Bimal Dasgupta. Afterwards, he became a disciple of the legendary Dilip Kumar Roy and Ustad Zamiruddin Khan. He did his matriculation from Calcutta Academy. Later, he completed his B Com from Komila Victoria Collage. He joined Banaras Hindu University (BHU) for his masters. He earned his PhD from BHU for his work on Mirabai’s bhajaans and music.
Kamal Dasgupta was a versatile musical genius. He used to sing modern songs in Bangala, Hindi, Urdu and Tamil.
He was a brilliant composer who composed around 8,000 songs. His first composition was recorded in 1932 in the voice of Satyaboti. His composition was classical based and folk music. Later he tended to lean towards Thumri style and Naats.
In 1935, Kamal Dasgupta joined the Gramophone Company of India in Calcutta as a music director. During this stint, he developed a close and lasting association with the poet Nazrul Islam. They became fond of each other and the relationship lasted for eleven years (1934-45). The culmination of their friendship were 400 songs – inspired by the works of the poet.
Calcutta was the major hub of Indian films produced in the 1930s. New Theatres and Madan Pictures were the main studios along with the other companies. After earning a name with his compositions, Kamal tried his luck in films. His first picture was Pandit Moshai (1936) in Bangla which was followed by Sarbjanin, Vivahotsab and Devyani between 1936-1942.
The legendary actor, director Prathmesh Chandra Barua was impressed by his music and gave him a break in Jawaab in 1942. PC Barua directed both the version in Hindi and Bangla. The film was an instant hit. It had cult numbers like Toofan mail ye duniya toofan mail, Ae chand chhup na jana and Kuchh yaad na rahe.
Kamal Dasgupta’s next film was MP productions social, Hospital, starring Kanan Devi, Ahindra Choudhary and Heeralal. Its hit number was, Ghata chhayi ghanghor. The very same year he did another Barua Production, Ranee. The cast included J Ganguly, Kalawati, PC Barua and Jamuna. Like his earlier films, his music became popular.
Kamal Dasgupta was as successful in films as he was in his private recording career. In 1944, he moved to Bombay and did the film Meghdoot (1945), based on the Sanskrit poet Kalidas. Leela Desai and Sahu Modak were in the lead. The film was directed by the legendary Debki Kumar Bose.
During his stay in Bombay, he did several films across different genres. His next film was Arabian Nights, directed by Niren Lahari. The cast included Kanan Devi, Nawab and Robin Majumdar. All the numbers of the film became very popular – Suno suno kya ek naya fasana, Hum dil ko, dil hamko samjhaye, Mujhe sapno se kaun jagaye re and Aankhon ki roshni hai dil ki ye ye chandani hai. The same year, he did a social film Bindiya, starring Ragini, Amar, M Shakeer and E Billimoriya. The film was directed by CM Luhar. Kamal Das Gupta used the voices of Anima Dasgupta, Kalyani Das, Hemant Kumar and Amar. Its hit numbers were: Hanso hanso ae kamal kali, Jeevan sargam pe aye jaa geet suhane, Meri aankhon mein ye aanshu nahi dil ki kahani hai and Chand pass hai raat andheri kyun.
His next film was the mythological Krishna Leela (1946) which was directed by Debki Kumar Bose and had Kanan Devi and Paresh Banerjee in the lead. The popular hits in this film were: Man mein basa le manmohan ko, Prabhu teri maya jo chahaye, Sawan ki rani aaiye, Chanda door gagan mein bulaye, More janam janam ke saathi, Bahein churaye jaat ho nirmal mohe jaan and Tera ghar man mera.
1946 was the busiest year for Kamal Das Gupta. He did Zameen Asmaan for director Dwarka Khosla, starring Ranjana, Jeevan and Kusum Deshpande. Its hit numbers were: Ek raat kabhi aisi aye, Papiha papiha to pee ko pukaar and Ek geet sunana hai hamein. Coming back to Calcutta, he did Faisala (1947) followed by Manmani. The film had Ragini and Jairaj in the lead. The film was directed by Sarvottam Badami. Its hit numbers were: Ishare ishare mein duniya bana li, Baiman tori batiya jadu bhari and Ae chaman bata kyun hansta hai.
His last film with his mentor PC Barua was Iran Ki Ek Raat (1949) – a costume drama, starring Jamuna, Narang, Chandrakant and Chandrawati.
Its melodious number were: Ulfat mein jise banaya tha, Chhalke chhalke sarabein jawani ke palaye, Kaun hai teer andaaj bada, Ae dil kya and Khel hai ye zindagi.
His last release was Phulwari in 1951. He had 40 films to his credit. Following this, the maverick composer got completely disillusioned by the film industry and recording companies. His favourite songs which were sold in the lakhs didn’t carry his name on the jackets.
At the age of 44, he married his favourite singer, Firoza Begum and embraced Islam. Kamal Dasgupta, by now, became Kareemuddin Ahmed. He kept on doing movies whenever an offer came. His last film in Bangla was Bodhu Baran in 1967. He shifted to Dhaka. When Bangladesh became independent, he became a citizen in 1972.
The composer was a man of taste. He owned a Buick, a rare thing in Calcutta in the 1950s. He was a great human being. He fed hundreds of people during the Bengal famine. He was also extremely fond of cricket. He was blessed with three sons – Shafin Ahmed, Hamin Ahmed and Tahsin Ahmed. They followed their father in music and cricket. Two brothers played cricket at the state level and Hamin Ahmed was selected for the national team of Bangladesh.
Kamal Das Gupta with his failing health and lack of proper medical treatment succumbed to his ailments and passed away in Dhaka on July 28, 1974, at the age of 62.
source: http://www.millenniumpost.in / Millennium Post / Home> Sunday Post> Beyond Bygone / by Sharad Dutt / March 07th, 2020
To duck the coronavirus or dodge Amphan’s fury was never top of their agenda
SERVE ALL: Food being prepared in the Khalsa Aid kitchen for those hit by Amphan / Courtesy, Raghbir Singh
During the first few days of the lockdown, Raghbir Singh and some others served 500 meals in and around south Calcutta. Thereafter, they lost count and it was never the point in any case.
The 30-year-old, who works part-time as a real estate dealer and also helps out with the family car rental business, is not new to relief work; he has helped during the Kerala floods of 2018 and the Assam floods of 2019. He says, “When the lockdown was announced, we knew our relief work would have to be ramped up. Since Day 2 we started cooking dal-chawal daily at the Garcha gurdwara and distributed it to people living on pavements and makeshift houses by the roadside.” Volunteers also went around city hospitals such as Chittaranjan Hospital in Park Circus, R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Shyambazar and Calcutta Medical College on College Street with food packets for patients’ kin.
After the first few days, volunteers of Khalsa Aid, a UK-based humanitarian relief organisation, with the help of south Calcutta’s Sri Guru Singh Sabha Gurdwara, started distributing rations — flour, rice, pulses, sugar, salt — to those in need. They had those as well as cooked food home-delivered too. Raghbir has also been on National Highway 6 a couple of times since the lockdown to hand out bottles of drinking water, biscuits, puffed rice and juice to migrants walking home.
It is difficult to get phone time with Raghbir. Their garage has been shut, and he has been immersed in seva round-the-clock. It entails serving cooked food all day and then driving around the city in the evening delivering household staples.
Raghbir says amidst all this frenetic activity, every successive day he has seen a different side to humanity. “I saw first-hand how difficult it was for the daily-wage earners to survive. They wanted to earn money and some refused to accept the food we distributed.” He talks about others, middle-class folks who first fought shy of seeking assistance, but approached him when he was by himself. “I met so many people who feel that because they are poor, they do not exist for the government,” says Raghbir in muted tones.
On the night of Cyclone Amphan, Raghbir and others from Khalsa Aid got their cars out and drove around the city looking for the stranded and those in need of help of any sort. “We came upon more than one ambulance — carrying patients and kin — stuck on the road. There were uprooted trees all around, impeding movement,” he says.
The morning after brought to light the scale of devastation. Keeping in mind the disrupted power supply and lack of running water across the city, the sevaks went about collecting more groceries. On the first day, they distributed food and water among 400 people, the next day that number doubled and the day after that, it tripled.
Funds to continue this outpouring of support continue to come from private organisations and individuals, most of who prefer to remain nameless.
The night of the cyclone, Raghbir and other volunteers had received instructions
to be on Ground Zero and report the situation so they could start relief work immediately. He says, “We were unable to reach places such as Namkhana and Kakdwip in South 24-Parganas as the roads were completely blocked; so we focused on Calcutta until the roads were cleared.”
On May 25, the group set up their base camp in Diamond Harbour, also in the South 24-Parganas. Raghbir says, “Most of the people had kutcha houses and the cyclone had blown them away. We had carried along plastic sheets; we made canopies for temporary shelter.” The kitchen in Diamond Harbour fed the locals and also many in the Sunderbans and Sagar Island.
Did Raghbir ever fear that he would contract the coronavirus? Does it play on his mind even now in the face of continuing relief work? By way of reply, a photograph lands in the chat window. A close-up of a Khalsa Aid T-shirt with a message emblazoned on it. It reads — Recognise the whole human race as one. Raghbir says, “There is magic in the uniform.”
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, online edition / Home> Culture / by Manasi Shah / June 06th, 2020
