Monthly Archives: May 2018

Future hope for young rowers

Education, Records, All, Sports

Medal glory for school with a passion

The Future Hope rowers celebrate their wins with CEO Sujata Sen (second from left) and guide (standing in last row, red Tshirt) Will Allen

Lake:

Sujoy Sen was drenched in sweat but couldn’t stop jumping in joy. His parents have little idea about rowing and think their son pulls boats. The gold-winning rower thinks his real prize will be when they see him in action.

Sujoy was part of one of the three teams from Future Hope that bagged medals at the 17th BRC Students’ Rowing Championship, partnered by TTIS, on Sunday,

The Uluberia boy has been rowing for the past three years.

The junior girls’ team from Future Hope that won bronze

“A race is exciting only when the opponent is equally good. We were neck and neck with La Martiniere for Boys in today’s race and that is what made it so challenging, I enjoyed every second of it,” said Sujoy, who wants to take up rowing professionally.

The junior boys who struck gold

Future Hope won gold in the boys’ junior and senior races and bronze in the junior girls’ race.

For the girls, this was their first time at the regatta. “Juman da (rower Juman Ali) has inspired me a lot. I would love to be a professional sculler,” said Samira Khatoon of Class VIII. Her team beat National High School (CBSE).

Teammate Debasrita Das, found the competition tough but inspiring. “While rowing, we felt a certain anger and power which ultimately helped us perform,” said the Class X student. Her takeaway from her debut regatta: “It’s a team sport and each member should support the other while rowing.”

The senior boys from Future Hope finished first. Pictures by B. Halder

For Future Hope CEO, Sujata Sen, it was the sheer determination of the young rowers that fetched them success. “We don’t have money but we do have a lot of passion. The kids practise every day, be it rain, hail or storm.”

Setaur Rehman, Class XII, a part of the senior boys’ team of Future Hope, admitted there is no alternative to hard work and regular training.

“I have been rowing since six years. I have played many sports like rugby, football, cricket but rowing remains the most challenging of them all. We have to practise every day, there is no break,” said the Malda boy who wants to crack the civil services examinations while continuing rowing for life.

Guiding the Future Hope rowers this time was Will Allen, a student of Westminster School, London, who is volunteering with the school in his gap year.

“They were already going through training and practice, I just helped them do what they were already doing. When it comes to mental strength and focus, these guys are the best,” said Will, who cheered the teams throughout the races.

The rowing championship at BRC is aimed at encouraging more children to take up the sport.

“Initiatives like the BRC Students’ Rowing Championship have changed the future of the sports in Calcutta. This path-breaking effort will not only help rowing grow as a sport in the city but also help stimulate the sport’s development at the national level. This championship plays a key role in changing mindsets,” said Ujjal Dugar, the chairman of the rowing committee at Bengal Rowing Club (BRC).

Additional reporting by Rupsha Chatterjee

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / by Samabrita Sen / May 21st, 2018

China calling Calcutta’s China

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, World Opinion
China Pal with her passport that arrived barely hours before the expiry of the deadline for handing documents to the Chinese consulate on Friday. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta

Kumartuli:

On her first trip abroad, Kumartuli’s best-known woman idol-maker China Pal is headed to – where else but China.

She has been selected by the city’s Chinese consulate-general to participate in the China-South Asia & Southeast Asia Arts Week and Lancang Mekong Arts Festival, which will be held as part of the China-South Asia Expo.

“We have heard China Pal is good with idol-making. She will make idols at a folk master craftsmanship show and display the significance of different procedures,” said consul general Ma Zhanwu.

Along with her reputation, her name also carried weight. “We thought she loves China or Chinese tea but when we spoke to her, it turned out that it has to do with her being the fourth child,” smiled Ma.

When Metro spoke to China, the explanation ironically turned out to have to do with her parents’ desire for family planning.

“I am the youngest of six siblings and am the fourth of four daughters. My elder sisters are called Durba, Kalyani and Uma. So my parents named me ‘ Chai na (do not want)’,” China said. “I loved idol-making ever since I was 14 but father was opposed to a girl going to his workshop. We, the women of Kumartuli, help out with small jobs but never do we come to the forefront alongside the men.”

Ironically, when Hemanta Pal fell ill, it was his youngest daughter who took over his trade.

She is unaware how the consulate heard about her but points out that she has crafted the idol at EC Block’s Durga puja in Salt Lake twice. That is where the consulate office is located and the consul general traditionally is a guest at the pandal inauguration.

So far, the 45-year-old’s farthest journey has been to Manali. “I did get a chance to go to Africa or some such place in 2015 but things did not fall in place.”

Even this journey was riddled with uncertainty as China did not have a passport and even when she applied for one on May 4 on learning of her nomination, she mistakenly opted for a normal – and not a tatkal (urgent) – type of application. And there were barely hours left for the consulate’s document submission deadline to expire on Friday when she received her passport from the Beadon Street post office.

Passport in hand, China could finally turn her attention to the requirements of the journey to China in the afternoon. “I am planning to carry two half-finished and detachable mini models of Durga and Kali. I will colour them here but carry the shola pith accessories with me to do the decoration in front of the audience there,” said China.

Terracotta artiste Ashish Kumar Biswas of Thakurnagar, Bongaon, will also be going with her. The winner of the Presidents’ Award for 2014-15 is planning to carry terracotta Buddha figurines, Chinese motifs and fridge magnets.

The trip is for 10 days and the expo in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, the province of China closest to Bengal, starts on June 13.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / by Sudeshna Banerjee / May 19th, 2018

Nasa trip for math wizard

Education, Records, All, Science & Technology, World Opinion
Swaprabha Dey. (Kousik Sen)

Raiganj:

A Class IX student of Raiganj who topped a math Olympiad has won an educational trip to Nasa.

Swaprabha Dey, a student of St Xaviers School of the town, had stood first in the International Olympiad for Mathematics, 2017 conducted by the Delhi-based Silver Zone Foundation. He will visit Nasa on a week-long trip to the US in August this year.

“After the (Olympiad) results were announced, we were informed that he will be rewarded in cash and be taken to Nasa,” said Swaprabha’s father Sanjib Dey, a central government employee.

The boy, his parents said, is an ardent reader of science fictions. Professor Shanku, a character penned by Satyajit Ray, is one of his favourites.

“It is a matter of pride for the school,” Fr. David Raj, the school principal said.Ayesha Rani A, the DM, said the administration will “felicitate” Swaprabha for his success. “His performance has brought laurels,” said the DM.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> West Bengal / by Kousik Sen / May 20th, 2018

High performer in marks and spirit

Amazing Feats, Education, Inspiration / Positive News and Features

ICSE and ISC exam results throw up stories of success in the face of extreme adversity

Neelangshu Saha

Calcutta:

The weekend before his ISC mathematics paper, Neelangshu Saha was in hospital for chemotherapy. When the examination results were declared at 3pm on Monday, he was undergoing a PET scan in a Mumbai hospital.

Neelangshu scored 84 in mathematics, each mark bearing testimony to his effort in writing a paper for three hours after having been discharged from hospital just the night before.

The student of Adamas International School in Belghoria did even better in terms of aggregate – 86.75 per cent – after battling a relapse in the middle of the examination. His individual scores are 78 in English, 88 in physics, 82 in chemistry and 97 in computer science.

The 18-year-old had been diagnosed with alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, a cancer originating in the muscles, in 2016. He seemed to be in remission after treatment, but the cancer returned in two years.

Doctors had told Neelangshu that he wouldn’t be able to write an examination immediately after chemotherapy, but he wasn’t ready to give up.

“I had already lost a year during the first spell of illness (with 33 cycles of chemotherapy and 51 rounds of radiation) and could not write the examination along with batchmates I had studied with for 10 years. That was a major push for me. My mother encouraged me to do so,” Neelangshu said from Mumbai.

The relapse was diagnosed two days after the teenager wrote his physics paper. His mother went to Mumbai to consult doctors on postponing treatment till the ISC examination was over.

“Doctors at the Tata Memorial Centre in Mumbai said treatment was more important than writing the examination. We then decided to get chemotherapy done in a Calcutta hospital,” said mother Aditi Roy, an economics teacher.

“It was a Monday, the day of his mathematics paper. He was so weak that he could barely open his eyes. But he showed tremendous mental strength and went to school,” Aditi recounted.

Despite the side effects of chemotherapy like nausea and not being able to sit for long hours, Neelangshu wanted to write the examination with his classmates.

“Chemotherapy would leave me feeling very hot and I could not continue in the examination hall. My school then arranged for me to write the examination in an air-conditioned room. Had it not been for my school’s support and that of my teachers, I would not have been able to write the exam,” Neelangshu said.

Before being diagnosed with cancer, Neelangshu had been an athlete with two gold medals in sprinting events in his last school sports meet in 2015. “The way he has fought illness is amazing, especially to write an exam between chemotherapy sessions,” said Mittra Sinha Roy, principal of Adamas International School.

A swelling in his left leg last January was the first sign of a relapse. “It (alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma) is a rare cancer with an unpredictable outcome. If it has not spread to the lungs and liver and is limited to the local area and site of origin, there are chances of the cancer being cured. The boy’s willpower is inspirational,” said oncologist Gautam Mukhopadhyay, although he hasn’t treated Neelangshu.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / by Jhinuk Mazumdar / May 15th, 2018

England to Jharkhand, sociology to midwifery

Amazing Feats, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Inspiration / Positive News and Features, Records, All, World Opinion

Briton married to Bengali finds new calling after living in village

Ranjan Ghosh and Lindsay Barnes. Picture by Anup Bhattacharya

Calcutta:

She is from Lancashire in north-west England, he is from Bally in Howrah. Lindsay Barnes and Ranjan Ghoshhad met in the Eighties as students at Jawaharlal Nehru University and, fired by a shared idealism and sense of adventure, set up home in a village near Bokaro.

Sometime in 1993, Lindsay was forced by circumstance to help a village woman deliver a baby. She had no medical degree, only a book to help her. Since then, Lindsay has played midwife to scores of mothers and set up a 12-bed health centre with her husband Ranjan Ghosh to provide hundreds of others a safe place to give birth.

The couple have also brought together more than 7,000 women from 120 villages under various self-help groups, with Ranjan using his expertise to induct them into microfinance.

Lindsay and Ranjan, who were in Calcutta to attend a Mother’s Day programme organised by an infertility clinic in Kasba, said they planned to train junior doctors and nurses to deliver babies under limiting circumstances in rural areas.

Health care was, of course, not a choice Lindsay had made when she started living in Chambrabad village, 25km from Bokaro. A student of sociology, she was there primarily for research on life in the coal belt when a call for help changed her calling.

“Some neighbours approached me to help a mother-to-be,” she recounted. “I was astounded. I had no clue what to do. I was trying to put them off with excuses. It was my husband who goaded me to go,” 58-year-old Lindsay told Metro.

Armed with a book titled Where there is no doctor: A village healthcare handbook, Lindsay left home to help deliver the baby. “The local women who gathered around me knew I had no knowledge of midwifery, yet they were relieved to see me. They knew I would find a way out. That’s when it hit me that I must do something to help them,” she said.

Lindsay, now a mother of two, soon started receiving similar requests from other villages. “After a few home deliveries, I decided to educate myself in hospitals and nursing homes. I learnt a little and read a lot more to perfect my job,” she said.

After almost 100 home deliveries, Lindsaybegan hiring rooms for deliveries. She set up the 12-bed health centre in 2001. “The village girls now run the health centre with minimal support from qualified doctors. I am still called to handle critical cases. Ninety-five per cent of women have normal delivery. We refer critical cases to nearby hospitals,” she said.

According to gynaecologist and infertility specialist Sudip Basu, what sets Lindsay apart is her “practical knowledge”.

“It will be good if she can train our junior doctors and nurses how to treat patients under limiting circumstances. My team, in turn, can volunteer at her health centre. We plan to replicate the model in other villages.”

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / by Chandreyee Ghose / May 14th, 2018

Magic memoirs: A son pens his tribute

Amazing Feats, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Leaders, Records, All, Travel, World Opinion
P.C. Sorcar (Jr) at the launch of a memoir of his father on Friday. (Anup Bhattacharya)

Calcutta:

On April 9, 1956, a live telecast of a magic show in London seemed to have gone awfully wrong. The scheduled 15-minute slot on BBC was almost over but the assistant cut in half by the turbaned Indian magician was not coming back to life.

As the channel switched to the news bulletin, viewers jammed the studio lines with calls, convinced that the woman had been murdered. Such was the furore that the event made the next day’s headlines, with interviews of the assistant, alive and well.

“It had all been part of a grand plan. He had deliberately instructed the lady assistant to lie unresponsive… at the critical moment… This man was Protul Chandra Sorcar. He was also my father,” the writer of a book titled PC Sorcar: The Maharaja of Magic describes the incident.

A memoir of the illustrious father Protul Chandra Sorcar penned by his torch-bearer and son Prodip Chandra Sorcar or P.C. Sorcar (Jr) was launched on Friday at Starmark. It is replete with anecdotes that demonstrate how the senior Sorcar single-handedly revived a dying Indian art and went on to be hailed by the International Brotherhood of Magicians in 1948 as “The World’s Greatest Magician”.

The book is also a storehouse of photographs, publicity material, newspaper clippings and cartoons on the phenomenon that was P.C. Sorcar. His reception in the 35 nations where he performed is nothing short of spectacular. If The Sunday Times carried a photo of him reading the newspaper blindfolded, one of Japan’s top newspapers The Yomiuri Shimbun ran the headline on an article on him “Invaluable Living Asset From India Brings Black Art” while The Australian Women’s Weekly did a full page feature on him when he was touring the continent in 1958.

“The book was five years in the making,” said Bikash D. Niyogi, the managing director of the publisher Niyogi Books.

At the launch of the book on Friday, Sorcar (Jr) revealed that his grandfather was bitterly against his son taking up magic as a profession. “‘Do not do public shows. Society is not ready. You will be taken as a dabbler in hocus pocus,’ he kept telling his son. He wanted him to become an engineer instead,” said Sorcar (Jr).

In a way, he was right. “Even after my father’s body was flown in from Japan where he suddenly passed away in January 1971, people gathered outside our house at night expecting him to return, much like he would at the end of his disappearing tricks, appearing from a distant corner with the shout ‘I am here’. People were so gullible that they could not distinguish between his stage persona and the person he was in real life.”

Sorcar, as a child, had an opposite problem. He took the sombre man keeping a strict eye over his son and the smiling magician on stage as different people. The book is a testimony as to how the two avatars of PC Sorcar come together in the eyes of a fellow magician who is also his son.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / by Sudeshna Banerjee / May 12th, 2018