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 initiative first started with the residents of Suryakiran Awasana on Umakanta Sen Lane in north Kolkata’s Paikpara, during which as many as 74 people underwent Rapid Antigen tests.
Paikpara residents queue up for test conducted by the KMC on Sunday. (Photo by Partha Paul)
The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) on Sunday launched a first-of-its-kind initiative, “Free Covid Test at Doorstep”, in the city. The programme had been announced by KMC Board of Administrators’ Chairman and Trinamool Congress MP Firhad Hakim on Saturday to boost the number of daily Covid-19 tests to trace suspected patients.
The initiative first started with the residents of Suryakiran Awasana on Umakanta Sen Lane in north Kolkata’s Paikpara, during which as many as 74 people underwent Rapid Antigen tests. The test reports were available in just 30 minutes.
According to Trinamool MP Dr Santanu Sen, no one among those whose samples were collected on Sunday tested positive for Covid-19.
“There are 300 people in the society. In the initial phase, 74 people were tested. Those who will test positive will be advised for home isolation or will be sent to safe homes,” said Sen.
“If test reports of a resident with symptoms say ‘Covid negative’, the municipality will collect that person’s saliva for an RT-PCR test, all free of cost,” the MP added.
According to officials, Kolkata is the first municipal corporation in the country to introduce Covid testing at doorstep.
Any individual, or local clubs and organisations, can contact Hakim at his WhatsApp number (9830037493) to organise a test camp in their locality. The sender has to text details such as name, address and phone number to that number
source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Cities> Kolkata / by Express News Service / August 24th, 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
According to historian P Thankappan Nair who has extensively documented Calcutta’s history, the name ‘Topsia’ may have been derived from the fish species Polynemus paradiseus , also known as the ‘topshe’ fish found in the waters of West Bengal, Bangladesh and elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
Topsia became a part of the burgeoning metropolis of Calcutta in 1717. (Express Photo by Shashi Ghosh)
The tanneries that once choked the bylanes of Topsia have long gone, shifted to the outskirts of the city. But a decade later this eastern neighbourhood of Kolkata has found it difficult to shed the association with the industry even though the pungent smells of the neighbourhood — a combination of tannery fumes and effluents, open ditches and the garbage landfill sites at nearby Dhapa — have long dissipated.
Several neighbourhoods have come up in the East Kolkata wetlands despite its ecological importance and for decades the area was home to the city’s tanneries that caused severe environmental degradation. In 1996, the Calcutta High Court ordered the tanneries to be relocated outside the city limits, a process that took at least another decade to fully materialise. Following the court order, the tanneries slowly left the neighbourhoods of Tangra, Topsia and Tiljala, only to be replaced by construction companies that swooped in and began filling up the wetlands to develop the area for residential and commercial purposes, despite it having been declared a Ramsar site in 2002.
Due to the presence of the wetlands near Topsia, historical records show that fishing was one of the main sources of livelihood for many in the village. (Express Photo by Shashi Ghosh)
Topsia became a part of the burgeoning metropolis of Calcutta in 1717 when the British East India Company rented 38 villages surrounding the city from Mughal Emperor Farrukhsiyar. The Company went on to purchase 55 villages, including the 38 that it had previously rented, from Nawab Mir Jafar in 1758 and incorporated them all as the outer fringes of the developing city.
The villages collectively came to be known as Dihi Panchannagram, the literal meaning of which is “55 villages”, and lay outside the Maratha Ditch, an approximately 5 kilometer ditch that was excavated in 1742 to form a perimeter around Calcutta to protect the British from the Maratha invasion that never came. The Maratha Ditch, built for the protection of the British, was entirely funded by taxes paid by Indians.
This rare photo-lithographic reproduction print of Thomas Kitchin’s map of Calcutta, titled ‘Territory of Calcutta MDCCLVII’, first issued in 1763, is one of the few mapped records of the Maratha Ditch, spelled ‘Morratoe Ditch’. (Source: Antique Maps Inc)
The villages that formed Dihi Panchannagram fell outside the Maratha Ditch despite being a part of the city of Calcutta. Their incorporation into the city limits occurred more completely when the Maratha Ditch, having been a useless enterprise, was partially filled in 1799 and then entirely in 1893. Harry Evan Auguste Cotton, an English barrister and historian who lived in the city during that time and wrote about Calcutta in his book ‘Calcutta, Old and New’, refers to the 55 villages as the “suburbs” of Calcutta that had been separated from “the 24 Perganas” and added to the city of Calcutta by Mir Jafar in 1757. “For revenue purposes they formed part of Calcutta, but their legal existence was separate and distinct,” wrote Cotton. Topsia, as part of the Dihi Panchannagram, finds mention in Wood’s map of Calcutta of 1784 and A. Upjohn’s map of Calcutta of 1794. Today, this area is still known as Panchannagram, the term ‘Dihi’ having gotten lost over the centuries as street names got diluted and changed in the city.
Due to the presence of the wetlands near Topsia, historical records show that fishing was one of the main sources of livelihood for many in the villages and it may also be how the villages collectively got this name. According to historian P Thankappan Nair who has extensively documented Calcutta’s history, the name ‘Topsia’ may have been derived from the fish species Polynemus paradiseus, also known as the ‘topshe’ fish found in the waters of West Bengal, Bangladesh and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, and the name has continued to be used till date. Prior to the reclamation of the East Kolkata wetlands, the fish was found in relative abundance in the waters and was a staple for the people living in the villages in the area.
Topsia is a juxtaposition of slums, haphazard residential accommodation and luxury hotels that have paved the way for aggressive modern construction. (Express Photo by Shashi Ghosh)
Over the years, as Kolkata expanded and migrants from nearby towns and states relocated to the city for work, tanneries developed near the wetlands because the neighbourhood was still considered to be the outer fringes of the city. Many of these migrants found low-paying, physically challenging jobs in the tanneries, living and working in cramped quarters, with little hygiene and access to resources and even less impetus from the government that did little to better their working and living conditions. Although reports of severe pollution and improper disposal of waste as a result of the tanneries had been circulated for years, it took a court order issued by the Calcutta High Court in 2008 to lead to an official crackdown on the tanneries operating in the area, several illegally, and resulted in the relocation of operations outside the city limits. During the last three decades, as the area witnessed rapid development and land reclamation, it slowly became more fully absorbed into the growing metropolis of Kolkata. Today, it also serves to connect central Kolkata to the Salt Lake neighbourhood, Rajarhat and the airport beyond.
Topsia is a juxtaposition of slums, haphazard residential accommodation and luxury hotels that have paved the way for aggressive modern construction on a larger and wider scale in the sensitive wetland area, that shows no signs of stopping despite protests over the years by environmental activists.
These days, the ‘topshe’ fish can be found in Kolkata’s local markets, brought to the city after having been harvested elsewhere. The fish that gave Topsia its name, however, would be hard to find, if not entirely impossible, these days in what remains of the waters of wetlands.
source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Cities> Kolkata / by Neha Banka / December 03rd, 2019
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
On August 15, 1947, when most of India was feeling triumphant and rejoicing the new-found independence, Bapu was in Calcutta, trying to figure out how to stop the communal violence triggered by the partition of Bengal.
On the night of August 14, 1947, when Jawaharlal Nehru was preparing to deliver his famous “Tryst with destiny” speech, Mahatma Gandhi was earnestly trying to end the communal violence triggered by the Partition.
Bengal was partitioned by the British, and a chunk of the state went on to form East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). The Partition, done along religious lines, resulted in bloody communal strife that ended in tears and pyres. So, on August 15, 1947, when most of the nation was feeling triumphant and rejoicing the new-found independence, Bapu was in Calcutta, worried sick.
Mahatma Gandhi was supposed to be in Bihar in the days leading to August 15, before heading to Bengal – both areas ravaged by communal strife. Bapu was only concerned about forging peace and harmony between the two communities. “To me, peace between Hindus and Muslims is more important than the declaration of independence,” he had famously said, and refused to take part in any celebrations.
He said: “I cannot rejoice on August 15. I do not want to deceive you. But at the same time, I shall not ask you not to rejoice. Unfortunately, the kind of freedom we have got today contains also the seeds of future conflict between India and Pakistan. How can we, therefore, light the lamps?”
Gandhi was eventually successful in his efforts, and his miraculous strategy in pacifying both communities was recognised by Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India.
Mountbatten said: “In Punjab, we have 55 thousand soldiers and large-scale rioting on our hands. In Bengal, our forces consist of one man (Gandhi), and there is no rioting.”
source: http://www.moneycontrol.com / MoneyControl / Home> News> India / by Jagyaseni Biswas / August 15th, 2020
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
The list of alumnae who played a significant, if less acknowledged role, in India’s freedom struggle is a lengthy one, and includes those who took up arms in their war against British rule and oppression.
The Bethune college played a pivotal role in shaping women who fought for freedom from British rule. (Wikimedia Commons/ edited by Gargi Singh)
Bina Das was only 21 when she opened fire on Bengal Governor Stanley Jackson at Calcutta University in 1932. But in Calcutta’s Bethune College, women like her were not rare. In fact, the institution played a pivotal role in shaping women like her, especially those who called undivided Bengal their home, who fought for freedom from British rule.
The list of alumnae who played a significant, if less acknowledged role, in India’s freedom struggle is a lengthy one, and includes names like Kamala Das Gupta, Kalpana Dutta and Pritilata Waddedar who took up arms in their war against British rule and oppression. There are also women like Sarala Devi Chaudhurani, Kadambini Ganguly and Chandramukhi Bose, who did not pick up weapons, but urged literacy and education for girls and championed women’s rights and protections, paving the way for several reforms for girls and women in pre-Independence India — a war of a different kind.
In her memoir, Das recalls how the library at Bethune College in Calcutta shaped her life by allowing her access to books on the theories of revolution and freedom, and encouraged her ideas and hopes for a nation independent from British rule. In addition to churning out women who went on to become revolutionaries, the institution was remarkable for several other reasons, the foremost being that when it was turned into a college in 1879, it became the only institution for higher education for women in Asia.
Kadimbini Ganguly, one of the first two women graduates in the subcontinent. (Wikimedia Commons)
Uttara Chakravorty, a former teacher of history at Bethune College, who spent approximately five years conducting research on the history of the institution, believes that the college library particularly played an important role in shaping the lives of the women who passed through its gates. “We didn’t find records of teachers imparting revolutionary views, but the library was good and the girls read newspapers,” she tells indianexpress.com . The college itself had no role to play in the formation of revolutionary views, but it was the diverse peer group to which women had access in the institution that fostered an exchange of ideas, believes Chakravorty. “The peer group consisted of girls who came from undivided Bengal. There were Jewish girls, Afghan girls, Anglo-Indians. The cosmopolitan nature of the environment shaped their views, along with the (college’s) architecture. The library had books of all kinds.”
When Kadambini Ganguly and Chandramukhi Basu graduated from Bethune College in 1881, they became the first two women graduates in the subcontinent. “This was the most revolutionary thing at that time,” says Chakravorty. Ganguly’s achievements were particularly extraordinary for a woman back then. Not only was she one of the first two women graduates, but she was also the first South Asian woman physician, with training in western medicine.
Chandramukhi Basu, who graduated with Kadambini Ganguly in 1881 as the first two female graduates in the subcontinent. (Wikimedia Commons)
After John Elliot Drinkwater Bethune arrived in India in 1848, as a Legal Member of the Governor-General’s Council, he was appointed president of the Council of Education. Bethune’s posting allowed him to meet members of the Bhramo Samaj, who like him were also proponents of education for girls and women. In one of his meetings in the city, zamindar Dakshinaranjan Mukherjee gifted Bethune five and a half bighas of land for building a school that opened as ‘Calcutta Female School’ in May 1849 with 21 girls on the roll, an institution that became the predecessor of the Bethune School.
According to Kalidas Naga’s writings in ‘Bethune School And College Centenary Volume 1849’ published in 1949, “none but the girls of respectable Hindus would be admitted”. A school carriage was arranged to transport the girls who lived at a distance to and fro from school.
John Elliot Drinkwater Bethune, who founded the Bethune college. (Wikimedia Commons)
It was the first public institution for girls’ education, and was government-run. Although the school’s administration experienced some success in finding families interested in educating their daughters, the conservatives in Indian society rose up in protest against the school, discouraging their neighbours and relatives from sending their girls to study there. Families who succumbed to the social pressure withdrew their girls, till the number of students dwindled to just seven. The scenario changed by the end of the year, writes Naga, because some girls came back, increasing the number of students on the roll to 34.
Bethune’s initiative appears to have inspired philanthropic Indians to engage in similar endeavours. For instance, Raja Radhakanta Deb soon started a school for girls inside his large rajbari in Sovabazar, 15 days after Bethune’s institute started operations. After opening the Calcutta Female School, Bethune then purchased a new plot of land belonging to the Government of Bengal in Cornwallis Square, adjacent to the Calcutta Female School, and established another educational institution for girls, called the ‘Hindu Female School’ in 1849 with significant financial support from Dakshinaranjan Mukherjee.
Zamindar Dakshinaranjan Mukherjee gifted Bethune five and a half bighas of land for building a school, that later turned into Bethune college. (Wikimedia Commons)
In December 1850, Bethune appointed Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar as secretary to the school, in what proved to be a masterstroke. Naga writes that Vidyasagar’s biographer Sambhu Chandra Vidyaratna acknowledged in the biography that this appointment encouraged many Hindu families to send their girls to Bethune’s school.
In December 1850, Bethune appointed Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar as secretary to the school, in what proved to be a masterstroke. (Wikimedia Commons)
Thirty years after its founding, the school became a college, named after its founder. Chakravorty believes that the architecture of the building deeply impacted the students who enrolled in the institution, more than one realises. “It is a one-storey building with an open courtyard. There are Corinthian columns with a supporting pediment and a sculptured balustrade,” she explains. Built in the neoclassical style, the design included an open terrace and wooden french windows, a lot of which can still be seen on the building’s exterior.
“The openness of the layout was attractive to the girls, who were till then confined in their homes. Many of the girls wrote about (the architecture) in their memoirs. It did have an impact on their lives,” says Chakravorty. Chameli Basu, a gifted student who later went on to teach Physics at her alma mater, and passed out in the same year as Bina Das, specifically mentions the architecture of the institution. “She came from a conservative family and the openness of the space was overwhelming for her.”
While many teachers of Bethune College were Indian, the heads of the institution for the longest time remained English. In texts that Chakravorty found in the college library during her research, records of one particular incident stands out, she says. “The first mention of the student’s political consciousness can be found in a text in the college library from 1915. Anne Louis Janeau, the principal of Bethune, wrote that the students once wanted to go to a religious meeting but she suspected it was a political gathering.” It is one of the earliest records that indicate that although the institution was established for the education of Indian girls, there was little tolerance for ideas and initiatives that could be perceived to be anti-British in nature.
One of the most significant incidents in the history of Bethune College occurred when the Simon Commission arrived in 1928. This incident finds mention in Bina Das’ memoir where she recalls how she along with a group of fellow students, organised their first student protest against the Commission and faced threats from the college administration and Mrs. Wright, the English principal, if they did not apologise. Wright and the Director of Public Information collectively warned the students that if they didn’t return to their classes, they would be expelled and their scholarships would be withdrawn.
Bina Das in her memoir recalls how she along with a group of fellow students, organised their first student protest against the Simon Commission in 1928. (Wikimedia Commons)
Led by Das, the students refused to comply and the agitation became so strong that it spread outside the college. Das recalls in her memoir that Wright, “the overbearing Englishwoman”, was forced to resign from service and was compelled to leave the institution. This protest was one of the most important occurrences in the history of the institution and the college has an entire file on the subject in its archives today. “It wasn’t just a struggle, but an active choice to get involved,” says Chakravorty of this protest.
The 1930s were turbulent times with more students becoming actively involved in the freedom struggle. “The girls were inspired by the Bolshevik Revolution. Kamala Das Gupta wrote in her memoir that most of the girls read banned books that were hidden under their textbooks; books like Pather Dabi, Maxim Gorky’s Mother,” says Chakravorty.
Chakravorty recalls the writings of Malati Guha Ray, an exceptional student at Bethune, who wrote in her memoirs of an incident when British police descended upon Bethune College in search of Kalpana Dutta, a member of the underground group Chhtari Sangha, who had left the institution to engage more fully in revolutionary activities. “Guha Ray wrote about how the principal was unhappy that students were participating in revolutionary activities and banned groups.”
By the 20th century, other educational institutions for women started opening up in Calcutta, like Loreto College, a morning section at Ashutosh College only for women and Victoria College. “When Presidency (College, now named University), started taking in women in 1944, Bethune began losing out on bright students who were more attracted to Presidency,” says Chakravorty.
The former students of Bethune haven’t mentioned teachers as inspiration in their struggle for India’s freedom, says Chakravorty, but the role of the institution cannot be discounted for the opportunities that it provided to women at a time when they were so few in number. Over 171 years after it first began as the ‘Calcutta Female School’, the only pathway for formal education for women in Asia, Bethune College’s own role as a revolutionary institution can perhaps only be fully understood in a re-reading of the memoirs of the lives of the women it shaped and altered over the decades.
source: http://www.indianexpress.com / Indian Express / Home> Research / by Neha Banka / Kolkata – August 14th, 2020
