City boy zeroes in on Rio bullseye

Sports, World Opinion
Atanu Das in action at the Rio Olympics on Tuesday
Atanu Das in action at the Rio Olympics on Tuesday

Atanu Das, the Baranagar boy who made the round of 16 in Rio on Tuesday, had taken his first aim with a bamboo bow. “It was made of Manipuri bamboo and cost Rs 1,200,” mother Aditi recalled.

When the Olympian-in-waiting started falling short of desired results in sub-junior contests, Atanu wept his eyes out, pleading with his parents for a fibreglass bow. “We are middle-class people. There was no way we could afford one. But seeing his determination, I closed some of my monthly income scheme accounts at the post office though the interest used to form a necessary part of our earnings,” said Aditi, a homemaker.

They then bought him a second-hand fibreglass bow for Rs 45,000. “It was so full of scratches that it looked more like a third- or fourth-hand one,” she said.

And on Tuesday evening, 24-year-old Atanu made good his parents’ sacrifices by scoring one perfect 10 after another – he got full points in seven of his nine shots in the first match – on the world’s biggest stage.

The bow with which Atanu shot down Nepal’s Jitbahadur Muktan and staved off Cuba’s Adrian Andres Puentes Perez costs close to Rs 2 lakh. “He has two-three top-class bows now,” father Amit said.

Late on Tuesday, the proud parents received a call from their Olympian son. “The wind, he said, was bothering him in the second match,” said Amit, who could not follow his dream of a career in football.

Atanu, now an assistant manager with Bharat Petroleum Corporation, was exposed to sports early. “I wanted him to take a different path. It could have been any sport. The Kolkata Archery Club in Sinthee happened to be near our home,” said Amit, who has taken VRS from the private company he worked for.

Atanu’s first coach Santanu Nandy remembers him well. “He was so serious that he would come straight from school for practice. When he won the sub-junior national championship on debut I knew he was special,” he said.

Baranagar Narendranath Vidyamandir used to let him off early and Aditi would take the 14-year-old straight to the archery club. “The school even excused him from appearing for his Madhyamik selection test.” He travelled to Jabalpur for the junior national meet instead, but only after his mother made him promise that he would do well in Madhyamik.

The call from Tata Archery Academy had come by then. But the boy did keep his word, getting a first division in his Board finals. Atanu is a boy of few words, said his parents who now live with him in the office flat in Bansdroni. Apart from the bullesye, he has his sights set on stamps. “He brings back stamps from wherever he goes,” said Amit.

And on Friday, Atanu has the chance to leave a permanent stamp on Indian sport with bow in hand in Rio.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Front Page> Calcutta> Story / Sudeshna Banerjee / Wednesday – August 10th, 2016

Tea tool for planters

Agriculture, Business & Economy, Science & Technology

Jalpaiguri :

The Tea Board of India today gave plucking machines to 150-odd small growers in the district.

Officials said the machines had been given away with a 50 per cent subsidy to be borne by the board. The remaining amount will be paid by the beneficiaries in three-four installments.

“Getting workers in the tea sector has become a major problem.The small tea sector here is also facing this shortage. That is why the tea board has decided to offer the machines to small growers,” Ramesh Kujur, deputy director of the tea board, said.

The tools that cost between Rs 40,000 and Rs 72,000 were given to planters from Rajganj, Sadar and Mainaguri who had applied for them.

“It can help growers in tackling manpower crisis and also increase the amount of leaves plucked,” Kujur said.

Jalpaiguri has 10,000-odd small planters.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY OUR SILIGURI CORRESPONDENT

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,Indai / Front Page> North Bengal> Story / Wednesday – August 10th, 2016

Anjan Dutta reinvents Hamlet

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, World Opinion

Kolkata :

Shakespeare’s Hamlet has inspired award-winning director Anjan Dutta to recreate the intense drama on celluloid, though with a contemporary spin.

Anjan’s ‘Hamlet’, which is the second adaptation of the age-defying drama in recent times after ‘Haider’ by Vishal Bhardwaj, deals with socio-political crisis and violence against humanity.

“Shakespeare’s Hamlet suffered from a basic crisis and I wanted to define and interpret that crisis in my own way,” the director told .

Actor Parambrata Chatterjee will portray Hamlet’s character ‘Hemanta’. Anjan said he himself would play the character if he were a little younger.

“Had I been a little younger, I would have done the role and my wish to portray Hamlet got shape through Param,” he said.

Anjan said that his Hemanta couldn’t care less about the situation around him, unlike his contemporaries who were largely insouciant about violence next door and busy with personal affairs.

“I had long been thinking I should not confine myself to Byomkesh exploits and urban relationship and musicals. I thought there is an imperative need to have a hard look at the present time through my protagonist’s eyes,” he said.

“Hamlet’s character has many layers. Some put his crisis at sexual level, some talk about his anguish and hatred towards the stinking political situation in Denmark about 500 years back. But for me it is more of his angst towards the situation prevailing all over the world,” Anjan said.

Parambrata said he had to cut himself off all other projects for one and a half months to study the character over and over again.

“Though I had read Hamlet during college days as a student of English literature, I needed time to grasp the contemporariness of his character,” the ace actor said adding “it is an actor’s dream to work in projects inspired by Chekov, Tagore and Shakespeare”.

Jisshu Sengupta is playing Horatio’s role while Saswata Chatterjee plays Cladius.

Hemanta after graduating from New York Film School returns to his home in Kolkata and gets the news that his film producer father has commited suicide because his mother Gayatri is set to marry uncle Kalyan (Cladius), which triggers a series of murders and mysterious deaths.
SUS MD MM JCH

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Kolkata / PTI / August 08th, 2016