tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17611005415673434262024-02-20T23:18:43.047-08:00The Calcutta ProjectThis is an archive of random things - aesthetic and offensive, high-browed and subaltern, cerebral and ridiculous - about Calcutta, that people deeply in love with this city wish to share with others. The hope is twofold - first, to know our own city better by looking at it through each other's eyes; and second, to offer a database to outsiders looking to explore the city through alternate channels that, unlike much of the available travel guides, do not try to play up cultural clichés.pratyaynathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05687192840762085691noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761100541567343426.post-63345516480851584332015-01-22T10:21:00.003-08:002015-01-22T10:21:27.743-08:00Calcutta State Transport Corporation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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pratyaynathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05687192840762085691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761100541567343426.post-40651829132509767892015-01-15T10:56:00.004-08:002015-01-15T11:02:27.489-08:00The Jews: From Aleppo to Calcutta<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: #fdfdfd; color: #101010; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; letter-spacing: -0.02em; line-height: 1.2;">[This piece was originally published in www.cafedissensusblog.com on 13 January 2015. Here is the </span><a href="http://cafedissensusblog.com/2015/01/13/the-jews-from-aleppo-to-calcutta/" style="background-color: #fdfdfd; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; letter-spacing: -0.02em; line-height: 1.2;" target="_blank">link</a><span style="background-color: #fdfdfd; color: #101010; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; letter-spacing: -0.02em; line-height: 1.2;"> to the original post. This is a repost]</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">By</span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"> </span><strong style="border: 0px; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Mohsin Maqbool Elahi</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">With the opening of the telegraph in 1853 and a railway network in India, Calcutta soon became a trading centre. It started attracting traders from all over, including Jewish ones. A Syrian from Alepp</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">o called Shalom Aharon Obaidah Cohen arrived in Surat in 1762 and within a short span of time established himself as a trader. He moved to Calcutta (now Kolkata) in 1798 where he </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">developed a profitable trade in jewels and precious stones. In 1816, he became the court jeweler of the Nawab of Oudh and his son at Lucknow.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Besides Syria, Jews also started arriving from Baghdad (Iraq), Afghanistan, Yemen and Iran. They were popularly known as Baghdadi Jews. Soon they were joined by Ashkenazi Jews from Romania who were being persecuted by the Nazis during World War II.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The first generation of Jewish settlers in Kolkata spoke Judeo-Arabic at home and adhered to their Arabic style of costumes. The next generation of Jews adopted European dress and lifestyle and English as their language of communication. The Jewish population had grown to 5,000 in Kolkata by the 1940s. Now only 27 remain; most of whom are in their 60s or above. With the creation of Israel in 1948, Jews started moving out. However, the majority of these left for Singapore, Australia, Canada, and England. Ironically, I recalled reading a news report more than a decade back about the lone Jew left in Kabul, who was taking care of the synagogue there.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There used to be five synagogues in Kolkata. Now only two are left: Beth El Synagogue and Maghen David Synagogue. During my childhood in Kolkata, I often used to catch a glimpse of the Beth El Synagogue, while headed for my grandfather’s house on Pollock Street and the Neveh Shalom Synagogue on the way to my father’s fireworks shop on Canning Street. The latter was built by Ezekiel Judah Jacob in 1825. It was reconstructed in 1911. A road running parallel to Pollock Street was called Ezra Street. Ezra Street was named in memory of David Joseph Ezra. However, little did I know then that both Ezra and Pollock were Jewish names. Even though I did not know the names of any of the synagogues, I was definitely interested in the architecture of Neveh Shalom Synagogue, which kept me mesmerized. Interestingly, the caretakers of both the Beth El Synagogue and Maghen David Synagogue are Muslims.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Several years back, while reading about their history on the Internet, I came to know that the Beth El Synagogue was built in 1856 by David Joseph Ezra and Ezekiel Judah. It was rebuilt and extended in 1886 by Elias Shalom Gubbay. It has stupendous stained glass windows just above the main entrance. The Maghen David Synagogue was built in 1884 by Elias David Joseph Ezra in memory of his father, real estate magnate David Joseph Ezra. It has a fine collection of Torah scrolls. Tourists are fascinated by its checkered marble flooring, intricate stained glass windows and ornate Corinthian columns. Both have been declared protected monuments by the Archaeological Survey of India.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Manasseh Meyer was a Jewish philanthropist and businessman, born and educated in Kolkata but better known as a benefactor to the Jews of Singapore. After spending some time in Singapore, he returned to Kolkata to complete his Hebrew studies. He built the Manasseh Meyer building and it is now used by the city’s police department.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">If you have lived in Kolkata, you are bound to have been addicted to the plum cakes or pastries or buns or breads of confectioners, Nahoum and Sons. The confectionery was set up in 1902 at the labyrinthine New Market by Nahoum Israel, who was one of the first Jews to arrive in Kolkata. Within a few years, it had won itself a rich British clientele. When the British left after India won independence in 1947, it started attracting locals by the hordes. Later, Nahoum’s son, Elias started running it and then his grandson David, now succeeded by his brother Isaac. Whenever my siblings or my birthday was celebrated, our father always got us a large birthday cake from Nahoum’s along with lovely candles of various colours. The cakes were always absolutely scrumptious, leaving us licking our fingers. Those days birthday cakes were actually eaten, not scrubbed on faces!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The confectionery is still highly popular among locals and tourists alike. Anybody who talks about or writes about Kolkata is most certain to mention the 112-year-old landmark Jewish bakery.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The community set up two schools: The Jewish Girls School and the Elias Meyer Free School Talmud Tohrah. Both schools are thriving and well endowed, although Jewish studies no longer study there. They are English-medium schools open to all, irrespective of their religion. In fact, 90% of the students in the girls’ school are Muslims.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Many reputed Jewish families have made Kolkata their own, raising edifices like Chowringhee Mansion, Esplanade Mansion, and Ezra Hospital. Besides, they built business empires, mansions, and synagogues.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There are two Jewish cemeteries in Kolkata, a private one at U.C. Banerjee Road and another one at Narkeldanga, which is cared for by Shalom Israel, the youngest of the Jews in the city. It houses thousands of graves, including the tomb of Shalom Aharon Obaidah Cohen, Kolkata’s first Jew. It also contains graves of Russian and Polish Jews.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Mohsin Maqbool Elahi</strong> is a journalist who works for <em style="border: 0px; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Dawn</em> (newspaper) in Karachi. He has also worked for <em style="border: 0px; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The News</em> (newspaper) and several magazines. He completed his MA in International Relations. He loves writing limericks and haiku, along with other forms of poetry, book reviews, and articles on culture, education, environment, film, and music. He occasionally writes for <em style="border: 0px; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Shillong Times</em> and has also written for<em style="border: 0px; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Citrus</em> (e-magazine). Email: mohsin_me@<span class="skimlinks-unlinked" style="border: 0px; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">outlook.com</span></span></div>
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pratyaynathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05687192840762085691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761100541567343426.post-16697364000445798152015-01-14T22:33:00.000-08:002015-01-15T11:01:30.052-08:00Jewish Calcutta<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;">Calcutta has had a Jewish diaspora since the late-eighteenth century. The first immigrants came from Baghdad, some of whose kin had already moved to cities like Surat and Cochin on the western littoral of South Asia at an earlier date. Eventually more came; from different other parts of Eurasia, including Syria, Afghanistan, Russia and Poland. During the nineteenth century, their numbers soared, as the Jews of Central Calcutta emerged as a prosperous business community. After the creation of Israel in 1948, numbers started dwindling, and over the years, younger members of the community migrated for greener pastures to different parts of the first world. With its numbers reduced to around two dozens at present, the rich Jewish past of the city is now survived by a cemetery, three beautiful synagogues, two schools, the fond nostalgia of the much-lived bakery Nahoum & Sons. and toponymy of the likes of Ezra Mansion, Ezra Street, Belilios Street and Synagogue Street.<br />
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Jael Silliman, who herself emerged from this community, has put together a truly wonderful digital archive that documents the lives of the Calcutta Jews. It features numerous photographs, interviews of senior Jewish residents of the city, documentaries, pictures of material objects, posters and so on. Below is a selection of Jewish family photographs from this digital archive, intended on the one hand to help us look back at the diasporic world of the Jews of Calcutta, while on the other they show us a snippet of the extremely rich archival material collected and digitised by Jael Silliman. Here is the link to her website: <a href="http://www.jewishcalcutta.in/">www.jewishcalcutta.in</a><br />
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PS: Here are the links to two recent features on the Jewish community of the city:<br />
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<a href="http://www.firstpost.com/living/of-matzoh-and-mothballs-the-disappearing-jews-of-kolkata-678728.html" target="_blank">Of Matzoh and Mothballs: The Disappearing Jews of Kolkata</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-only-27-remain-but-jews-love-kolkata-1694456" target="_blank">Only 27 Remain, but Jews Love Kolkata</a><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRtGuIRYH1Loi74beRmNboEbOqEMAUyq8FlFUZy3BuT7r0MN2pOz3ncnz7ldvsghHPEX8VsEgv_n4wQgvdi65xd5_GDH1Rd4QW__BoVILWVitAVSxGTarzJOEMcE7gT1ts6oSIMVrPXP7t/s1600/47e9ce309467d687fc68fdb909023fe0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRtGuIRYH1Loi74beRmNboEbOqEMAUyq8FlFUZy3BuT7r0MN2pOz3ncnz7ldvsghHPEX8VsEgv_n4wQgvdi65xd5_GDH1Rd4QW__BoVILWVitAVSxGTarzJOEMcE7gT1ts6oSIMVrPXP7t/s1600/47e9ce309467d687fc68fdb909023fe0.jpg" height="640" width="456" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Isaac Jonah with grandsons Sassoon, Alec (seated) and Meyer </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkGVcROo8ishN5dLxrKOmSIeBTZSKsmXntD7O4pOsaJge2W-7z1yDYNOdYYLsaasaH7vxLmj67F4t8r1TVEs-_cTlx-5_yRxf43HX5iIY0iYjIs0pW-nsuuQU3o7JW0jIhF8d527CWc0QC/s1600/63c9501e6d0ad1c8cdd7230576d136fc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkGVcROo8ishN5dLxrKOmSIeBTZSKsmXntD7O4pOsaJge2W-7z1yDYNOdYYLsaasaH7vxLmj67F4t8r1TVEs-_cTlx-5_yRxf43HX5iIY0iYjIs0pW-nsuuQU3o7JW0jIhF8d527CWc0QC/s1600/63c9501e6d0ad1c8cdd7230576d136fc.jpg" height="451" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nissim Luddy & Seemah Arakie </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPj2ZIezeGouuBnYkgffKBvHpN9Vi99bzdrtS44iYf9Crn3UlyRQidSByJ7q2oewSWYvytjEm4tl2PdiWxU00DZrx9sMnTTgGXhR7bHRo67v3DWFUZHSy1xZoHwdz_8IzN-L-l9_dcCA96/s1600/71a3ae1e62e3844d68fe78719f677316.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPj2ZIezeGouuBnYkgffKBvHpN9Vi99bzdrtS44iYf9Crn3UlyRQidSByJ7q2oewSWYvytjEm4tl2PdiWxU00DZrx9sMnTTgGXhR7bHRo67v3DWFUZHSy1xZoHwdz_8IzN-L-l9_dcCA96/s1600/71a3ae1e62e3844d68fe78719f677316.jpg" height="449" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Emma Arakie, Seemah Arakie Luddy (with unknown person) </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjcNoi-QZetvHte7SyLE3BpfjC38AiCTfgqSmL2Gz8a8IrJDTxlZw1yyNFkMrI92gn_EfI8jcBTbJJs0ciNF22UA4OAEI5jf4brFWh897jWYwWp_ITJpR9VhzBIPeOx8XYzRh-uq5WK8zp/s1600/11936f375a7bd718f009ebc42055a128.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjcNoi-QZetvHte7SyLE3BpfjC38AiCTfgqSmL2Gz8a8IrJDTxlZw1yyNFkMrI92gn_EfI8jcBTbJJs0ciNF22UA4OAEI5jf4brFWh897jWYwWp_ITJpR9VhzBIPeOx8XYzRh-uq5WK8zp/s1600/11936f375a7bd718f009ebc42055a128.jpg" height="640" width="544" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jacob Jonah family portrait </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdIq-HDGw6GcLyS_081LeBgX5s4nA9jxChoLozBJdI-3bLOPDxPiTSFnrg_dd3AqEO05bXMvE3zlrYu-MqekLa1Wm9pGXrDcMyg7Tv1vJH8j4i_u9aI0uID1sJCfi8DGGxNGHHvHWg1yBB/s1600/a1aaf5e4088300595ccd6de2091e765b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdIq-HDGw6GcLyS_081LeBgX5s4nA9jxChoLozBJdI-3bLOPDxPiTSFnrg_dd3AqEO05bXMvE3zlrYu-MqekLa1Wm9pGXrDcMyg7Tv1vJH8j4i_u9aI0uID1sJCfi8DGGxNGHHvHWg1yBB/s1600/a1aaf5e4088300595ccd6de2091e765b.jpg" height="452" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Noah family</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG_-wO1FlA2cMKk8EV6Bex4vIq43lMff7v-neGOTrC8XWfX46OaEQ75_TuICqED9plNjdiBracw1V8Hg867kGRaMnhSpiYLVAagcQkZIfkMjbXb9k3wCclsMZHNUzmUswQaIHchwyXr7pM/s1600/a65c25a422950b3f551b5a8ceddd5204.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG_-wO1FlA2cMKk8EV6Bex4vIq43lMff7v-neGOTrC8XWfX46OaEQ75_TuICqED9plNjdiBracw1V8Hg867kGRaMnhSpiYLVAagcQkZIfkMjbXb9k3wCclsMZHNUzmUswQaIHchwyXr7pM/s1600/a65c25a422950b3f551b5a8ceddd5204.jpg" height="640" width="520" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rachel Luddy, Sam, Ramoo, Sally</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7fbOHqkF9-P6EbzH_sP41V_wLngFmEVEHJRBhsz9ztLLn6O7yISTiq_hl5nYQ-S6e0pGjrmYn7MV-kFDeqUzNAbAeElhZzOE9PJ9J81VZS1JKlvwNARRZN-wBdSuM4h_OvLr-Aq9vaWK-/s1600/b1a958bfee5d892a1dee7a901dfaf841.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7fbOHqkF9-P6EbzH_sP41V_wLngFmEVEHJRBhsz9ztLLn6O7yISTiq_hl5nYQ-S6e0pGjrmYn7MV-kFDeqUzNAbAeElhZzOE9PJ9J81VZS1JKlvwNARRZN-wBdSuM4h_OvLr-Aq9vaWK-/s1600/b1a958bfee5d892a1dee7a901dfaf841.jpg" height="640" width="449" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jonah Isaac with wife Tova and son Ephraim</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO0ImIKXFp3ZP94uTpyyKS3NVWVL7h863l4RA4wvAtW7RpEx88TY6msSNtAXbiJrXwY9J29MTwNp30_3J4Nh1qHFahcr2F99HGrLspYQbyZIBtWEXwC7EQsuXD3coki9spf2FVdwLjYSo_/s1600/158c3960468b0da67d8b0ceef62274c6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO0ImIKXFp3ZP94uTpyyKS3NVWVL7h863l4RA4wvAtW7RpEx88TY6msSNtAXbiJrXwY9J29MTwNp30_3J4Nh1qHFahcr2F99HGrLspYQbyZIBtWEXwC7EQsuXD3coki9spf2FVdwLjYSo_/s1600/158c3960468b0da67d8b0ceef62274c6.jpg" height="412" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mingail family</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvxb71Z9GUkEVQ7s35vnGaSQ3G9CMDckBwvJ2Ets7Hxo01n57IEOpSGG4Xpjz23hB5JgLL6yjjRWQiUuc8H4nv4OX5DoIeEBsj-jQelkKrIyXi-3KZizvCEJ-P52u4uNtyHnwwRuRCQFjy/s1600/81a30bc47f216de417c63d9ef5c63dcb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvxb71Z9GUkEVQ7s35vnGaSQ3G9CMDckBwvJ2Ets7Hxo01n57IEOpSGG4Xpjz23hB5JgLL6yjjRWQiUuc8H4nv4OX5DoIeEBsj-jQelkKrIyXi-3KZizvCEJ-P52u4uNtyHnwwRuRCQFjy/s1600/81a30bc47f216de417c63d9ef5c63dcb.jpg" height="425" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sales family</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY_DMOSem-TmBrwr31lBsAkcL6dsgO9oHFwidpgipWdXikvNt1CugrxGTCl8AGifp6gOneOwsaIn38Ej82dkXm5-vlDp91omwMrD8jsNRaJCNzVX6K0rM1TFLasKPsc9wDlXZuSlcJbbpE/s1600/fd51e47ce549719bc13c8ca5f754a2c4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY_DMOSem-TmBrwr31lBsAkcL6dsgO9oHFwidpgipWdXikvNt1CugrxGTCl8AGifp6gOneOwsaIn38Ej82dkXm5-vlDp91omwMrD8jsNRaJCNzVX6K0rM1TFLasKPsc9wDlXZuSlcJbbpE/s1600/fd51e47ce549719bc13c8ca5f754a2c4.jpg" height="451" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Joe Curlender at home in Park Street with Robin & Ilana</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM_LfJFoghFnvEdf-oc_0lD9GthdyNkJ_tBzK7uAbk5rtHNKQKMyC3iuOV_iNPwwi6WKBThZ-RWWfmo8G1ebgAUppgv1kxQ3ROi6H9mAC5JTcNxhvzrs2LRqNXiAD7Jw34Fkt0FOHLCuBZ/s1600/efaf0f1c010e2ae1c2aabc2b70a36373.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM_LfJFoghFnvEdf-oc_0lD9GthdyNkJ_tBzK7uAbk5rtHNKQKMyC3iuOV_iNPwwi6WKBThZ-RWWfmo8G1ebgAUppgv1kxQ3ROi6H9mAC5JTcNxhvzrs2LRqNXiAD7Jw34Fkt0FOHLCuBZ/s1600/efaf0f1c010e2ae1c2aabc2b70a36373.jpg" height="451" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Moshe (Moses) Mizrahi and sister Flora in 1946, Dalhousie Square</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhShdkSn3OnGJo7JROB_l9nUwpgJSI1iLnZ2FEdsZwI8SPmHbUZHo51K8MRfdaPqvNiJ_Q98MlA8i_o6lIEUwlbHJTCg484pMjYUTv7rnypRPv7QofY4RkbuzzIGPlnT4O_FqSrX5LCw4-/s1600/c15747cf9f79cc41bb15ec24df60c954.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhShdkSn3OnGJo7JROB_l9nUwpgJSI1iLnZ2FEdsZwI8SPmHbUZHo51K8MRfdaPqvNiJ_Q98MlA8i_o6lIEUwlbHJTCg484pMjYUTv7rnypRPv7QofY4RkbuzzIGPlnT4O_FqSrX5LCw4-/s1600/c15747cf9f79cc41bb15ec24df60c954.jpg" height="640" width="438" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Isaac Jonah with Alec (right), Eric (left) </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiYqdKFClXggBg-_4nk4NGVrnzbAw45zYskN4qBjHZh2SYoskvzA1hYtmvZzkPCw4mYqqsO_kA-kInOwC0PG0WbKzgL-Y5EvG3Y4JEp5j6grqt5nOx8E-wNUtiOgbJFffpq15rR7ZtBveo/s1600/b3e0b9793fc3745420f52812dc8597e2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiYqdKFClXggBg-_4nk4NGVrnzbAw45zYskN4qBjHZh2SYoskvzA1hYtmvZzkPCw4mYqqsO_kA-kInOwC0PG0WbKzgL-Y5EvG3Y4JEp5j6grqt5nOx8E-wNUtiOgbJFffpq15rR7ZtBveo/s1600/b3e0b9793fc3745420f52812dc8597e2.jpg" height="640" width="513" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Floris Moses</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn0qPG6hPLNciBGrwHjdrwcHcAUq8dE_GMyuL5NZ1eg7IgxETgVWrzv_-jbjO35QRU1YQzUIGX3yXCH4w62WA7qRPzJFvqMd4ks2JCMhp-1NtXXv3lXEhr39N3qJsC_Ia5bntqVAInPtkt/s1600/2b5a190107441c0a36f6f7229902ec3f.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn0qPG6hPLNciBGrwHjdrwcHcAUq8dE_GMyuL5NZ1eg7IgxETgVWrzv_-jbjO35QRU1YQzUIGX3yXCH4w62WA7qRPzJFvqMd4ks2JCMhp-1NtXXv3lXEhr39N3qJsC_Ia5bntqVAInPtkt/s1600/2b5a190107441c0a36f6f7229902ec3f.jpg" height="640" width="443" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Moshe (Moses) Mizrahi in June, 1950, Botanical Gardens</td></tr>
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pratyaynathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05687192840762085691noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761100541567343426.post-45497250921176191612015-01-14T12:22:00.003-08:002015-01-14T12:41:21.024-08:00Calcutta That Was: Paintings from 1792-1837<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In the late-eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, British painters vigorously painted the new Oriental colonial possessions of their country. Thomas Daniel and others traversed the length and breadth of the land to put down on paper what they saw before their eyes. Calcutta, the headquarters of the nascent colonial empire in the east, attracted particular attention of these painters. These paintings, in their vivid details, not only lets us take a glimpse at a bygone Calcutta through their eyes, but through way certain places, people and objects that found their way into these paintings, one can also note a thing or two about how these painters thought about and looked at the cityscape.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The collection of R. Jacob Esquire features several paintings from this period. The link to the collection is <a href="http://www.jewishcalcutta.in/exhibits/show/calcutta-1792-1837-in-painting" target="_blank">here</a>. </span></div>
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pratyaynathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05687192840762085691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761100541567343426.post-32874301716071817232014-10-08T04:30:00.001-07:002014-10-08T04:37:20.659-07:00Calcutta, c. 1945: Photographs taken by a G.I.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">In the mid-1940s, Calcutta swarmed with American G.I.s, on duty on the eastern front against a possible Japanese invasion. For most of these soldiers, the city -- with its imperious colonial architecture, the simultaneity of splendour and poverty, and seemingly strange lifestyle and practices of the 'natives' -- was a exotic wonder. Many of them found it worthwhile to take back visual memories of their stay and went around the city taking pictures of whatever they found curious. One such collection of sixty black-and-white photographs, taken by one Clyde Waddell, has come down to us in good condition and is preserved presently in several American libraries. Each photograph comes with a caption, put down by Waddell himself. Apart from giving us a glimpse of the bygone city through the lens of a military photographer, these accompanying captions also tell us something about how the American soldiers perceived and thought about the city and its people.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><pre><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Aerial view of Calcutta downtown. In upper left background is Hindustan building, U.S. Army HQ. The oldest
part of the city starts at the esplanade and extends upwards. The city was founded in the early 1700's.</span></pre>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOLSAiOzaktQ45gAp-A-2evv7e7Gyts-NFcYqhmz1sZSXyk-gKvweMDdsGj4pCt2K1ySW20YAS1Ctx7w4parcUNyHEYNnM3MkB2YFhqUYTwpjrR9_E_1CHHO7aEaz1zyLx3HI7GeQg3mVi/s1600/6.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOLSAiOzaktQ45gAp-A-2evv7e7Gyts-NFcYqhmz1sZSXyk-gKvweMDdsGj4pCt2K1ySW20YAS1Ctx7w4parcUNyHEYNnM3MkB2YFhqUYTwpjrR9_E_1CHHO7aEaz1zyLx3HI7GeQg3mVi/s1600/6.jpg" height="508" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><pre><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Chowringhee Square. The Mohammddan mosque, Juma Masjid, is shown at left. This is actually one of the
quiet moments when GI trucks, taxis, bicycles and other modes of transport can move with comparative freedom.</span></pre>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyl4QkOlGUKLCVrF1EIQ3M3XbvPePWcL3ORHREjWdsOEyV9kuUcJR2TkOAug747PIQvlNEeCtOamvbnNNdM1pxYFQT9Siy3aie136z2hiBcOJedRUffxeHd8BrxgLyG7aNc1as_3GR6qXE/s1600/41.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyl4QkOlGUKLCVrF1EIQ3M3XbvPePWcL3ORHREjWdsOEyV9kuUcJR2TkOAug747PIQvlNEeCtOamvbnNNdM1pxYFQT9Siy3aie136z2hiBcOJedRUffxeHd8BrxgLyG7aNc1as_3GR6qXE/s1600/41.jpg" height="478" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><pre><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Probably the largest market in the East is the New Market. Convering several blocks in the downtown area,
the 2,000 stalls offer most anything you could ask for, wartime shortages excepted. In addition to all the
items appealing to the local and tourist trade, the market contains giant food departments.</span>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrMv7xQgSltLxJzP6F05_zdS4XUFK7s-jHSWgy2ox1sSRe8ALVW5knAJD21ZVtgdGIGF0eXaAbX2OR-CI8U8M0o1sQ3r2o-uiktBPwflnaG9WKOYUgbKODYodZvnWH6wzX8SRlcmY8EFf2/s1600/32.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrMv7xQgSltLxJzP6F05_zdS4XUFK7s-jHSWgy2ox1sSRe8ALVW5knAJD21ZVtgdGIGF0eXaAbX2OR-CI8U8M0o1sQ3r2o-uiktBPwflnaG9WKOYUgbKODYodZvnWH6wzX8SRlcmY8EFf2/s1600/32.jpg" height="466" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><pre><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Indicative of the resumption of an age-old struggle for decent conditions is this immediate post-war
picture of tram-workers on strike. The strike lasted nine days but employees won par of their demands.
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4FTI7pEaMLM346qglaNN1jk8fD13SbmhJFB9urc-jN1yXuFqgGrMTCULSPjqi7WuduqY0BH5Z9zArPjFzXroFZASlqhabSFy7GAOB11AtJMBvRTdHiMRdG8NXVHBU-e43cH8q3X4LBu5V/s1600/46.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4FTI7pEaMLM346qglaNN1jk8fD13SbmhJFB9urc-jN1yXuFqgGrMTCULSPjqi7WuduqY0BH5Z9zArPjFzXroFZASlqhabSFy7GAOB11AtJMBvRTdHiMRdG8NXVHBU-e43cH8q3X4LBu5V/s1600/46.jpg" height="620" width="640" /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><pre><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">These Sikh lads have chosen an auspicious stand for their business of selling 'precious' stone to GI's.
No more than 12 years old, these boys are shrewd and 'malum' English well enough to trim a sucker every time.</span></pre>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYGOKLLIHPPAD63jE906zdw89suM-VbFeeL7pVQIAi6fHhkfxoJBI87HZf9wn8o0v43oXCgxtIAzY9IazCXTajsHIOQKd8meGGTqCC8cZVNFp1yCramLMmuU9c4I7OnvMjQyqrAe5xVwm1/s1600/11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYGOKLLIHPPAD63jE906zdw89suM-VbFeeL7pVQIAi6fHhkfxoJBI87HZf9wn8o0v43oXCgxtIAzY9IazCXTajsHIOQKd8meGGTqCC8cZVNFp1yCramLMmuU9c4I7OnvMjQyqrAe5xVwm1/s1600/11.jpg" height="514" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><pre><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Of Calcutta's assortment of colorful and intriguing characters, the sikh taxi-driver and his co-pilot
rank high. The co-pilot was added in 1944 following an affray in which a soldier knifed a driver. The two
GI's shown here are doing their best to convey their destination to the driver of the ancient jalopy.</span></pre>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaYJw0Q49JpwV4xZMNwJxIPP8GN4qoXqugSJuuFfdTyhMcVTy-hJbvc0oxy8q2JwKerWu7ThMVHSm4-2CWWa9Bpe3kfNZhPTN6n_IYTHkCe5iS-pB-GTMqZF2I4zpxuPYLdSpl732ljBpG/s1600/59.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaYJw0Q49JpwV4xZMNwJxIPP8GN4qoXqugSJuuFfdTyhMcVTy-hJbvc0oxy8q2JwKerWu7ThMVHSm4-2CWWa9Bpe3kfNZhPTN6n_IYTHkCe5iS-pB-GTMqZF2I4zpxuPYLdSpl732ljBpG/s1600/59.jpg" height="492" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><pre><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This cocoanut market on Cornwallis street is a sample of the haphazard way in which many basars are operated.
The popular pauses for refreshment is indulged by Indian in central foreground drinking cocoanut milk.</span>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><pre><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Calcutta's poor from a line to buy kerosene at 6 a.m. Each little cubicle may contain a shop and living
quarters for a family ranging possibly from 6 to 12. Sanitary facilities consist of an open street drain.</span></pre>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv2hAgDKK4ifGijCXGR-328KLlDXfHRt0Fjo2ksp4CMkxv1S6A2IhyphenhyphenewJcqA7i6r4RzcEDYFqKMzLJmncUl0NZuSgRI0onyM4uDFVvUPCRU6o8zvN-S4mjkqgo6nLjY77giS5eyInP1f82/s1600/52.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv2hAgDKK4ifGijCXGR-328KLlDXfHRt0Fjo2ksp4CMkxv1S6A2IhyphenhyphenewJcqA7i6r4RzcEDYFqKMzLJmncUl0NZuSgRI0onyM4uDFVvUPCRU6o8zvN-S4mjkqgo6nLjY77giS5eyInP1f82/s1600/52.jpg" height="468" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">A little snooping in Chinatown will turn up the little opium dens stuck down an alley (not recommended without police escort). Actually the smokers shown in this picture do it legally. Each den is licensed for so many pipes. Each pipe costs a rupee, a phial of opium five rupees. Average smoker consumes a phial a day and there are about 186 pipes licensed in Calcutta. </span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3_5PSVvhbnl0F2tTkh9Ha2bOfFJ37O7Tia8E1A0_2TfFnFOyD2JLU68zj-b8UlaiUn_XIknmzoISplvpRQUduHVeNgsIhdEbX5V5pPL5qcZAVy-Cpr7pDo8IlGI23CMA-8KkSyMOnhTzm/s1600/31.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3_5PSVvhbnl0F2tTkh9Ha2bOfFJ37O7Tia8E1A0_2TfFnFOyD2JLU68zj-b8UlaiUn_XIknmzoISplvpRQUduHVeNgsIhdEbX5V5pPL5qcZAVy-Cpr7pDo8IlGI23CMA-8KkSyMOnhTzm/s1600/31.jpg" height="492" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><pre><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The indifference of the passerby on this downtown Calcutta street to the plight of the dying woman in
the foreground is considered commonplace. During the famine of 1943, cases like this were to be seen in most
every block, and though less frequent now, the hardened public reaction seems to have endured.</span></pre>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrpIiHIHC-wQFp7CJJP35JwLATx8LvgdJOKPLXNFSryr5X3WJ0krg5OKA9X9KJPe5SO4YHedU-dk-Z9mBsIlq9k9j7E42U_FfDge3-9gHW-Fht9ywvrQvjSYZUzRZM13R8aakO-Ixms94w/s1600/27.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrpIiHIHC-wQFp7CJJP35JwLATx8LvgdJOKPLXNFSryr5X3WJ0krg5OKA9X9KJPe5SO4YHedU-dk-Z9mBsIlq9k9j7E42U_FfDge3-9gHW-Fht9ywvrQvjSYZUzRZM13R8aakO-Ixms94w/s1600/27.jpg" height="640" width="482" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><pre><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Indian movie actresses. Dressed in Sarees, 19-year old Binota Bose, left, and Mrs. Rekha Mullick, right,
are right at home before the camera and lights. Miss Bose earns $360.00 per month and Mrs. Mullick $210.00.
Both are well educated and prefer American books, pictures.</span></pre>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">In a <a href="http://thecalcuttaproject.blogspot.in/2014/09/you-have-date-with-calcutta-treat-her.html" target="_blank">different post</a>, we have already seen how the American military establishment decided to equip their soldiers who were to be posted in Calcutta with some sort of a guide book to launch them in the foreign land. These photographs, taken by one such soldier once he landed up in Calcutta, completes this circle. It tells us how, equipped with this guide book, he explored his way across the length and breadth of the city. In the process, he ended up creating a wonderful visual and textual archive for posterity. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Here is the </span>link to the complete album, which has all the sixty photographs: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/128454966@N03/sets/72157648511448715/">https://www.flickr.com/photos/128454966@N03/sets/72157648511448715/</a><br />
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pratyaynathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05687192840762085691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761100541567343426.post-82738463932019582242014-09-30T03:56:00.002-07:002014-09-30T08:07:34.390-07:00In Pictures: Mass Protests at Jadavpur University, by Ronny Sen<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="introduction" style="background-color: white; clear: left; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">[The following photo-essay of the ongoing Jadavpur University student movement by Ronny Sen was originally published in bbc.com. This is a repost. For the original, see </span><span style="background-color: transparent; line-height: 18px;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-29322789">http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-29322789</a>]</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Students at Calcutta's Jadavpur University have been protesting for the past fortnight at the sexual assault of a female student. A government-appointed panel has begun an inquiry, but the students, upset over the universities' decision to call in police against the protesters last week, say that is not enough.</span></div>
<div class="introduction" style="background-color: white; clear: left; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Photographer Ronny Sen went to find out why they are so angry.</span></div>
<span class="cross-head" style="background-color: white; color: #505050; display: block; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Parnab Das</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img alt="Parnab Das a 1st Year student of Masters in Comparative literature" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/77760000/jpg/_77760956_02.jpg" height="360" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border: 0px; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: 0px; position: relative;" width="640" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What began as anger over last month's assault has snowballed into fury over the authorities' response. Protests have also spilled outside the university campus, and at the weekend up to 25,000 people marched through Calcutta's streets. Parnab Das is doing a masters course in comparative literature. "I am also teaching in a school and I plan to leave my job so that I can give my full time to this movement," he says.</span></div>
<span class="cross-head" style="background-color: white; color: #505050; display: block; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Supratik Sur Roy</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img alt="Supratik Sur Roy is studying a Masters course in Film Studies" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/77760000/jpg/_77760964_04.jpg" height="360" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border: 0px; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: 0px; position: relative;" width="640" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Last Tuesday night, the situation came to a head when university vice-chancellor Abhijit Chakraborty called in police to quell a protest on the campus. Mr Chakraborty says he called in the police because he was under siege and had to be rescued. Dozens of students were injured and admitted to hospital. Supratik Sur Roy, a student of film studies, says it was "completely unacceptable" to send "commandos and police to beat up students who were protesting peacefully".</span></div>
<span class="cross-head" style="background-color: white; color: #505050; display: block; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Upasana Chakraborty</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img alt="Upasana Chakraborty is is an undergraduate 3rd year student of English at Jadavpur University" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/77760000/jpg/_77760957_03.jpg" height="360" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border: 0px; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: 0px; position: relative;" width="640" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Ms Chakraborty, an undergraduate student of English, says she was present on the night and that police came inside the campus and beat up the students. She has alleged that her boyfriend was severely beaten up and suffered multiple injuries. The students are now demanding that the vice-chancellor resign and Ms Chakraborty says she will not give up protesting until he quits.</span></div>
<span class="cross-head" style="background-color: white; color: #505050; display: block; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Prabuddha Ghosh</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img alt="Prabuddha Ghosh is a MPhill 1st Year student of Comparative Literature" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/77760000/jpg/_77760959_05.jpg" height="360" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border: 0px; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: 0px; position: relative;" width="640" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Mr Ghosh, an MPhil student of comparative literature, says: "I am proud to be a part of this movement. I was not present on the night when police came, but I wish I was there with my friends who were beaten up." The poster behind him, with the war cry Halla bol (Raise your voice), aptly sums up the mood of the protesting students.</span></div>
<span class="cross-head" style="background-color: white; color: #505050; display: block; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><span class="cross-head" style="display: block; margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Sanmit Chaterjee</b></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img alt="Sanmit Chaterjee is a Mphill student of second year studying Woman Studies." src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/77760000/jpg/_77760960_06.jpg" height="393" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border: 0px; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: 0px; position: relative;" width="640" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">"We are not only fighting against the vice-chancellor, we are addressing other issues as well. We are fighting against many things like moral policing on campus, which is being forcefully imposed on us", Sanmit Chaterjee says.</span></div>
<span class="cross-head" style="background-color: white; color: #505050; display: block; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><span class="cross-head" style="display: block; margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Rupsa Sarkar</b></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img alt="Rupsa Sarkar is a Mass communication and journalism student in a post graduation course" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/77760000/jpg/_77760961_07.jpg" height="360" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border: 0px; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: 0px; position: relative;" width="640" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Ms Sarkar, a mass communication and journalism student, says: "I don't think our demand to the vice-chancellor for a proper investigation into the molestation was wrong. What was the reason to bring the police inside the campus? The students were peacefully protesting. We will fight against police brutality and until the vice-chancellor resigns."</span></div>
<span class="cross-head" style="background-color: white; color: #505050; display: block; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><span class="cross-head" style="display: block; margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Devi</b></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img alt="Devi is an ex student, she passed out in 2012. " src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/77760000/jpg/_77760962_08.jpg" height="360" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border: 0px; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: 0px; position: relative;" width="640" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Devi is an ex-student who graduated in 2012. But the protests have seen many former students like her return to the university. Along with some other students, she has been painting and making posters which are being put up across the campus.</span></div>
<span class="cross-head" style="background-color: white; color: #505050; display: block; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><span class="cross-head" style="display: block; margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Prantick Das</b></span></span></span><br />
<div class="caption full-width" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #505050; float: none; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; position: relative;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img alt="Prantick Das is an ex student of Comparative Literature and Mass Communication in Jadavpur University" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/77760000/jpg/_77760963_10.jpg" height="360" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border: 0px; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: 0px; position: relative;" width="640" /></span></div>
<span class="cross-head" style="background-color: white; color: #505050; display: block; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">An ex-student of comparative literature and mass communication, Mr Das says he is here because he feels "very strongly" about the incident. "This could have happened to any one of us. Former students who are in different parts of the world are sending messages with their support and solidarity," he says.</span></div>
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pratyaynathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05687192840762085691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761100541567343426.post-21014522572255913932014-09-30T03:49:00.000-07:002014-09-30T08:07:39.072-07:00#hokkolorob: A Photostory of the Ongoing Movement in Jadavpur University<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="post-contents" style="border: 0px; float: none; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px 85px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top; width: 595px;">
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: 'PT sans', Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">
<span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">[September 2014 saw the dramatic escalation of a localised student movement in Jadavpur University in South Calcutta demanding a fair investigation into an incident of molestation of a girl in campus to a huge movement of students, intellectuals and citizens of Calcutta that strongly condemned the authoritarianism and callousness the university administration displayed in handling the situation. This photo-essay was originally published in <a href="http://www.aneyezine.com/in-solidarity-a-photostory-of-the-on-going-movement-in-jadavpur-university/">http://www.aneyezine.com/in-solidarity-a-photostory-of-the-on-going-movement-in-jadavpur-university/</a>. This is a repost. For details regarding the initial student movement demanding a fair investigation and the punishment of the molesters, see <a href="http://kafila.org/2014/09/12/jadavpur-university-students-struggle-against-gender-violence/">http://kafila.org/2014/09/12/jadavpur-university-students-struggle-against-gender-violence/</a>] </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: 'PT sans', Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">
<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">'Students, tired after a long day of protest, unwind with music, and much-needed sleep as the posters scream in the darkness. A photostory in (mostly) multiple exposure, </em><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">documenting the ongoing protests in Jadavpur University at night, on the 11th of September, taken between 2am and 4am.'<span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><br /></span></em></div>
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pratyaynathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05687192840762085691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761100541567343426.post-52720198592077939752014-09-30T01:15:00.000-07:002014-09-30T08:07:29.714-07:00Prose of Power and the Poetry of Protest – An Outsider’s Attempt to Make Sense of the ‘Kolorob’ in Kolkata: Uditi Sen<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">[Following an incident of molestation of a female student in the campus of Jadavpur University in South Calcutta, the administration set up an internal investigation committee to look into the matter. Fearing partiality in investigation, the students raised their voice and demanded the inclusion of impartial non-partisan people in the committee. The adament administration, however, decided to ignore these demands. As the students <i>gherao</i>-ed (blockaded) the Vice Chancellor (VC) in his office, the VC called in the police, who <i>lathi-</i>charged (beat up with sticks) the peacefully protesting students up and manhandled protesting female students. In response to these police brutalities in an educational institution, Calcutta saw, in the second half of September 2014, massive spontaneous protests and demonstrations (which mobilised with the catchphrase <i>hokkolorob</i>, literally meaning 'let there be clamour') on its streets by citizens and intellectuals, led primarily by the students. The following piece, a sympathetic yet succinct analysis of the governmental rhetoric aimed at delegitimising the movement, and the language of the protesters seeking to counter these governmental narratives and present alternate visions of politics and democracy, was <a href="http://kafila.org/2014/09/28/prose-of-power-and-the-poetry-of-protest-an-outsiders-attempt-to-make-sense-of-the-kolorob-in-kolkata-uditi-sen/" target="_blank">originally published</a> in kafila.org on 28 September 2014. This is a repost.]</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img alt="51288650-29337-hokkolorob" class="wp-image-23848 size-full" src="http://kafilabackup.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/51288650-29337-hokkolorob.jpg?w=600&h=342" height="342" style="border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); height: auto; max-width: 100%;" width="600" /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">#Hokkolorob – Embodied</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It’s been more than a week since tens of thousands of students marched in a rain drenched Saturday in Kolkata, in solidarity with Jadavpur University students and their fight for justice. Much has happened since to delegitimise this mammoth, genuinely popular and student-led march. A counter-march, the co-optation of the victim’s father by the ruling party, adverse propaganda in the press and fatigue and confusion amongst the protestors have been some of the dampening developments that followed the unexpected show of student power. True to their clarion call, <em>hok kolorob </em>(let there be clamour)<em>, </em>the marchers made a lot of noise. A week later, as the numbers of protestors on the streets have dissipated as fast as they had congregated, it is perhaps time to step back from the euphoria of the gathering and the intimidation and murky co-optation of protest that followed, to reflect on the political meanings and potential of this uprising.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The march was not organised by any single political party, though many with experience or background in student politics of one ilk or the other, marched. The vast majority, however, were students who had never marched before and had no experience of politics. The question therefore arises, what, if anything is the unifying ideology of this body of protestors? What goals motivate them? Above all, the question that is doing the rounds the most, on social media, on mainstream news and on the streets is what are the politics of the protestors? The question of politics is seldom posed directly. Its ubiquitous presence, however, can be clearly read in the answers provided regarding the nature of the march, the motivations of the protestors and the identity of the marchers. Unsurprisingly, diametrically opposite sets of answers emerge from members of the ruling party, inside and outside Jadavpur University; and the people who took to the streets on Saturday. From the Vice Chancellor, the Education Minister and officially ordained leaders of the ‘youth’, such as Abhishek Banerjee and Shankudeb Panda, characterisations emerge that focus on indiscipline on campus, presence of Maoist and other outsiders and deep conspiracies. From students of Jadavpur University and their sympathisers, assertions emerge that this protest is about justice and not about politics. Both characterisations fail to capture what is at stake.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What we are witnessing, in the <em>kolorob </em>that has spilled over from Jadavpur University onto the streets of Calcutta, is a clear opposition between the prose of those in power and the poetry of protest. But this opposition is not between politically motivated speech and an ‘apolitical’ quest for justice, notwithstanding characterisations by mainstream media and the disavowals of spirited protestors. What is at stake is a disagreement over the limits of political power, the manner in which elected governments and executive authorities can rule and the expectations that people, ordinary people, can have of those who rule in their name. While these may not be issues debated or taken up with any seriousness by existing political parties in West Bengal that does not make them any less political, in the broadest sense of the word. A closer look at the poetry of protest reveals not just wit and catchy phrases, but a profound critique of the established patterns of party-politics, what I call politics as usual. Defending the status quo of politics as usual is the prose of power, a concerted and by now, predictable pattern of allegations and misinformation designed to delegitimise popular protest. A closer look at the slogans thrown up in Kolkata suggests that the poetry of protest is not just critical of the prose of power, but also carries embedded within it aspirations of a different, more just society, thus speaking, in hushed tones, of a politics of democratic possibilities.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Dismantling the Prose of Power: The Proud Outsider</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The response of the authorities to the protest has followed what has become, by now, a familiar pattern. Every protest, every report of violence against women in Mamata’s Bengal is dismissed as <em>choto ghotona</em> (insignificant incident), <em>shajano ghotona</em> (a made-up incident) or <em>chokranto</em>(conspiracy). Such attempts to reframe and discredit genuine popular protest as either insignificant or a deep conspiracy by outsiders (<em>bohiragoto) </em>is eerily familiar in West Bengal. The allegation of being an ‘outsider’ was most famously and consistently mobilised by the Left Front government in Singur and Nandigram, as was the spectre of Maoism. Thus, despite a change in the identity of the ruling party, little has changed in the way those in authority relate to popular protest. It is clear, that neither the CPI(M), nor the TMC, once in power, have any space for popular movements that cannot readily be transformed into electoral gains. Despite whatever ideology might separate these two parties, they (and I suspect any political party that comes to power without actively seeking to dismantle the structures of domination that characterise West Bengal’s society and economy) share a common prose of power. The goal of this prose is to delegitimise popular protest. Its most obvious tool is language itself, backed by an entire machinery of propaganda and where necessary, some old-fashioned intimidation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My attempt to map out this prose of power is heavily indebted to Ranajit Guha’s ‘Prose of Counter Insurgency’ that taught us to read self-avowedly neutral reports of peasant insurgency produced by colonial officials as texts entirely complicit in upholding existing structures of domination. Following Guha’s work, which taught us to read ‘revolt against zamindari’ whenever colonial reports spoke of ‘defying the authority of the state’ and replace allegations of ‘intention to attack’ with ‘intention to punish oppressors’; may we not also learn to read the present prose of power for signs of complicity? The process has already started, on the streets, with student protestors countering allegations of being outsiders or ‘<em>bohiragoto’ </em>with declarations of ‘<em>ami gorbito, ami bohiragoto </em>– <em>pashe achi Jadavpur’, </em>which translates as ‘I am proud, I am an outsider, # Standing with Jadavpur’.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img alt="Bohiragoto Card" class="wp-image-23847 size-full" src="http://kafilabackup.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/bohiragoto-card.jpg?w=600&h=305" height="305" style="border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); height: auto; max-width: 100%;" width="600" /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">‘Bohiragoto/Outsider ID Card’ – Circulated Online in Response to the Calcutta High Court Interim Order Restricting the Entry of ‘Outsiders’ into the Jadavpur University Campus</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Thus, the poetry of protest takes the allegation of being from outside, being an illegitimate presence, and turns it into a proud presence of solidarity, an act of standing by friends/lovers/fellow students/fellow citizens. Surely, in future, it will be easier to read ‘proud presence in solidarity’ every time the authorities report ‘illegitimate presence of outsiders’ in a movement of protest. Neither the allegation of <em>bohiragoto</em>, nor its poetic refutation is new.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img alt="Bohiragoto - Poem by Shonkho Ghosh, widely used during the Jadavpur Protests" class="wp-image-23849 size-full" src="http://kafilabackup.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/shonkho-ghosh-poem-001.jpg?w=600&h=450" height="450" style="border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); height: auto; max-width: 100%;" width="600" /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Bohiragoto – Poem by Shonkho Ghosh, widely used during the Jadavpur Protests</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Shankha Ghosh’s brilliant poem by the same name begins by declaring ‘<em>You don’t want to talk about me ? Then surely, I am an outsider’</em>. But it is with the current <em>kolorob </em>that protestors on the streets have radically inverted the meaning of being a <em>bohiragoto. </em>They have made it into a fine thing to be, instead of a terrible and indefensible thing to be.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The authorities have made several other allegations of terrible acts/ways of being against students. Not all of the allegations have (as yet) met their match on the streets, in the poetry of protest. But all can be subjected to a similar inversion of meaning- a peeling away of the prose of power to reveal an idiom of protest- a fine way to be. Such an exercise has its uses for two reasons. Firstly, the prose of power is far from toothless. Its tactics and propaganda are designed to demoralise and its campaign in Kolkata has just begun. This piece is my humble contribution to the work of rendering its language toothless. Secondly, whatever action the authorities mark as terrible is what evokes the most terror in those who cling to the trappings of power at any cost; that which is demonised as indefensible is often also the very act against which the status quo has little or no defence. Thus a productive, might I even say, revolutionary, response against the allegations of those in power is not to plead or demonstrate innocence, but to <em>embrace what one is accused of, but by its true name</em>.</span></div>
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<dt class="wp-caption-dt" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img alt="Bohiragoto Statement 1" class="wp-image-23846 size-full" src="http://kafilabackup.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/bohiragoto-statement-1.jpg?w=600&h=336" height="336" style="border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); height: auto; max-width: 100%;" width="600" /></span></dt>
<dd class="wp-caption-dd" style="color: #888888; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Source: Bohiragoto-r Diary, Community Page on Facebook</span></dd></dl>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">[ Partial Translation: ‘Today it’s them, what guarantee is there it won’t be us tomorrow? To protest one does not need to be an insider or outsider. I had joined the march to fight against this tendency to divide. I will march again. In solidarity- Shubhrangshu Sarkar, Rupkala Kendra.]</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The proud embrace of the label of <em>bohiragoto</em>, as an ally, as one who stands in solidarity with the oppressed, demonstrates this move perfectly. Besides slogans, t-shirts and banners, the protests in Kolkata have also led to a facebook page, the ‘<em>Bohiragoto-r Diary’ </em>or ‘Outsider’s Diary’, which has testimonies from protestors who are not students of Jadavpur, but who marched anyway and who stand in solidarity with their struggle. Through these testimonies, the true names of the much-demeaned outsider emerge – ally, compatriot, human, student, sympathiser.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img alt="The Bohiragoro's Diary (Outsiders' Diary) Facebook Page" class="wp-image-23850 size-full" src="http://kafilabackup.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/bohiragotor-diary.jpg?w=600&h=249" height="249" style="border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); height: auto; max-width: 100%;" width="600" /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Bohiragoro’s Diary (Outsiders’ Diary) Facebook Page</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This act of re-naming the <em>bohiragoto </em>is of vital political importance as it points towards what the proponents of a politics-as-usual fear the most – alliances, solidarity and unity across campuses and between disparate sections of society. For such a politics of solidarity to come into being, the presence of ‘outsiders’ is a must. The presence of the <em>bohiragoto </em>can even be read a sign of when a local, isolated act of protest starts becoming something larger- a movement with dreams of justice. And a movement is neither as easily ignored, nor as easily suppressed as an isolated act of protest.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Following this logic, beginning to list all that the prose of power denounces as terrible can create a check list of all that terrifies the authorities the most, and therefore, all the actions that must be embraced in their true name. Below, I have attempted an analysis of the most common allegation against the students – indiscipline, phrased variously as ‘<em>nairajyo/arajokota </em>(which roughly translate as lawlessness) and <em>gundami </em>(thuggishness). The attempt is to translate what the prose of power says into what it actually means, and also, to speculate what the true name of indiscipline might be in an idiom of protest.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Indiscipline Vs Autonomous Learning</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Accusations of indiscipline have been the most common refrain used to delegitimise the protestors. Rather than go into the specifics of these allegations, I would like to get to the core of the authoritarian, top-down vision of education that enables this allegation to stick. Our education minister and state-ordained political leaders define education in the narrowest possible terms. The students are repeatedly told to ‘return to books’ and to ‘exams’ and thus restore ‘normalcy’ to campus.</span></div>
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<span class="embed-youtube" style="display: block; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="true" class="youtube-player" frameborder="0" height="368" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/KoW9G8Orfvk?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent" style="max-width: 100%;" type="text/html" width="600"></iframe></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;">[ Trailer of Film Adaptation by Q of 'Tasher Desh' Rabindranath Tagore's Visionary Anarchist Opera ]</span></h5>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The vision of disciplined education and campus life the authorities are evoking perhaps has its best expression in Rabindranath Tagore’s <em>Tasher Desh (Country of Cards). </em>The rules of that land evoked <em>niyom </em>or law/discipline above all else. ‘<em>Cholo niyom mote, cholo niyom mote. Dure takiyo nako. Ghar Bankiyo nako…’ </em>(Live by the rules, Don’t look Far, Don’t look askew).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In this vision of education, we have students as automatons, who stick to their prescribed roles: learn only what is offered for learning in classes and prescribed text books, and regurgitate that in the exams to win the necessary piece of paper that will be currency in the job market. Learning that cannot be converted to such currency has no value, if the authorities are to be believed. In fact, the prose of power would have values such as justice and all the skills that students can learn through organising excluded from the sphere of education.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img alt="Prose of power masquerading as protest at TMC sponsored counter-march. Translations below. 2nd From Left: We want education in educational institutes, not lawlessness. Hiding behind guitars is a deep conspiracy. 5th from left: Alcohol and Marijuana are becoming scarce, the real reason behind songs of protest. Source: Shankudeb Panda’s Facebook profile " class="wp-image-23845 size-full" src="http://kafilabackup.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/trinamool-slogans.jpg?w=600&h=300" height="300" style="border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); height: auto; max-width: 100%;" width="600" /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Prose of power masquerading as protest at TMC sponsored counter-march. Translations below.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;">2<sup>nd</sup> From Left: We want education in educational institutes, not lawlessness. Hiding behind guitars is a deep conspiracy.</span></h5>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;">5<sup>th</sup> from left: Alcohol and Marijuana are becoming scarce, the real reason behind songs of protest.</span></h5>
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<em><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;">Source: Shankudeb Panda’s Facebook profile. Shankudeb Panda is the leader of the Trinamool Congress Student Organization</span></em></h5>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Organising outside classrooms, conversing with the administration, requires students to educate themselves in the structures of administration, the ins and outs of how to effectively communicate and make demands within a certain system, how to hold it accountable. These are the nuts and bolts of practicing democratic citizenship. Yet, these are devalued as they are not the students ‘job’- they have deviated from memorising and regurgitating texts into learning about how to practice democracy and stand up for justice. This is, indeed, a terrible thing. They are also learning through doing the skills of communication, public speaking, the challenges of working with and across differences, the risk that egos pose to any kind of organising and the resolve and creativity needed to preserve unity. These are also, clearly, terrible skills for students to pick up. Indeed, what can be more terrifying to un-democratic power structures than an informed and active student body that does not just learn from texts, but also from the world they live in? A student body that applies their skills with words and their intelligence in the pursuit of dreams of democratic administration and justice, and not just in the pursuit of a pay-check, is surely a fine development for any democratic polity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The true name of <em>indiscipline</em> seems to me, to be <em>autonomy</em> – of thought and action. Far from not being a student’s job/role, autonomous thinking and learning that is aided by but not confined to books, is the very essence of education and what distinguishes it from ‘training’. Any educator worth his/her salt will tell you that our job is not to help students memorise relevant facts for an examination, but to teach them to think for themselves, in an informed and autonomous way. It is thus unsurprising that of the many cultural tropes used by students to describe themselves, one is of the students of Satyajit Ray’s <em>Hirok Rajar Deshe, </em>who were at the forefront of the crowd pulling down the king’s statue, a symbol of autocratic power. By evoking this trope, the movement that has spilled out from Jadavpur onto the streets, has inadvertently called out the authorities’ vision of education by its true name: <em>mogojdholai, </em>or brain-washing, which is designed to control and not to educate.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The prose of power is rich with allegations that lend themselves to this work of translation. This piece is inspired by and written in solidarity with the idealism of the students on the streets, and against an all-too-easy recourse to cynicism. So the list below is an open invitation to all to defang the prose of power through translations and re-namings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Allegations/Claims of the Prose of Power(<em>Terrible Acts)</em></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Meaning/Intentions of Authority</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Its true meaning </span></div>
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<tr><td width="176"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><em>Mod/Ganja</em> (drinking and smoking marijuana) on Jadavpur Campus</span></td><td width="143"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Moral Policing of Behaviour/Character Assassination</span></td><td width="160"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A rejection of puritanical codes of behaviour/Aspirations for Freedom (see image of graffiti below)</span></td></tr>
<tr><td width="176"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Girls in shorts/girls wearing tank tops</span></td><td width="143"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Gender policing through slut-shaming and victim-blaming</span></td><td width="160"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Aspirations of safety of expression for women and de-sexualisation of the female body</span></td></tr>
<tr><td width="176"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Disrespect of elders/professors/ administrators</span></td><td width="143"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Authoritarian administration of student affairs</span></td><td width="160"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Democratic governance that includes student representation</span></td></tr>
<tr><td width="176"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><em>#hokprotibad </em>(let there be protest)Claims of protesting against student indiscipline</span></td><td width="143"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A command performance of protest, filling the streets with TMC constituents. Intended to capture the political capital of being a dissenter (<em>protibadi)</em></span></td><td width="160"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><em>#hokkyalano </em>(let there be beatings) Hopes of beating into submissionautonomous student movements (I am indebted to TMC’s ‘youth’ and student leaders for providing this translation of their own actions)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img alt="Graffiti in Jadavpur University Photograp by Ronny Sen" class="wp-image-23858 size-full" src="http://kafilabackup.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/freedom-is-the-drug.jpg?w=600&h=211" height="211" style="border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); height: auto; max-width: 100%;" width="600" /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Graffiti in Jadavpur University Photograp by Ronny Sen</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This list is neither exhaustive, nor thought through. But it reflects my hope that in the <em>kolorob </em>in Kolkata, a new generation of students have begun to dream of a new kind of politics, rich with possibilities of democratisation, participation, equal opportunity and gender justice. These dreams and aspirations are not new, nor are they easy in a society riven with deep inequities of caste, class and gender. Moreover, these aspirations are expressed within a democratic structure where political parties have learnt to thrive on social inequities, rather than challenge the social status quo. This context of politics-as-usual, which relies of bullying, intimidation, hierarchy and propaganda, and is actually hostile to popular and autonomous aspirations of democratisation, brings me to my final and perhaps most vital act of translation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">‘Apolitical’ Protest Vs A Politics of Possibilities</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In their desperation to protect their dreams of justice and democratic participation from becoming fodder for politics-as-usual, many students have claimed an ‘apolitical’ stance. In the immediate aftermath of the <em>mahamichil </em>(grand march) on Saturday, The Telegraph reported the presence of anti-government sentiments, but absence of ‘politics’. (JU-bagh at heart of city, 20 Sept). Many students, especially many who have sought to proudly embrace the tag of<em>bohiragoto </em>have also hastened to embrace the label ‘apolitical’. (See example below.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img alt="A Post on the Bohiragoto'r Diary Facebook Page" class="wp-image-23852 size-full" src="http://kafilabackup.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/arundhati-sen-bohiragoro.jpg?w=600&h=450" height="450" style="border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); height: auto; max-width: 100%;" width="600" /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A Post on the Bohiragoto’r Diary Facebook Page</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Yet, how can the demand for justice, the demand to be heard, the refusal to accept imperious or irresponsible behaviour from figures of authority, be anything but a political demand? These demands carry within them aspirations of a different, better society and a reworking of the relationship between the rulers and the ruled, where those in power cannot rule with impunity. This, at its core, is a deeply democratic and therefore political aspiration. It seems that an act of translation is necessary to make sense of this paradox: an idiom of democratic protest that has donned the garb of the ‘apolitical’.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">SUCH A LOT IS WON WHEN A SINGLE MAN SAYS A NO</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><em>Life of Galileo</em>, Bertolt Brecht, quoted by Riddhi Sen in ‘We The Young, We the Fighters’, an article in The Telegraph, Kolkata</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;">Riddhi Sen is a student of class XI in the National Institute of Open Schooling, he is also an actor on stage and in films.</span></h5>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="http://http//www.telegraphindia.com/1140922/jsp/calcutta/story_18858065.jsp#.VCfy-Oc5vRI" style="color: #a61111; text-decoration: none;" title="We the Young, We the Fighters">Ridhdhi Sen’s article in the Telegraph</a> begins to get closer to articulating what this assertion of being ‘apolitical’ means for today’s youth. He identifies as a fighter, evokes Brecht, the power of saying NO to injustice, the potential of independence of thoughts and actions amongst the young and yet, distances himself from politics through the claim ‘we don’t need any political party to protest’. (We the young, we the fighters, 22 Sept). The disavowal of politics is clearly not a turning away from active participation in the fight for social justice. It is a distancing from existing political parties.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It seems a correct reading of the claim to be ‘apolitical’ would be a critique of ‘politics-as-usual’ and not an absence of political aspirations, such as justice and democracy. The poetry of protest thrown up in Calcutta expresses a deep dissatisfaction with so-called alternatives or options offered to an electorate by opposing political parties. Through poetry and art, the students were quick to point out that wildly varied official ideologies and pre-electoral posturing give way to but identical autocratic tendencies once in power. A slogan heard at the <em>mahamichil </em>last Saturday was ‘<em>Alimuddin shukiye kaath, shotru ekhon Kalighat’</em>. The Telegraph aptly translated this as ‘Alimuddin is a shrivelled stick, the new enemy is Kalighat (where Mamata lives)’, and yet failed to grasp its political significance. This is a new generation of protestors, for whom the rewards of politics as usual are insufficient. They are willing to call the bluff of the ‘establishment’ left and the right with equal passion. Though calling themselves ‘apolitical’ they are unwilling to be pushed out of the sphere of public protest or intimidated into giving up on their dreams of a different, more just society.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The concensus that emerges out of the <em>Kolorob</em> in Kolkata is thus one of deep disaffection with politics as usual. An ability to see through the competitive posturing of rival political parties to the self-serving rot within political parties that destroys democratic possibilities is neither new in West Bengal, nor unique to those who walked for justice in Kolkata last Saturday. What is new is a willingness to re-occupy the public sphere. What is new, is the willingness to share experiences, organisational skills and dreams of a better tomorrow across campuses, unmediated by the elders of established political parties. And in this space of sharing and organising, the seeds of a new kind of politics have been sown. This is a politics pregnant with new possibilities – of democratisation and of justice and of holding the elected accountable to the electorate. I hope that as the seeds of this new kind of politics takes root in West Bengal, those who identify as ‘apolitical’ today might eventually come to call themselves by their true name- idealists, fighters and dreamers of a politics of new possibilities.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Uditi Sen lives in a small town in Massachusetts, USA and teaches South Asian History at Hampshire College. She was active in student politics, with and without banners, at Presidency University and Jawaharlal Nehru University.</span></div>
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pratyaynathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05687192840762085691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761100541567343426.post-80919072982378180772014-09-01T07:03:00.001-07:002014-10-08T04:35:45.518-07:00'You have a date with Calcutta; treat her like a lady and you will find her to be one': A G.I.'s guide to wartime Calcutta<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Imagine yourself as an American soldier in the early 1940s. The war is on, and you have just been assigned to the India-Burma-Japan front. Your station will be Calcutta.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Jittery? Thinking how to get by on unfamiliar terrain? Worry not, G.I.! The Information and Education Branch of the US Army has just what you need. The perfect guide book, meant for none other than you!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Let's take a peek then, shall we? You are confused at the queer customs of the 'natives, are you? Well, here you go then:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i>THE LOCAL MAN</i></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>: </i><span style="background-color: white;"><i>Being a Bengal he usually has no headdress. Of the Bengalis only the Muslim wears a fez, and even he does not wear one all the time. The Bengali is that chap who wears a sheet-like cloth which you will see draped about his waist and legs, with the ends of the cloth tucked between the legs - sometimes winding up in a flowing, folded end that hangs in front. The shirt-like garment is worn outside the lower one. (Remember those jitterbugs back home who thought they were starting a new fad by allowing their shirttails to hang outside their trousers?)</i></span></span></blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXOOJ8IUBxqfVeBCyD1WwSvGrTBXPikcEKlxWOvTzqyvSzPzFmj2TVGKMjkVBjpsocOnnU6sj5V6hbq1dJHpTNg_R2P0Ij8D5UBNvXUzn6-KmjfPPrEV80fRuE3gnTTYlzGaZ8OlSfM5h4/s1600/k1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXOOJ8IUBxqfVeBCyD1WwSvGrTBXPikcEKlxWOvTzqyvSzPzFmj2TVGKMjkVBjpsocOnnU6sj5V6hbq1dJHpTNg_R2P0Ij8D5UBNvXUzn6-KmjfPPrEV80fRuE3gnTTYlzGaZ8OlSfM5h4/s1600/k1.jpg" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">YOU LOOK AT THE INDIAN:</span></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">You look at the Indian daily, you pass him on the streets, his life touches yours constantly. But do you actually see him, do you get a picture of what makes him tick, or do you brush him off in your mind as "That darn native who... ?" (He is an Indian, not a </span><span style="background-color: white;">native</span><span style="background-color: white;">, by the way - and you, being a non-Asiatic in a country where all such visitors are for convenience classed as Europeans, </span><span style="background-color: white;">you</span><span style="background-color: white;"> are a 'European.') You do see that the Indian is different from yourself. Granted. But - do you see that that difference between the two of you </span><span style="background-color: white;">does not</span><span style="background-color: white;"> give you a reason to criticize the Indian? Do you try to realize that the Indian's dress is not strange for India? Rather, it fits the climate here. The Indian thinks his turban to be sacred and does not want it touched. Is that silly to you? Okay, soldier, how'd you like to be back in the States sporting a new light-gray, snap-brim felt and have some stranger come along and casually reach up to finger it? When the stranger had picked himself up ... ! Many Indian women object to their hands being touched even in a friendly handshake. Perhaps you may feel the same way about the French custom of kissing you on both cheeks. Kissing </span><span style="background-color: white;">you</span><span style="background-color: white;">, the nerve of the guy! Everywhere, in streams, ponds, or under public fountains, you will see Indians taking baths by pouring water on themselves; although they have their own standards and their own instincts for cleanliness, a great number of Indians consider a bathtub to be dirty. Queer of them, isn't it? Ha ha! Some of our own States once outlawed the use of bathtubs as being immoral. To repeat, yes, the Indian is different. But instead of merely noticing that difference and judging it hastily, suppose we take a good long second look and attempt to understand the fellow's customs and ways of living. Remember, it is an age-old failure to laugh at things that you do not understand.</span></span></i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Yes, Calcutta is a great place to shop cheap, as you would notice. But what to buy? And where from? How would you get the best price? Well, let's talk about that then: </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNeI8UMazVxRlCEbfV_ciBEMhLb3h2VZmy9wot4rGHK6K4-wuiELazRajWoNYTTYXufWquQm2QEWQyAXp1Etcth1MIJ11tscvk3lR78Vq_7bCePbGLmaFYtc8N_sbWbKpgMjno9d67d4_g/s1600/k4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNeI8UMazVxRlCEbfV_ciBEMhLb3h2VZmy9wot4rGHK6K4-wuiELazRajWoNYTTYXufWquQm2QEWQyAXp1Etcth1MIJ11tscvk3lR78Vq_7bCePbGLmaFYtc8N_sbWbKpgMjno9d67d4_g/s1600/k4.jpg" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">'[SHOPPING] THE RIGHT WAY - AND THE WRONG WAY:</span> </i></blockquote>
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<i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">There are two ways to buy in Calcutta (if buy you must); you can buy at FIXED PRICES or you can BARGAIN for merchandise. Certain reliable, well-established stores in the city have a fixed-price scale, which simply means that there is no lookout posted to watch for your arrival. In all the other stores and in the markets or bazars a deliberately high price is quoted you for an article, and it is then up to you to argue the price down to somewhere within reason - without in the process losing </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">your</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> reason. You seldom win. If you leave any shop in India confident that you out-smarted the salesman, then be sure of this: YOU DIDN'T! You can profit by the experience (paid for) of other American soldiers. Buy </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">sound</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> products in </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">reliable</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> stores at </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">fixed prices</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">.'</span></i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span></blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM7sh2nSmiuBJ2CBvlYMHp5ScgtVqhgGALA1zgaPTNUo89krwPsgWpOmdWQqDIhHwjuLrxonkwPmYCqfn5ERGyPv5lp1JtOZxClRsz2eKd1bj1L9dweaTYwfESR00MXzTfAWN49sR7F-Gz/s1600/k5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM7sh2nSmiuBJ2CBvlYMHp5ScgtVqhgGALA1zgaPTNUo89krwPsgWpOmdWQqDIhHwjuLrxonkwPmYCqfn5ERGyPv5lp1JtOZxClRsz2eKd1bj1L9dweaTYwfESR00MXzTfAWN49sR7F-Gz/s1600/k5.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><i>TEXTILES:</i></span></span></blockquote>
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<i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Your </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">number one buy</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> in the Calcutta area. They're made in this vicinity, for one thing. Buy sarees, for instance. Sarees are the Indian woman's outer garment, a strip of cotton or silk some 54 inches wide and 6 to 8 yards long. Your girl can make them into dresses, coats or hangings. Or buy linens, lingerie, brocades - look over the shop's complete textile line for something that appeals to you.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Did you say you want to have some fun? Some drinkin' and dancin' may be? Well there you go then:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><i>LET'S EAT:</i></span></span></blockquote>
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<i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Calcutta has some fairly glamorous looking and tasting dishes, but, naturally, the present food is not up to its pre-war standards. You will want to sample some Indian food and some Chinese items - and then you will be quite ready to hurry back to that good old American style of cooking. eat only at in-bounds restaurants. Even these you will find none too clean.</span></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"></span></span></i></blockquote>
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<i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjcqsCZaXGyXEBMsXtSnfYu-mQ2IcrDbtzQlNGvrWv-mnPKxDpc1rPD49WlM4RnZilIEjIgp0jqdIW3_GCNL_ChZEBQ6RAiinizYxzABo2Y2DD7hixt5u5-anAXh_NPypeNFXtyMkB2zIe/s1600/k7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjcqsCZaXGyXEBMsXtSnfYu-mQ2IcrDbtzQlNGvrWv-mnPKxDpc1rPD49WlM4RnZilIEjIgp0jqdIW3_GCNL_ChZEBQ6RAiinizYxzABo2Y2DD7hixt5u5-anAXh_NPypeNFXtyMkB2zIe/s1600/k7.jpg" /></a></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><i>DRINKING: </i></span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><i>Bad news. You won't be too happy about the liquor situation in Calcutta; and yet the place hasn't reached the desert stage as yet. Good whisky is available on the black market, but you'd be a fool to pay the prices. Indian whisky, rum, and gin aren't too bad; but in the long run you will probably do both your mind and stomach a large-sized favor if you stick to that beer ration from the P.X. In the cabarets and restaurants you won't find the brandy-and-soda too hard to take; and you might like the gimlets (gin, lime juice & water) - or the John Collins. Some beer is available at Firpo's Services Restaurant on Old Court House St., if you get there between 1900-1930. It's a here-it-is, there-it-was proposition. For bottled goods try the Army & Navy Stores at 41 Chowringhee Rd., or Mookerjee, O. N. & Sons, 3,4,5 Lindsay St.</i></span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i><span style="background-color: white;">DANCING:</span></i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i><span style="background-color: white;">In Calcutta you will not find night clubs of the type you knew back home. In fact - no night clubs. However, there are a number of places where you can dance. </span></i></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i><span style="background-color: white;"> For E.M. there are regularly scheduled dances at the ARC Burra and Cosmos Clubs on Dalhousie Square, at the Continental Service Club at 12 Chowringhee Rd., at the Y.M.C.A. on Corporation St. Gals will be on deck. You </span><span style="background-color: white;">can</span><span style="background-color: white;"> have fun. Check at any club for scheduled nights. </span></i></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i><span style="background-color: white;"> Other spots where a G.I. can go - but where he should bring his own partner - are the Winter Garden and the Princes Room in the Grand Hotel (some real jive music in the Winter Gardens), Firpo's in the block above the Grand, and the Great Eastern Hotel (Wed. & Sat. only). </span></i></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i><span style="background-color: white;"> For officers there are weekly or nightly dances scheduled in most of the private clubs. Members and their guests only. </span></i></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i><span style="background-color: white;"> Firpo's, the Winter Garden, and the Great Eastern Hotel are open to officers, too.</span></i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Wondering what all this is about? It's is a guide from 1945 to wartime Calcutta for the American soldiers who were being dispatched to be stationed here. With a slightly patronising, yet surprisingly liberal tone, this guide discusses in details whatever these soldiers would be looking to negotiate, starting from the local climate, manners and customs of the people of the city, to places to go for dining, drinking and other entertainments. The guide to what to shop and how is especially detailed, with a separate section for buying souvenirs. Expecting that the soldiers would want to send mails regularly back home, it also discusses issues about postage. There is also a list of shops for purchasing dresses, films, jewellery, musical instruments, radios, shoes, sporting goods, as well as a range of dry cleaners, hairdressers, opticians, pharmacists, stationers and so on. Expectedly, it also has a map of the city:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Here is the complete book: </span><a href="http://cbi-theater-1.home.comcast.net/~cbi-theater-1/calcuttakey/calcutta_key.html" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;" target="_blank">The Calcutta Ke</a><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="http://cbi-theater-1.home.comcast.net/~cbi-theater-1/calcuttakey/calcutta_key.html" target="_blank">y</a>. I will leave you with the opening note of the book then, from none other than Brigadier General R.R. Neyland, signed in Calcutta, 1945: </span><br />
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<b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>TEEK-HAI</i></span></b></center>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i> Once I knew a man who grew up in Philadelphia but never visited Independence Hall located there. I know several New Yorkers who though they live in its shadow, have never visited the Statue of Liberty. </i></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i> I hope it can never be said that you were in Calcutta and didn't visit the Burning Ghats, the Kalighat Temple, and some of the other - equally famous - sights which Calcutta affords.</i></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i> If you come here with an open mind you will find Calcutta is "Teek-Hai" (Okay). Of course, it's just like visiting any big city back home: you can have a good time, or a bad time, depending on how well you take care of yourself. </i></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i> Incidentally, the people here like us. They think we're all right. Thanks to the good behavior of the American soldiers who preceded you, a friendly welcome from these folks awaits you. If you behave equally as well, a similar welcome will await your buddies who follow you in here. </i></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i> "Teek-hai ?"</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">P.S.: While we are on the topic of the G.I.-s going to 'exotic' locations during the World War II, listen to this beautiful number, recorded by the Andrews Sisters. It's called <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rum_and_Coca-Cola" target="_blank">Rum and Coca Cola</a> </i>and is about US soldiers in the West Indies<i>. </i>It stayed on top of <i>Billboard's</i> U.S. pop singles chart for ten weeks in 1945.</span><br />
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pratyaynathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05687192840762085691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761100541567343426.post-69291842595447674382014-08-31T16:44:00.000-07:002014-08-31T16:51:15.543-07:00Eta Kolkata (This is Kolkata), by Kaveri Gill<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">[This piece originally appeared in Kafila on 22 June 2014. This is a repost. For the original, see </span><a href="http://kafila.org/2014/06/22/eta-kolkata-this-is-kolkata-kaveri-gill/" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">http://kafila.org/2014/06/22/eta-kolkata-this-is-kolkata-kaveri-gill/</a><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Today comes the surreal news that anyone painting their house or apartment white or sky blue in Kolkata can claim a waiver on property tax for a full year, a horror conjuring up a city that looks like a crumpled weave of Mother Teresa’s saree. Now, towns of Regency England and the Cornwall coast have uniform building and color restrictions to maintain historical continuity, but this idea is more in the perverse vein of <em>babus </em>suggesting that the burning ghats at Varanasi be “white-washed” for “freshness”.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="The Chief Minister's radio and music in public places scheme" class="wp-image-22976 size-full" height="238" src="https://kafilabackup.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/the-chief-ministers-radio-and-music-in-public-places-scheme.jpg?w=600" style="border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); height: auto; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 100%;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: italic; line-height: 22px; text-align: start;">The Chief Minister’s radio and music in public places scheme</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Thankfully, another Humphrey shot that idea down, yet the decimation of the architectural integrity of the façade of these famous ghats continues apace, with sealed air-conditioned buildings overlooking the burning bodies at Manikaran. Bengal’s Chief Minister has been known to remark that the colours “promote happiness” and accordingly, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) Mayor has incentivised citizens to embrace the “theme colours of the city”<a href="http://kafila.org/2014/06/22/eta-kolkata-this-is-kolkata-kaveri-gill/#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="color: #a61111; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">[1]</a>. Coming on the heels of a general election, where the TMC won 34 seats out of 42, up from 19 in 2009, and compared to only 2 each for the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (with 18% of the vote share, not to mention an almost win in the city), even discounting for dirty tricks appropriated by their cadres from the Left of old, the scorn must be tempered by what this result says about the contemporary citizen of this state and city.<span id="more-22975"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What it says is what <em>bampanthi</em> Bengali friends of mine, originally from Kolkata, never cease to tell me, when I am openly admiring and envious of the culture and milieu that is theirs – that it was theirs, but is no more (I’ll discuss the nostalgia-chimera effect below, theirs – <em>Bhooter Bhabishyat</em> – and mine!) I have come to accept what they insist on, that my eclectic and random sample circle is not representative of a population that is increasingly emulating the worst of the rest of India – conservative, censuring, consumerist, with closed minds, even casteist and communal by other genteel names. They are not alluding to Marwaris here, as central to the fabric of the city as the next native, but <em>bhadralok</em> Bengalis, with their share of arrivistes (as a Punjabi, this comforts me); those who’d gossip about single women; and worse, those not reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez, rather favouring to listen, not so secretly either, to <em>pyaar pyaar pyaar hookah bar</em> from Bollywood. These attitudes carry from Kolkata to CR Park in Delhi, as they would if one prefers to always carry the weather with one, to paraphrase the song. A look at Bengali popular television series, not very different in their regressiveness from Hindi serials, and I began to see why my friends are trying to remove my rose-coloured glasses.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But why, oh why, must this be so? Even as a non-Bengali, who had made only one previous visit during Durga puja to north Kolkata in the early 1990s and a fleeting day trip to present a paper at Centre for Studies in Social Sciences (CSSS) more recently, a leisurely stay in the city this past winter made me feel intensely nostalgic about its past, their past. Because for those with a certain sensibility, what Kolkata came to be (as opposed to what the British wanted it to be) is India’s finest past and losing it means a place of refuge, a dying but essential world, is gone forever. I am conscious I sound like a geriatric loyal life member of the India International Centre (IIC) here, but ceding and admitting upfront that all nostalgia has an element of sincerely remembered fiction and projection, that’s its very purpose, I see no harm in it. All the more reason for genuine natives of a similar aesthetic and politics, who take Kolkata for granted, as a place of psychological and actual belonging, a place that they can retire to when the rest of the world fails to deliver or falls apart, ought to sit up and speak up, or hold their peace forever. Its decline and disappearance will hit them harder than the rest of us in India, who have never had such a city – whether imagined or real, it doesn’t matter – to call one’s own.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">If praise is in order to salvage, then here is what struck me about Kolkata on this recent visit. Some qualifiers are in order here. I stayed in the IIMC Joka campus, on the south-western edge of the city, or the Republic of Joka, as my Bengali hosts christened it, an independent metaphorical island standing in stark contrast to its environs. I walked the rest of the city, as much as I could – which does not include the new extensions of Salt Lake and New Town, only because I didn’t get a chance to visit either. My piece is a modest one, written as a complete outsider, with no prior connection to the place (and therefore, far from the perspective of an embedded insider, as Amit Chaudhuri’s or Indrajit Hazra’s recent books on the city portray). Having no baggage to a place frees one to sometimes see things – good and bad – that locals are blind or immune to, however, with a starkness and cold comparator gaze that begs documentation. That, alongside my research interests in urban and metropolitan life in India, compelled me to pen this sketch of a city, admittedly only experienced in a compressed amount of beautiful winter time.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="The Hugli" class="wp-image-22977 size-full" height="238" src="https://kafilabackup.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/the-hugli.jpg?w=600" style="height: auto; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 100%;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: italic; line-height: 22px; text-align: start;">The Hugli river</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The magnificent matriarch, bordered by the splendorous languorous Hugli, like a nonchalantly tossed <em>pallu</em> of a saree in freefall, cannot be described in terms that crudely focus on her inability to attract investment, or retain skilled white collar workers, functional attributes that can never explain a great city. These might be necessary but are insufficient conditions, as an economist would crudely put it, to sustain and regenerate urban agglomerations over time, as will be found out in the many bustling metropoles (Bangalore) and flourishing satellite towns (Gurgaon and Noida) playing to the tune of just such a single-minded, instrumental piper. A living, breathing space of beauty, densely inhabited by old trees growing out of old buildings, as much as people from all walks of life, Kolkata is a city no amount of urban planning could ever create or recreate, for it’s a space visibly contoured by and contingent on its past.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">‘Compare, for instance,’ says Sir J. Strachey in chap. i of the 1903 edition of his India, ‘what Calcutta was when Lord Lawrence became Viceroy in 1864 and what it is now. This city, the capital of British India, supplies an excellent type of what has been everywhere going on. The filth of the city used to rot away in the midst of the population in pestilential ditches, or was thrown into the Hooghly, there to float backwards and forwards with every change of tide. To nine-tenths of the inhabitants clean water was unknown. They drank either the filthy water of the river, polluted with every conceivable abomination, or the still filthier contents of the shallow tanks. The river, which was the main source of supply to thousands of people, was not only the receptacle for ordinary filth; it was the great graveyard of the city. I forget how many thousand corpses were thrown into it every year. I forget how many hundred corpses were thrown into it from the Government hospitals and jails, for these practices were not confined to the poor and ignorant; they were followed or allowed, as a matter of course, by the officers of the Government and of the municipality. I remember the sights which were seen in Calcutta in those days in the hospitals, and jails, and markets, and slaughter-houses, and public streets. The place was declared, in official reports written by myself in language which was not, and could not be, stronger than the truth required, to be hardly fit for civilized men to live in. There are now few cities in Europe with which many parts of Calcutta need fear comparison, and although in the poorer quarters there is still much room for improvement, there is hardly a city in the world which has made greater progress”<a href="http://kafila.org/2014/06/22/eta-kolkata-this-is-kolkata-kaveri-gill/#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="color: #a61111; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">[2]</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Today, I would say London ought to fear comparison with Kolkata (on dirt, filth and those other native abominations, as much as the beauty and grandeur of the buildings). For as a friend remarked, the British Empire could afford luxury and scale in the colony that they could not back home, and if India was the jewel in the crown, Kolkata was its first and finest cut (Delhi, I’m afraid, does not even come close). The magnificent General Post Office dome rising above the surrounding vista, taken with the fact that it is that very British thing called a GPO and not a paean of love such as the Taj Mahal, can only be an imperial imprint. The flat green expanse of Maidan, punctuated only by the canopy of trees that have witnessed the passage of time, and under which shelter people selling <em>jhaalmuri</em> to lovers and kids playing cricket, is just grand. Then there are the buildings of the Dalhousie area, or as it is now known, BBD Bagh (central business district and government center), each finer than the next, conjuring up tea and the sabre and thrust of commerce and speculation of the trading houses of old. Built to similar height, neither high rise and neither single storey – as is much of Kolkata – with civilised walkable alley space between two constructions, each would be a listed building, with a plaque of “Here lived so and so, from such and such dates”, were these in a richer region more cognisant of its heritage, such as Europe. Switzerland even celebrates fictional characters and their places, such as Heidi Land, as King’s Cross Station in London marks Harry Potter’s departure to Hogwarts on Platform 9 and 3/4ths.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img alt="GPO at dusk" class="wp-image-22978 size-medium" src="http://kafilabackup.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/gpo-at-dusk.jpg?w=300&h=224" height="224" style="border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); height: auto; max-width: 100%;" width="300" /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">GPO at dusk</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Of course, there has to be balance, of not demolishing and burying one’s history, but equally, allowing a city to be a living, dynamic phenomenon. As our heritage would crush us, if that’s <em>all </em>we focused on preserving and maintaining, it’s wonderful to see the dense and equalising occupation of space, oriented towards cheap functionality, or as McKinseywallahs love to put it, efficient service delivery (albeit coming from the so-called ‘informal sector’, not a chain store). What else are the small shops selling <em>puja-ware</em> outside the Netaji Bhawan metro station? Or the <em>chai ki dukaans</em> in the midst of BBD Bagh, serving invigorating masala decoctions in Rs. 6 <em>khullars,</em> with Marwaris half in and out of suddenly stationary Audis, pulling out wads of cash in search of change, rubbing alongside pedestrian patrons, all patiently awaiting their turn while watching the stock exchange ticker in the background. I’m observing the peculiar police van, with its open grills, parked outside the Lal Bazaar police station, the sight of which heralded terrible things in the Naxalite movement times of the 1970s. For the narrow by lanes and<em> galis</em> of this city, in long shadows and short nights, have seen violence of an unprecedented kind for a metropolitan in modern times, one cannot forget. But today, with the bougainvillea flowering outside the Writer’s Building, which remains<em> lal</em> only in letter and not spirit, that seems a misplaced past. What seems closer, curiously, are the boulevards and expanse of the imperial imagination, at its finest in the “Race Course/Fort William/Esplanade” area, north of “Allipoor” and “Bhawanipoor”, as sketched in A. Upjohn’s yellowing map of the Kolkata of 1792 displayed in a moth-ball scattered glass display case in the Asiatic Society.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img alt="The Asiatic Society on Park Street" class="wp-image-22979 size-medium" src="http://kafilabackup.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/the-asiatic-society-on-park-street.jpg?w=300&h=260" height="260" style="border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); height: auto; max-width: 100%;" width="300" /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Asiatic Society on Park Street</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I visited the Asiatic Society of Bengal, “a British scholarly institution in the capital of British India”, in hot pursuit of an intrepid Hungarian traveler who became its librarian, whom I learned about from another idiosyncratic Bengali friend<a href="http://kafila.org/2014/06/22/eta-kolkata-this-is-kolkata-kaveri-gill/#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" style="color: #a61111; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">[3]</a>. Most of them seem to lead dual cognitive lives quite seamlessly i.e. an exterior and an interior, or a real and an imagined etc., which makes it all so much more interesting and means their corporal selves might end up somewhere quite different to whence they commenced! Similarly, Alexandre Csoma de Koros (1784-1842) set off for Turkestan in Central Asia but ended up in the subcontinent, and it was said that “aggressive Sikhs” and their potential attack on the Ladakh valley [further] changed the course of his life, depositing him in the high mountains<a href="http://kafila.org/2014/06/22/eta-kolkata-this-is-kolkata-kaveri-gill/#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" style="color: #a61111; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">[4]</a>. He went on to become the founder of Tibetan Studies, translating the first Tibetan-English dictionary and some Buddhist cannons, amid constant adventures of permissions and locations and elusive lamas. He gets a mention in Nicholas Roerich’s <em>Altai Himalaya</em> and <em>Shambala</em> writings:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“Lama, why do your priests claim that Shambhala is far beyond the ocean, when the Shambhala of earth is far closer? Csoma de Koros even mentions, with justification, the place—the wondrous mountain-valley, where the initiation of Buddha was held. I have heard that Csoma de Koros reaped misfortune in life. And Grunwedel, whom you mentioned, became insane; because they touched the great name of Shambhala out of curiosity, without realizing its stupendous significance”<a href="http://kafila.org/2014/06/22/eta-kolkata-this-is-kolkata-kaveri-gill/#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" style="color: #a61111; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">[5]</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Of course, I felt a personal connection with him and had to pay homage.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Asiatic Society is located at one end of Park Street, just before the Free Masons Building (tickles my fancy to imagine high Anglo-Saxon politicians rumoured to be among the society’s illustrious members visiting in stealth). Its old and new buildings lie connected by its own, open-air Bridge of Sighs, a worthy subaltern equivalent to the St Johns one in Cambridge and the New College one in Oxford, at any rate. Unlike many libraries and archives in India, where sheer<em>babudom</em> keeps anyone without the requisite paperwork out, the head librarian accepted my host’s academic credentials in lieu of any identity card which would gain me a legitimate entry. Warming to my queries about Csoma – as she referred to him – she showed me his many entries in the reference card section of the new building, before marching me smartly across to the old building, to proudly point to his bust and rather basic writing room. Opposite him stood a portly polymath Ashutosh “Mookherjee”, mathematician and lawyer, after whom a College in Hazra is named. Both flank the musty, velveteen, old world Vidyasagar Hall, where the results of the first survey of this and that were set out in colonial times.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Back in the manuscript collection, a letter electing P.C. Mahalanobis as ‘Physical Sciences Secretary’ in 1924, is displayed right next to a Tibetan <em>Smon-Lam-Sutra</em> folio showing an exquisite miniature of a fierce deity, such as Vajrapani or Hiyagreeva, dancing in flames that represent the burning of the veil of ignorance, set against black handmade paper. Further along are some gems from Csoma’s <em>Mahāvyutpatti</em> (1831) Sanskrit Tibetan English Lexicon:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“”Priests! Like as gold is tried by burning, cutting & filing, the learned must examine my commandments (doctrine) and receive them accordingly, and not out of respect (for me)” – so spake Lord Buddha”. [On my host’s suggestion, I am reading Louis Althusser’s brilliant easy, <em>On Limits of Marx</em>, in which Marx is quoted as saying he is not a Marxist i.e. it is not an ideology that he has propounded, to be followed in blind faith! To the extent a religion is an ideology, the Buddha said it long before, is all I can think.]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“There is no eye like the understanding; there is no blindness like ignorance; there is no enemy like sickness; and nothing dreaded like death”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I am arrested by a bust of James Prinsep – of the redeveloped waterfront Prinsep ghat fame – who is curiously made to look like an ancient Roman, with aquiline features and a toga flung over a shoulder. Off I go to the publication shop outside, which sadly does not have a copy of Csoma’s<em>Mahāvyutpatti</em> for sale. The Asiatic Society should reprint its classic publications, the lack of which is felt by many a discerning reader, as they bought out some treasures in area and disciplinary side alleys in times past. I must make do with P. J. Marczell’s earnest two-volumes on Csoma, instead. As the Indian Museum is closed to due to extensive renovations, I wander into Park Street and stop at a roadside stall to pick up a tourist guide and map of Kolkata (Jui Juli Publication), which allows me to walk the city alone, and thereby make it my own. There are cheap reprints of Chetan Bhagat bestsellers lying alongside those of J. R. R. Tolkien’s <em>The Hobbit</em> – only in Kolkata!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The air-conditioning at Firpo’s is too chilly, and the queue for <em>chelo kebabs</em> outside Peter Cat’s too long, so I go across to Flury’s for open asparagus sandwiches and Viennese coffee. Assuming myopia rates are similar across the spectrum (not to fall into the cultural stereotypical trope of higher reading rates!), I notice many more women in Bengal wear spectacles than in the rest of the country. As one notices multiple race identities in Cape Town (black, white, coloured, Indian etc.), I’m struck by the mixed population of <em>bhadralok</em> Bengalis, Marwaris, Anglo-Indian and Chinese-origin customers, representative of various communities who call Kolkata home, I suppose. My Bengali friends point out that the numbers of ‘others’ used to far exceed what they are today, to the detriment of the city’s cosmopolitan nature. To a frontier Punjabi this seems a real pity, as we are good at absorbing and being absorbed, for we’ve learned that the rising tide at the shore arrived at and the shore abandoned – propelled by migrant and immigrant labour – raises all boats. I say <em>white channa</em>, you say <em>ghugni </em>and so it happily goes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Stepping out into what at dusk is a merrily lit Christmas Champs Élysées, even though Jesus’s birthday has passed long since, I set out for the South Park Street Cemetery. If the Chief Minister has redefined Keynesian government spending to mean mood lighting for the depressed masses, who am I to complain? Her other unique Keynesian scheme, of uplifting music via radios in public spaces, is visible in dangling contraptions hanging at periodic intervals from the trees, literally at a height where one could unwittingly get bopped on the head by one (or electrocuted, should it be raining?) Melodious sentimental Rabindra <em>sangeet</em> is gently wafting out into the atmosphere, sadly drowned out by the sound of taxis zipping past. An attempt to cross the street is quickly abandoned, as unlike other cities of India, a competition on risk seeking versus risk averse behavior, illustrated by the pedestrian gingerly stepping into the midst of moving traffic holding their hands out in a makeshift supplicatory stop-sign, is likely to end up with one being killed in Kolkata. If one absolutely must cross the road, then shadow the locals closely, even using genteel old ladies in their beautiful <em>jamdanis</em> as de facto human shields!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Continuing with my spell of good luck with staff at places of public interest being understanding and indulgent of the curious, by the time I arrived, it was as Tom Waits would croon <em>Closing Time</em>at the South Park Street Cemetery, but the caretaker allowed me in, to stay on until I’d seen the place. Set amidst lush foliage and odd-shaped large gravestones, William Jones’s resting place is impressive. In an inversion of the scene from <em>Passage to India</em> where Adela and Mrs. Moore are each in their own way spooked by the Marabar Caves trip with the native Aziz, I am very unnerved by the ghosts of the many British officers and their wives, some dearly departed in their early twenties as they clearly couldn’t withstand the strains of colony. I’m relieved to get out and return to the very here and now Behala Bazaar, and tomorrow, to brown ghosts of<em>zamindar</em> north Kolkata.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Armed with my map, I decide to take the metro from Kalighat, only slightly smarting when recalling my friends’ laughter at my earnest query about how come the next stop, Jatin Das, is named after the artist, who is spotted regularly at the IIC in Delhi? It’s evident that the prettily-tiled metro is used very heavily, for there is a separate queue for those with exact change. Getting off at Shyambazaar metro, I walk down to Bagbazaar ghat.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Shyambazaar mansion in north Kolkata</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In <em>Bhooter Bhabishyat</em> there is a throwaway line about the “two hundred year old mansions of north Calcutta and the art deco ones of south Calcutta” (around Deshapriya Park and Rashbehari Avenue, I imagine, as a friend has walked me through their beguiling leafy surrounds), but nothing has prepared me for the sight of these stunning traditional homes, with Venetian blinds and old trees intertwined naturally with the walls and structures. Peeping into narrow by-lanes that demarcate homes, the shadows cast on a supine sleeping dog or a <em>Punjabi-dhoti</em>-clad <em>pundit </em>mounting his bicycle, I wander past hole in the wall shops selling Bengali wedding bangles. A temple, some railway tracks, and one begins to feel the breeze of the mighty Hugli. Just as seaside cities have a sense of freedom and the vast unknown, riverside ones have a sense of calm and expansive refuge, so “you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you”, as Kipling put it. A little known fact about the city shared by my host is that gasping, choking waterways run the entire length of it, so an imaginative transport minister could actually conceive of reviving such a friendly mode of getting about – then Kolkata would have not only the Villa Borghese’s of Rome, many of them, but some of the romance of Venice, too!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I flag down a cab to take me to College Street, but after a short ride, during which the taxi driver tells me “profiteering” under the Left happened much as it is under the TMC (show me a city where a blue collar worker uses exactly this English term – please don’t be predictable and say Havana – and I’ll change my politics!), he deposits me near a tram stop. Startlingly honest, he explains a TMC rally means streets are clogging up and the Vidhan (Sarani) tram will be faster and cheaper. Just like trams in Europe, although this one could do with some paint, I trundle along with mothers, children and the odd student, the conductor having politely taken my Rs. 2 fare and given exact change. Contrast and compare with recently experienced toll booth behavior in Uttar Pradesh, where venal louts are forcibly dispensing <em>aloo bhujiya</em> packets worth Rs.2 in lieu of Rs.5 change, take it or leave it – and then we wonder at the governments who come to power, is it any surprise given the number of seats that state accounts for in Parliament? Asinine administrators that Kolkata appears to have at present, mean trams are being discontinued and the expensive land on which central tram depots lie is being auctioned off, as the deeds are apparently very clean and organised, thanks to white ghosts and their penchant for order and documentation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Forensics’ building in Medical College, Calcutta</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Lackadaisical lunch at the India Coffee House on College Street follows, enveloped in cigarette smoke despite prominently displayed signs saying the activity is prohibited. I’m intrigued not just by the book sellers peppering the street outside – now selling more texts and fewer rare books – but by the many ‘publishers’, who I later learn are actually functioning independent presses. Imagine that! A stroll through Sanskrit College, Presidency, and then through the red brick Calcutta Medical College and Hospital, is a must. Once I’m past the odour of the open waste dumps in the premises, I see the most incongruously beautiful forensics’ building en route to Central metro station. I think of the dead body of a poor woman lying at the edge of the Maidan ground the other day, passersby giving it wide berth. No one appeared to be missing her. And yet, as cruel a metropolitan city as Kolkata is to the marginalised, as are all metropolitan cities (Mother Teresa wouldn’t have had a job otherwise), I haven’t seen one in contemporary India or the world in fact, where they are so integrated and interwoven, literally, into its fabric. For in many cities of the developed world, there is de facto segregation (homeless, mentally ill, predominantly black people in Washington DC come to mind) and in others, they have been forcibly shunted out and made to disappear en masse to the peripheries (for instance, due to Ahmedabad’s waterfront development project or Delhi’s Commonwealth Games). From footpath dwellers, who have carefully and neatly carved out their ‘work’ and ‘living’ space in one, and stall owners, who redefine the word “cubby”, to the fact that one can eat a decent meal for Rs. 25 or even less on the street – all point to a dense coexistence, born out of codependence, of every class of citizen of the city.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A footpath dweller neatly carves out space</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A great city must have its share of eccentrics or what is the point of it? Mullick’s Marble Palace is ode to such an acquisitive character, a wealthy merchant of the nineteenth century with a penchant for collecting ‘art’. Nondiscriminatory in his fancies, the imposing house with a lot of marble is said to boast of a handful of Rubens, Reynolds and a Titian or two, each framed without glass and therefore exposed freely to the elements, as well as the smoke from <em>havans </em>in the open central courtyard wafting through the Venetian slits. Those in the know, the highbrow sniffy set, are certain they are not originals, but surely, such nonchalant upkeep even of very deceptive fakes is a subaltern watermark for a truly <em>shahi</em> lifestyle? Scattered through the dark, dank halls of display are large objects d’art from the Orient, including ornate vases and screens, placed next to European curios, from statues representing the seasons, to those representing the planets. Outside, birds in cages lining the verandah are producing a cacophony of sound, and in the garden, in whichever direction one’s gaze falls, there are Grecian busts and majestic lions on plinths. We sadly don’t make it to the live zoo on the premises. Speaking of ghosts and eccentrics, I wonder if for all those who believe the revolutionary son of the soil, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, is still alive and in hiding (as many in Kolkata do, there is even a society or two for such faithfuls), there are at least a few who believe Raja Rajendra Mullick, too, is somewhere and somehow keeping a close watch on his whimsical property and many bric-a-brac belongings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Another hallmark of a great city is one that is walkable and that, Kolkata still very much is – no matter that the broad footpaths are in disrepair in places and that locals say it is a more unsafe place for women in recent times. There isn’t a city in India where I have felt so unobserved and comfortably invisible whilst in public places, even after nightfall. If I’d had more time, I’d have made it to the Department of Economics, Calcutta University, where stalwarts such as Kalyan Sanyal chose to stay. I missed seeing the much written about Sonagachi, and the cultural hub around the Nandan area. I didn’t get to visit the National Library, although the Municipal Office building on nearby Belvedere Road in Alipur has to be one of the most striking to be inhabited by pedantic local government <em>babus</em>. After a lifetime of anticipation, a pilgrimage was made to Chamba Lamba’s in New Market, and it did not disappoint. I made time for numerous <em>dois</em> at the famous Sen Mahasay, naturally, and lots of <em>aloo fritters</em> in street side stalls, too. The image of Tipu Sultan’s mosque in Dharmtalla, at dusk, and the Jewish businessman Ezra’s mansions in Esplanade / BBD Bagh area, will stay with me. I witnessed nightfall and the city’s skyline from the rooftop bar at the Lindsay Hotel, though a visit to Khalasitola eluded me. I circumambulated the Lake Area and visited Buddho Mandir at its edge. I did a lot; I could have done so much more.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It was time for me to go to Bolpur Santiniketan, via lush green Bardhman district and onwards to<em>lal maati</em> Birbhum, following my favourite <em>aloo posto</em> and Baul singers, maybe even to Nadia district. Who knows, to chance upon the ghost of Lalan Fakir. And I realise, Kolkata has cast a spell on me, and I am as prone to the <em>Bhooter Bhabishyat</em> nostalgia about it as are my best Bengali friends. As the poet Shankha Ghosh wrote, “There is another Kolkata within Kolkata, walk and discover it” (“<em>e kolkatar majhe ache arekta kolkata / hente dekhte sikhun</em>”), perchance to dream.</span></div>
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<em><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Kaveri Gill writes and lives in Delhi</span></em></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="http://kafila.org/2014/06/22/eta-kolkata-this-is-kolkata-kaveri-gill/#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="color: #a61111; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">[1]</a> Hindustan Times (Delhi edition), 9 June 2014.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="http://kafila.org/2014/06/22/eta-kolkata-this-is-kolkata-kaveri-gill/#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="color: #a61111; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">[2]</a> Imperial Gazetteer, Vol. 4, p. 474.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="http://kafila.org/2014/06/22/eta-kolkata-this-is-kolkata-kaveri-gill/#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" style="color: #a61111; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">[3]</a> <em>The Hungarian Who Walked to Heaven</em> by Edward Fox (2001), Short Books, p.1.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="http://kafila.org/2014/06/22/eta-kolkata-this-is-kolkata-kaveri-gill/#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" style="color: #a61111; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">[4]</a> <a href="http://csoma.mtak.hu/en/csoma-elete.htm" rel="nofollow" style="color: #a61111; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">http://csoma.mtak.hu/en/csoma-elete.htm</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="http://kafila.org/2014/06/22/eta-kolkata-this-is-kolkata-kaveri-gill/#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" style="color: #a61111; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">[5]</a> <a href="http://www.roerich.org/roerich-writings-shambhala.php" rel="nofollow" style="color: #a61111; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">http://www.roerich.org/roerich-writings-shambhala.php</a></span></div>
pratyaynathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05687192840762085691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761100541567343426.post-57420212641458114812014-08-31T11:15:00.003-07:002014-08-31T16:53:54.801-07:00Heritage Bulldozed: Beauty Makes Way for Development, by Amit Chaudhuri<div align="left" class="story" style="background-color: white;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">[This article originally appeared in The Telegraph, 15 June, 2014. This is a repost. For the original, see </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.telegraphindia.com/1140615/jsp/calcutta/story_18513923.jsp#.VANkQcWSz95">http://www.telegraphindia.com/1140615/jsp/calcutta/story_18513923.jsp#.VANkQcWSz95</a></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This piece arises from my wish to address three questions related to this city. The first: what happened here that led to a distinctive style in architecture in the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries? The second question: what’s been happening to that architecture — to those buildings — in the last twenty-five years? The third question is my real reason for writing this piece: what will happen to this architecture in the future? My reason for bringing up these questions here, and in other articles and forums in the past year and a half, is because I believe that Calcutta’s architectural legacy is in a state of crisis, a crisis deepened by the fact that very few people recognise it as one.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A few months ago, in the course of an informal chat, I conveyed to the historian Dipesh Chakrabarty my sense of this crisis, and that I thought what was at stake was more than “heritage”, but a substantial portion of Calcutta’s visible cultural history. I emphasise the word “visible” because, unlike ideas, language, or even books, which we often carry around in our heads or in our conversation, buildings (as much a product of historical epochs as books and ideas) are where a culture’s shape and variety literally appear before us. When Chakrabarty began to see that what I was referring to had not so much to do with “heritage buildings”, but with something broader which was now being systematically, yet almost haphazardly, destroyed, he agreed: “It’s true. I believe there was an urban revolution in Calcutta in the nineteenth century, and that these buildings are evidence that it happened.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“But I never actually looked at the houses you’re speaking of, though I see what you’re saying,” Chakrabarty said. “The kind of struggling middle-class background I belonged to meant we didn’t look at houses or think about them. Also, the intelligentsia would have found such a project quite funny.” I put to him that a constricted economic background hasn’t necessarily interfered with intellectuals — even very politically committed ones — in other cultures from engaging with the aesthetic. The problem of our “not looking” at our own cities must lie elsewhere.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This brings me to a related difficulty: of defending an architectural legacy whose very existence is in doubt. There’s a comfortable awareness that architecture in Calcutta denotes colonial buildings. But even colonial “heritage” isn’t properly looked at; or else an estimated 1,600 heritage buildings wouldn’t have been reduced, according to the architect Partha Ranjan Das of the Heritage Commission, to roughly 700. It’s an Asian problem: I recall receiving an email from an organisation in Hong Kong two years ago, offering a tour of the city’s sixteen heritage sites. Sixteen! Similarly, Pune, sucked into the property vortex, duly decimated its architecture. This is the path that Calcutta’s following, which is strangely concordant with its parallel project of “beautification”. But “beauty”, in a city, doesn’t fall from above. It begins with us looking at the spaces, streets, and houses that surround us and which we inhabit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">When you speak of a Bengali architecture outside of the colonial buildings, people might, at a stretch, think of the <i>rajbaris</i> of north Calcutta, with their verandah-lined, rectangular outlines enclosing a courtyard, with a <i>dalan</i> at one end. These are indeed — despite their bygone hubris, or because of it — remarkable. But by Calcutta’s architectural legacy I mean a more modest habitational space that’s to be found everywhere, but most commonly in Bhowanipore, Bakul Bagan, Paddapukur, Hindusthan Park, Ballygunge Place, Sarat Bose Road, and even in Kidderpore (in the last, you find a cross between the<i>rajbari </i>and the sort of Bengali home I’m referring to). Once ubiquitous, this kind of house is now being destroyed relentlessly, partly because families can no longer afford them; partly because, even if they can, developers will offer owners a tempting sum of money for the land that the house stands on, in order to raze it down and build a block of flats; and partly because the architectural value of these homes isn’t clear, and they aren’t listed “heritage” buildings. Not that “heritage” ever stopped a builder. Whatever Credai, the builders’ affiliation, might claim to be doing in order to make their work seem above-board, a recognition of the architectural pedigree of extant buildings isn’t one of their concerns. But it should be a primary concern for those who habitually buy to destroy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Most of the homes I’m talking about came up between the late nineteenth century and the first four decades of the twentieth: they’re what made Calcutta Calcutta rather than another city. As they vanish, we see the sort of transformation that has occurred worldwide after globalisation: of places with particular characteristics becoming generic cities and towns. Of course, there are any number of cities that have taken globalisation on board while resisting being changed into the generic: like Berlin and Istanbul. Whatever strategies they have adopted, there are laws in place in such cities to prevent the destruction of not only landmarks and heritage sites, but every building that is definitive of their ethos. In India and in Calcutta, we have no such laws: we have “heritage” regulations that are either flouted at will or ignored.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My concern, as I’ve said earlier, is with the middle-class homes that exist outside officially defined notions of heritage, but contribute fundamentally to the city’s architectural landscape. Let me try to describe them. They often stand cheek-by-jowl — unlike the mansions of the very rich, they aren’t built on a large expanse of land. Despite this, they suggest a sense of space that the apartment buildings that come up in their place don’t. Importantly, the (mainly two-storeyed) homes have certain “family resemblances”. These include: a small courtyard; long verandahs with cast-iron grilles; wooden French or Venetian windows with slats that can be manoeuvred by a lever; red stone floors; ring-like knockers on doors; a lintel-like bar to lock doors; a narrow open corridor alongside the house leading to a space at the back; rooftop terraces; intricately designed cornices and railings on balconies; figureheads or carvings on the terraces; ornamental perforations, placed high on walls, that serve as ventilators; and grilles with motifs including the lotus and other flowers, or the art deco-influenced sunrise. Although several of these houses are now gone, there are still so many of them (far outnumbering other types of buildings), that they represent a local architectural style. You won’t find this genre of habitation in Bombay, Delhi, Paris, or even London. The last comparison is instructive: Calcutta may have been a colonial city, but its architectural efflorescence combines a variety of elements that takes it out of the realm of colonial authorship. There is little of Calcutta in London, or any other English town, and vice versa. Certain elements I have encountered elsewhere: the red stone floors in Brussels and Marrakech; a version of the slatted window in France and Italy. But this convergence of features I haven’t found anywhere else.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What’s most remarkable about these houses is that the family resemblances comprise a style, but not a blueprint intended to produce homogeneity. <i>I have never found two houses, though they’ll necessarily share the features I’ve mentioned, that are identical.</i> This makes them very different from, say, English Victorian houses, whose property value is high, but which are less varied. Look, now, at the two photographs of neighbouring homes on Sarat Banerjee Road and Hindusthan Park to get a sense of what I mean: of houses in democratic proximity to each other and the street; of houses echoing each other in style; yet utterly strange to one another, and, as a result, self-contained, each dealing with space and habitation on its own terms. For the unknown architects of these homes, the family resemblances provided guidelines; but each house was a fresh departure, a sometimes radical reinterpretation of the rules. We’re aware of the four houses that are said to be, with Suren Kar’s collaboration, Tagore’s “creations” in Santiniketan — we think of them as being emblematic of the “poet’s restlessness”. But what they really remind us of is Tagore’s instinct for improvisation: for being true to the love of “light and space” that he mentioned in a letter, but also for not repeating himself. This instinct informs, en masse, the Calcutta homes, though the term “en masse” belies their experiment with heterogeneity; it’s a revolution on a scale at once small — given the size of each house — and large, covering neighbourhoods. It gives us an entirely contemporary signature, with no utopian impulses, no pretences to the European Renaissance, no nostalgia for a Hindu golden age. This makes these homes the true monuments of the modern city.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We should hesitate before we say farewell to this inheritance. See, in the photo of the three houses standing side by side in Hindusthan Park, the sobering image of the third building on the left, which is coming up in the place of one that’s been recently brought down. There are many measures for containing destruction, in ways that are not unjust to owners. But if this architecture is a part of Calcutta’s common inheritance, then both owners and developers need to understand that people have a democratic right to buy and sell private property, but not to destroy it for the price of land. This sort of transaction, exculpated by many reasons, both genuine and opportunistic, has now become overly cynical. Moreover, what is the market value of these houses, if they are bought to live in, rather than for the land they stand on? Our rich — the NRI, the businessman — need to educate themselves in the desirability of these homes (as opposed to condominiums and apartments in gated communities) as places to inhabit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And Credai must resolve to build on available land, and take into account environmental impact, as it continues its mission of development, rather than making profit from destroying the vestiges of Calcutta’s architectural distinctiveness.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The truth is, the new architecture — with the exception of Charles Correa’s City Centre — is dreadful. Its badness is not even an exposition of an ideology of ugliness, a pointed turn against the past, such as, say, Sixties brutalist architecture or the Bauhaus school were. It’s a profilerating unprogrammatic badness, buoyed up by the market. The problem isn’t a Calcutta-centric one. If you were to visit booming Indian cities — say, Chennai — you’d be struck by the absence of any vision of development or design in India outside of the daily agglomeration of highways, flyovers, five-star hotels, shopping malls, gated enclaves, and airports: the hastily accumulated paraphernalia of “infrastructure”. I have no objection to these features: their appearance might inject a sense of economic purpose to a metropolis, one of whose indirect, unintended consequences might even be to draw new attention to a city’s cultural, and architectural, history. But the tightrope walk that “development” treads between rejuvenation and irrevocable obliteration is a very thin one, and we should be conscious of this fact. Moreover, the mushrooming of flyovers, towers, and malls doesn’t necessarily add up to a plan for development. In protesting against this tide, one might be accused of being out of touch or elitist. But this pattern of growth does little for poverty-alleviation; most often, it bulldozes the individual textures of our cities. It’s time to debate about how to proceed.</span></div>
pratyaynathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05687192840762085691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761100541567343426.post-17767508276869587222014-08-30T08:30:00.001-07:002014-08-30T10:01:49.723-07:00Two documentaries on the city<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A random search on Google or YouTube throws up dozens of video clips, documentaries and snapshots of Calcutta. Here are two documentaries that I found interesting: Louis Malle's <i>Calcutta</i> (1969) and Christopher Sykes' <i>Our Calcutta</i> (1989).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> As some of the comments to the YouTube pages of both these videos will reveal, a common allegation against both of them is that they show the city in a bad light by fixating on the poor and poverty of the city. Now, one needs to be careful while making such assertions. While it is true that many documentations on the city, as well as on other parts of India, like to highlight poverty and other dark sides in a bid to capture hypothetical notions of the 'real Calcutta' or the 'real India', protests against them also often tend to be coloured by deep patriotism and loyalty that is not very tolerant of negative portrayals of the places close to one's heart.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> Rather than making such value judgments, what might be interesting is to look at these documentaries as different representations of the same city. They simply see things in a different way than we do, and tell the same stories of urban everydayness in different ways. If not anything else, these offer wonderful visual documentations of moments and fragments of the city that have ceased to exist anymore. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> The French director Louis Malle shot his documentary in the Calcutta of late 1960s. This was a period of intense political unrest, with the city gradually coming under the grip of the violence of the Maoist movement and state-repression. The United Front government which had been elected to power in 1967, had been toppled by the Indian National Congress, who went on to take over the state legislature. Among other things, these moments of political churning are covered by Malle with great care. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Snapshot from <i>Calcutta</i> (1969) by Louis Malle</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Louis Malle's </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Calcutta </i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">(1969): </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Part I: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtABsJnunuc">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtABsJnunuc</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Part II: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eSxXmQYtKM">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eSxXmQYtKM</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Part III: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-yraG7LudI">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-yraG7LudI</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Part IV: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAJkG5BukBI">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAJkG5BukBI</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Part V: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oOftgTMCA0">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oOftgTMCA0</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Part VI: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgeazV4CyYM">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgeazV4CyYM</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Part VII: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mso_yKWR__4">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mso_yKWR__4</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The second documentary, directed by Christopher Sykes, with Peter Middleton on the camera, was made for the British Channel 4. It came out in 1989. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Once torn apart by the political violence of the late-1960s and 70s, Calcutta was now under the stable rule of a Left Front government, in office for more than a decade. Shot two decades after Malle, Sykes' Calcutta is much different from the Frenchman's. The political demonstrations are much less visible here and other things become more important.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6qrr6pRM6hX40NBroEX10yNZnkrmP5rsKUozStFYGr4fZb2CobaCrrwMlNX4hoIyH1w0xf4tNnYa07ETUchQzHUQ6UHfOWBWvGu31aVxJw9HvqB-sSKmehCuAofwJ22tdUM_anEV7r3AW/s1600/Untitled.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6qrr6pRM6hX40NBroEX10yNZnkrmP5rsKUozStFYGr4fZb2CobaCrrwMlNX4hoIyH1w0xf4tNnYa07ETUchQzHUQ6UHfOWBWvGu31aVxJw9HvqB-sSKmehCuAofwJ22tdUM_anEV7r3AW/s1600/Untitled.png" height="295" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Snapshot from <i>Our Calcutta </i>(1989) by Christopher Sykes</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Christopher Sykes' <i>Our Calcutta </i>(1989): </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Part I: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mWGKysY-M4">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mWGKysY-M4</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Part II: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ngc2MEcYdTg">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ngc2MEcYdTg</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Part III: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZixBIWNef8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZixBIWNef8</a></span>pratyaynathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05687192840762085691noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761100541567343426.post-14046709519644454262014-08-30T06:41:00.002-07:002014-08-30T08:34:13.997-07:00Tram Jatra<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUzf_ly5G80cNnmaqQjFCONlyVSxsx32tI1W6rdl6NWByuQ4qV4dtdfYWsf4z1sMd1A7TReldRrh9UoXUnnwQqJcYdQfh3-n44cofiZ3PIO5nLon6KqZs5Sp917043h9lNH3CbQR_42tdA/s1600/maha.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUzf_ly5G80cNnmaqQjFCONlyVSxsx32tI1W6rdl6NWByuQ4qV4dtdfYWsf4z1sMd1A7TReldRrh9UoXUnnwQqJcYdQfh3-n44cofiZ3PIO5nLon6KqZs5Sp917043h9lNH3CbQR_42tdA/s1600/maha.png" height="295" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Title sequence of <i>Mahanagar</i> (<i>The Big City</i>, 1963), Satyajit Ray</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The title sequence of Satyajit Ray's <i>Mahanagar</i> (<i>The Big City</i>, 1963). The overhead electric rod of a Calcutta tram slides along the electric wire. Titles end, and we see the protagonist (Anil Chatterjee), a clerk in a city bank, seated inside the tram, yawning on his way back home after a long day's work. As his stop nears, he rises to get down, and another man, judging by his attire from a slightly higher social tier, takes his place and opens an English magazine. Later in the film, we find ourselves back in the tram, when our protagonist's wife (Madhabi Mukherjee), the real protagonist of the movie, decides to take up the job of a salesgirl and her husband accompanies her to her office on the first day. Seated in the tram, she worries about her son whom she had to leave back in the house with her in-laws. When asked by her comforting husband if she feels nervous, she rests her palm on his. Shocked at how cold the hand is, the husband asks if this happens to her often. With sweet smile, she replies that it happened once before - on the night of their marriage.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_aRTlAjpseHE5-5MKN61imax-HPtskuyQMfFIBJk5q0V3Is_RIjBAEZCI8sWX8o3ypxYvUl9X9j1rYhadzIin4gcqPy6sRJ6tUHvFvFWIbg-52XCLSB9hEgtNAoPdMR5hIjKAMgoziI61/s1600/maha2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_aRTlAjpseHE5-5MKN61imax-HPtskuyQMfFIBJk5q0V3Is_RIjBAEZCI8sWX8o3ypxYvUl9X9j1rYhadzIin4gcqPy6sRJ6tUHvFvFWIbg-52XCLSB9hEgtNAoPdMR5hIjKAMgoziI61/s1600/maha2.png" height="295" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Madhabi Mukherjee in the tram-ride sequence in <i>Mahanagar</i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">These two shots bring out how important trams have been to the everyday lives of its middle-class population over the last century. Trams have also repeatedly made headlines since the 1940s as one of the first objects to be vandalised and burnt at the outset of riots and violent political protests in the city. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Ironically, or perhaps befittingly, the tram is also associated with one of the greatest cultural tragedies of the city. In 1954, Jibanananda Das, one of Bengal's best modernist poets, passed away after being hit by a tram near Deshapriya Park.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">At present, amidst periodic government reluctance at continuing tram service, a group of tram enthusiasts - artists, activists, archivists, tramway workers and tram-lovers of Calcutta and Melbourne - are trying to revive the tram tradition of Calcutta by opening a dialogue with the tram cultures of the two cities. Here is their blog: <a href="http://www.tramjatra.net/">http://www.tramjatra.net/</a> A brilliant collaborative work that has come out of this project is a collection of pieces on the tram-experience of the two cities. The English title of the volume reads <i>Tramjatra: Imagining Melbourne and Kolkata by Tramways</i>. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The Fo</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">rward goes: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 115%;"><br />
'Tram travel is, after all, staged on the street. Tram after tram choreograph a
beat to the movement of the metropolis whilst tramways infrastructure weaves
through the public imagination. An endless variety of dreams are caught
amongst an urban sky that is shaped into segments by the netting of tram wires.
The ground underfoot vibrates in varying tones produced by heavy movement on
well-travelled tracks. A grimy young man offers his seat to a hard-nosed woman
as the screech of metal on metal resounds, and you smell your fellow travellers
in close proximity, for better or worse. Being gathered in a tram is a dynamic
experience of a community that is constantly created and recreated along the
many different lines that pull us together or divide us apart. Hear the
familiar ding-ding? The tram purposefully gathers us together to move. If
globalisation of the contemporary world really does increase possibilities for
making new connections, who chooses to move with whom?...</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 35.4pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 115%;">The back-and-forth of
the tram makes a different kind of time. Rather than being driven by the overly
simplistic modern march of time, tramways afford us a sense of the historically
specific moment that resonates with memory and imagination. Tramways have been
integral to the emergence of these two colonial cities. Yet tramways can also
be seen to play a role in threading complex networks of relationships that
exceed the dominant power relationship of the colonial. The tram is a poor
carrier of the logic of the straightforward, for the tram criss-crosses all
over the grain of one-way monologue and mono-direction to weave multiple
layered interconnections within the urban condition. The tram transports
dialogue...</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 35.4pt;">
<span style="background: white; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This book opens out
from a loosely framed question: what happens when we utilise the way of the
tram to imagine two cities and relations between them? Four sections lie ahead.
DEPARTING visits the impulses and ideas from which a tramjatra has gained
initial momentum, and so offers preliminary thoughts to accompany your travel.
TRACKING takes us amongst tram conductors, artists, social activists and
designers in the tracks of tramjatra events held in 2001. Further connections
to people and ideas are encountered in the NETWORKING section, where emerging
writers and renowned scholars lead us through Melbourne and Kolkata considering
the nature of public transport and issues of urban mobility and politics,
community and culture, public art, education and learning, development and
globalisation, poetics and tramways, and the role of imagination and memory in
civic culture. The lines of thought found in the more scholarly chapters of
this section are poised between the clatter of multiple voices evident in the
chapters at either end. The section opens with a chapter that collects diverse
commentaries by 'passengers' who speak of how they have been transported by
their encounter with tramjatra, whether with dismay, difficulty or delight. The
last chapter at the furthest end of the section veers toward possibilities,
taking us through the speculative ideas of artists and designers that reveal
some of the extraordinary potential value of tramways - a domain of urban
culture little travelled. And just as all tramways systems have a place to
gather, rest and share resources, the SHEDDING section is where you will find
curious and useful evidence of tramways, tramjatra and this book's contents.' </span></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Here is the link to the full Forward: </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.mickdouglas.net/tramjatra%20book%20sample.pdf">http://www.mickdouglas.net/tramjatra%20book%20sample.pdf</a></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglOA-f7Tshu2Xc2pu9sPTQRU1c8nsNefrNKKxqr9wXKaCTZJRUdgTzwdZptQDGmaNiEJRPsBqYg5oag5iIXJu2It8ca7K6cwUnB6ywbWjjrpSw8eDPZIy0pYEh2muq5wuiOAUMgiefTwnD/s1600/tram.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="display: inline !important; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglOA-f7Tshu2Xc2pu9sPTQRU1c8nsNefrNKKxqr9wXKaCTZJRUdgTzwdZptQDGmaNiEJRPsBqYg5oag5iIXJu2It8ca7K6cwUnB6ywbWjjrpSw8eDPZIy0pYEh2muq5wuiOAUMgiefTwnD/s1600/tram.JPG" height="289" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The group members also maintain a blog, that documents the journey of the Tram-Jatra movement: <a href="http://www.tramjatra.net/">http://www.tramjatra.net/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">You may also find this link interesting: <a href="http://www.tramtactic.net/">http://www.tramtactic.net/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Finally, here is the link to a piece called 'Tracing Tramjatra: Toward a Participatory Aesthetic Politics' by Mick Douglas, one of the founder-members of the Tram-Jatra movement and the editor of the Tramjatra book: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.mickdouglas.net/TRACING%20TRAMJATRA_20100106.pdf">http://www.mickdouglas.net/TRACING%20TRAMJATRA_20100106.pdf</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">For those who wish to take a ride, here is the schedule of the Calcutta Tram Corporation (CTC): <a href="http://www.calcuttatramways.com/schedules.htm">http://www.calcuttatramways.com/schedules.htm</a>. And here is the route map: <a href="http://www.calcuttatramways.com/map.htm">http://www.calcuttatramways.com/map.htm</a>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The CTC now also runs a heritage tour on trams. The route plan reads: 'The </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Heritage tour on tram starts from Esplanade Tram terminus. Then it turns towards BBD Bagh (Dalhousie Square) and passes by Writer's Building, the General Post Office, the Tank Square and the St. Andrews Church. Further it moves towards north and enters the Chitpore Road and passes through neighbourhoods and communities. It goes past the Nakhodia Mosque, the House of Rabindranath, the Kumartuli area, the Jain temple and many more to reach the Belgachia tram depot. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The tram retraces from here and connects to Bidhan Sarani. On the way back, it passes by the Star Theatre, the Arya Samaj Temple, the Presidency College and coffee house on College Street.It moves further towards south and takes Lenin Sarani and passes by the Carey's church, and finally rattles its way back to Esplanade.' </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">For further details, see <a href="http://www.calcuttatramways.com/events.aspx">http://www.calcuttatramways.com/events.aspx</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>pratyaynathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05687192840762085691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1761100541567343426.post-5171383362967690502014-08-29T18:40:00.003-07:002014-08-30T09:07:35.850-07:00This City Knows All My First-Times<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">For me the quintessential Calcutta song will always be </span><span style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 16px;">প্রথম সবকিছু </span><span style="font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">[All the first times]. The composer-singer is the city bard Kabir Suman. The song goes over the various first times through which each one of us come to create involuntary bonds with the city. The first sweet memories of childhood, the first adventures while growing up, the first inspirations and </span></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">disillusionments - every moment survives as distinct memories, strewn across the length and breadth of the city. The song, hard to translate, expresses these senses of attachment and belonging through a familiar middle-class language, something very typical of Suman, using references that are somewhat typical of <i>bhadralok</i> lives in the city. The chorus could perhaps roughly translate as:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">'This city knows all my first-times,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Howmuchsoever I run from it,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It keeps coming back to me!'</span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The complete lyrics:</span></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">প্রথম স্কুলে যাবার দিন, প্রথম বার ফেল,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">প্রথম ছুটি হাওড়া থেকে ছেলেবেলার রেল,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">প্রথম খেলা লেকের মাঠে প্রথম ফুটবল,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">মান্না, পিকে, চূনীর ছবি বিরাট সম্বল।<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">প্রথম শেখা ইমন রাগ, প্রথম ঝাঁপতাল,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">প্রথম দেখা শহর জোড়া বিরাট হরতাল,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">প্রথমবার লুকিয়ে টানা প্রথম সিগারেট,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">প্রথমবার নিজামে গিয়ে কাবাব ভরপেট -<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">এই শহর জানে আমার প্রথম সবকিছু,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">পালাতে চাই যত, সে আসে আমার পিছুপিছু।<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">প্রথম প্রেমে পড়ার পর সবাই পস্তায়<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">হন্যে হয়ে ক্লাস পালিয়ে ঘুরেছি রাস্তায়<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">প্রথম প্রেম ঘুচে যাওয়ার যন্ত্রণাকে নিয়ে<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">কান্না চেপে ঘুরেছিলাম তোমারি পথ দিয়ে </span><span lang="BN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">–</span><span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">এই শহর জানে আমার প্রথম সবকিছু,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">পালাতে চাই যত, সে আসে আমার পিছুপিছু।<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">প্রথম দেখা লাল নিশান, মিছিল কলতান,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">প্রথম শোনা জনসভায় </span><span lang="BN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">‘</span><span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">হেঁই
সামালো ধান</span><span lang="BN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">’</span><span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">প্রথম দেখা তরুণ লাশ চলছে ভেসে ভেসে<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">দিন বদল করতে গিয়ে শহিদ হল শেষে।<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">প্রথম দেখা ভিখারিনীর কোলে শহিদ শিশু,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">প্রথম দেখা আস্তাকুঁড়ে কলকাতার যীশু,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">প্রথম দেখা দিনদুপুরে পুলিশ ঘুষ খায়,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">প্রথম জানা পয়সা দিয়ে সবই কেনা যায় </span><span lang="BN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">–</span><span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">এই শহর জানে আমার প্রথম সবকিছু,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">পালাতে চাই যত, সে আসে আমার পিছুপিছু।<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">প্রথম যৌবনের শেষে মাঝবয়েসে আসা<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">গিটার নিয়ে গান ধরেছে আমার ভালবাসা ।<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="BN" style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: BN;">লজ্জা, ঘৃণা, রাগের পরে এটাও বুঝি থাকে<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: SolaimanLipi; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">এটাই দেব তোমায়, আর এই শহরটাকে। </span></div>
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