Anoyara Khatun.— Photo: Sushanta Patronobish / The Hindu
As the world celebrates Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Malala herself is celebrating the courage of a little known young girl from West Bengal’s Sandeshkhali area who has been quietly working against the trafficking of young girls from the region.
Anoyara Khatun, 18, from North 24 Parganas, has, with the support of other children and non-governmental organisations, built a strong network to resist trafficking of young girls and prevent child marriages in the region.
“Malala and the Malala Fund celebrate Anoyara’s exemplary courage and leadership. She has helped reunite more than 180 trafficked children with their families, prevented 35 child marriages, rescued 85 children from the clutches of child labour and registered 200 out-of-schools (drop-outs) into schools,” says a Facebook post by the Malalafund, an initiative by Malala.
The post made on October 13, International Day of the Girl, only a few days after Ms. Malala was awarded the Nobel Prize, has described Anoyara as “a true girl hero.”
When The Hindu met Anoyara at Sandeshkhali on Wednesday, she was aware of the Facebook post and could not stop talking about Malala. The first year student of a local college has also collected a number of vernacular newspapers that published news of Ms. Malala’s award and shared it with her friends.
“Though I have not met Malala, I did meet her father Ziauddin Yousafzai at Brussels in June 2012,” she said. She made the trip to Belgium when she was nominated for The International Children’s Peace Prize.
“Trafficking of young girls and child marriages were rampant in the villages here. Poverty and lack of awareness and education provided the ideal conditions for traffickers to operate here,” Ms. Anoyara said.
In 2008, Save the Children, an international non-governmental organisation working for child rights, helped establish a number of multi activity centres in the Sandeshkhali area. These centres help create awareness among the children of the region about the dangers of trafficking and similar crimes. Anoyara recalls stories of how she and others chased away traffickers who came offering jobs and marriage to young girls in the region.
Jatin Mondar, the State Programme Manager of Save the Children, West Bengal said that through these centres, the organisation had managed to put in place a “committee-based child protection model” in Sandeshkhali since 2004.
“Now, if someone approaches the villagers with the proposal to take a girl to Delhi or anywhere else for work, that person is sure to be handed over to the police by us,” Anoyara said.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home / by Shiv Sahay Singh / Sandeshkhali (North 24 Parganas) / October 16th, 2014
One of Kolkata’s favourite sons, V.V.S. Laxman, will deliver the prestigious Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi Memorial Lecture here on October 19, the eve of India’s fifth One-day International against the West Indies at the Eden Gardens.
Laxman will be the third cricketer to deliver the lecture after the peerless Sunil Gavaskar and Anil Kumble.
The Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) has decided to invite all former India captains to the lecture as this will form a part of the celebrations of 150 years of Eden Gardens.
The lecture was originally slated for October 18 but was postponed by a day by the Board.
A book and a documentary will be released on October 16 where former captain Chandu Borde and Salim Durrani are expected to be present.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Sport> Cricket / by Special Correspondent / Kolkata – October 07th, 2014
This year’s Beyond Boundaries — the annual global convention of St Xavier’s College — will reach out to its global alumni to collect funds to aid the college’s ambitious expansion plans.
The convention is slated to be held at Melbourne between October 10 and 12.
“In the last three years, we have partially reached our vision,” said Fr Felix Raj, the college principal. “The Raghavpur campus, which is the rural face of St Xavier’s College, has benefited around 126 students who have already enrolled in various courses started on the campus. In Raghavpur, we have been able to begin three courses at the moment — BCom honours, Bengali Honours and BA (general) courses. We will soon open history honours and political science honours on the same campus. We are also planning to start a community college and offer certificate and diploma courses along with degree courses on vocational subjects. Primarily, we are aiming to start vocational subjects like mechanics, agriculture, fisheries and nursing, among others. We will also take care of placements,” he added.
Fr Raj spoke about the college’s further plans of expansion. “By 2017, a communication campus is set to be unveiled at the EM Bypass plot which St Xavier’s College has acquired behind the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI). The campus will offer graduation and postgraduation courses in journalism, mass communications, videography, multimedia and animation. The Educational Multimedia Research Centre (EMMRC), which is now at Park Circus and run by the college, will be shifted to the same campus,” he said.
The St Xavier’s College (Calcutta) Alumni Association (SXCCAA) plays a vital role in the college’s expansion process, said Firdausul Hasan, secretary of the association. “Every year, we have a mission and this year it is raising funds to aid expansion. The Rajarhat campus of the college, inaugurated by CM Mamata Banerjee last year, will also host an engineering college and the convention will help us realise Father Felix Raj’s vision 2020, which is our mission for this global convention,” Hasan added.
“This vision will only be possible with the alumni’s help. They have always stood by us. As president of SXCCAA, I am confident that the vision will be realised because of the association’s support,” said Fr Raj.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Kolkata> TNN / October 01st, 2014
Vinayak Lohani basks in the love of his 900-strong Parivaar comprising destitute children whom he feeds, clothes and educates in Thakurpukur. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya
His sartorial style is a crisp, white kurta-pyjama teamed with thick, black-rimmed glasses. He idolises Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda and quotes Sunil Gangopadhyay. He worships Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak and unwinds with Anjan Dutt’s songs. He loves eating fish and roaming the old lanes and bylanes of Calcutta at night.
If 37-year-old Vinayak Lohani is catholic in his tastes, he is single-minded when it comes to his cause: providing home, hearth and education to the poorest and most vulnerable of children through the largest free residential school in eastern India.
Vinayak receives a special certificate of honour on behalf of Parivaar in the ‘A School that Cares’ category of The Addlife Caring Minds Awards, along with a special honour from The Telegraph Education Foundation at The Telegraph School Awards for Excellence 2014, presented by Peerless in association with Parle-G and powered by Adamas University. The awards were given away at the Science City auditorium on Saturday
Vinayak, winner of The Telegraph Education Foundation’s certificate of honour at The Telegraph School Awards for Excellence 2014 on Saturday, was born in Bhopal but has made Bengal his home.
Vinayak had come to Bengal as a student, first to earn a degree in mining engineering from IIT Kharagpur and later an MBA from IIM Calcutta. It was while studying for his MBA that the then 20-something engineer sprang the first surprise of his career. He opted out of campus placements.
“I was the only one in IIM Calcutta’s history to do so!” he says with a laugh. “I wanted to do something in the social space. I wasn’t interested in a corporate career.”
By then, Vinayak had started skipping classes, writing journalistic pieces on social initiatives and volunteering with NGOs. He had worked with Infosys for a year in between his stints at IIT and IIM and realised that his calling lay elsewhere. Calcutta, with its “rich history of leaders and reformers”, fuelled his desire to be different.
“Being a good student from a middle-class family, engineering and MBA happened by default. But soon I found myself losing interest in a mainstream job and the corporate environment,” recalls Vinayak.
Vision & Vivekananda
For inspiration, Vinayak had Vivekananda. “I have always been inspired by the agents of change in society and the sense of sacrifice, service and devotion, especially Swami Vivekananda’s. I took diksha from the Ramakrishna Mission…spent time with monks. Mother Teresa’s influence was strong, as was the legacy of our freedom movement. I found no momentum to return to my hometown. All my thoughts became very Calcutta-centric.”
At 25, Vinayak became quite the non-conformist, determined to establish a reformatory institution of his own rather than be in the so-called rat race. “Doing what everybody else was doing didn’t excite me. My notion of success was different. I had been to the best of educational institutions, so I didn’t need to prove my abilities to anyone. I knew that if I put in my best I might be able to make it happen.”
Vinayak’s plans did irk his civil servant father, though. “My folks were worried whether I had the kind of maturity needed to carry out the responsibility of running an organisation, dealing with different domains and steering it safely and successfully.”
After moving out of IIM, he rented a small house in Sakherbazar in Behala. His plan was to start a free residential school for deprived children — the kind he had seen loitering on railway platforms and in red light areas. A few friends, researchers and professors from IIM were Vinayak’s “sounding board”.
Parivaar was born in 2003 but bringing up the child proved far from easy. “I prepared proposals, met people here and there, but all in vain because no one wanted to support something that was the wishful thinking of one individual,” says Vinayak.
With his efforts to raise funds leading nowhere, he rented a building near Thakurpukur with his earnings from lectures and tuitions to MBA aspirants. Vinayak started his mission with three kids, often not knowing where the next meal would come from. “It was a hand-to-mouth existence. I was spending whatever I was earning. My mother was my first donor,” he recounts.
In another six months, Vinayak had 55 children under his small roof, thanks to the support of “well-placed” IIM alumni who responded to his emailed appeal.
By the end of 2004, he had purchased a two-acre plot in Thakurpukur to build his dream brick by brick. Parivaar is currently spread across 20 acres. “Surely this is eastern India’s largest free residential institution for children today but not too many people know about it,” says Vinayak.
Vinayak presents The Shining Star Honour to Purna Chandra Rout, a non-teaching employee of La Martiniere for Girls for 37 years, at the Science City auditorium on Saturday. Pictures by Rashbehari Das
Parivaar path
Parivaar is today an institution that houses 672 boys and 298 girls whose lives have changed because of education and Vinayak’s encouragement. Some have gone on to get university degrees. “We have had a significant number of very inspired volunteers. They were mostly our donors who became our campaigners and spread the word actively,” says Vinayak.
Parivaar has two campuses that take in children between the ages of four and 10. The one for boys is called Parivaar Ashram. Located a few blocks away is the girls’ campus, called Parivaar Sarada Teertha. Each campus has dorm-like housing, a library, computer room, dining area, a soccer field and a volleyball court.
Parivaar also has its own co-educational school till Class X called Amar Bharat Vidyapeeth, located on the boys’ campus. “It’s not as if the kids’ stay is over once they are through with their education here. Would a parent ask a child to leave home? The older ones tutor the younger kids, earn pocket money and can move out of their own free will once they feel they are ready,” says Vinayak.
There are a few rules that set Vinayak’s initiative apart from others of its kind. “We don’t accept institutional support from any foreign agency. Ninety per cent of our donors are individuals of Indian origin, whether they are living in India or abroad. No government support. That’s how I could build it my own way because foreign or government agencies have their own parameters. I wanted to design my school my way, just like an artist would create his own piece of art,” he reveals.
Target 5,000
While his field teams are scouting for destitute children to bring home, Vinayak’s mind is preoccupied with the future challenges of the mission. “I hope to touch 1,200 by December. Since we have limited capacity at the moment, we admit children based on their neediness. Primarily orphans and the homeless are picked up from railway platforms and pavements, or those with one parent and incapable of taking care of the child.”
Apart from the city, Parivaar reaches out to rural areas, including the tribal belts of Midnapore, Bankura, Purulia and Jharkhand. The emphasis is on giving girls vulnerable to exploitation an opportunity to build their lives.
Vinayak’s IIT and IIM education hasn’t gone waste either. Parivaar is an example for institutions on how to “scale up” operations using entrepreneurial skills.
Unlike many social welfare organisations that are cagey talking about finances, Vinayak is upfront about money. “We raise around Rs 14 crore every year. I can raise Rs 100 crore over the next 10 years but I am not satisfied with that. For me, sky is the limit. I am taking Parivaar to 5,000 children in the next seven years. My aim is to convert Parivaar into the largest free residential school in the country.”
Model mission
The Parivaar model is already a case study at business schools. “A lot of people want to do things but don’t know how to get started. There’s a huge possibility of social enterprise and since I understand how it works, I want to help those who want to be agents of change — be it in education, health or livelihood,” says Vinayak.
His personal turning point was the decision to take the road less travelled, away from home and family. “When I took up the responsibility of these children I decided that I was not going to marry and raise a family. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been possible for me to give myself completely, emotionally. I would have become nervous, I would have collapsed. So a strong focus was the emotional focus. I closed the door on any thoughts or feelings that might be distracting. And see what I have today, a family of 900!” he smiles.
Vinayak is now comfortable letting the institution run on “auto-pilot”. The faculty and his 179-strong office team take care of everything, his role being limited to “reviewing, mentoring and monitoring”. That is when he isn’t busy giving lectures at youth forums or in his new role as member of a special taskforce under the Union ministries of finance and women and child welfare. He also makes time for helping, mentoring and handholding young social entrepreneurs.
If there is one thing Vinayak is touchy about, it is about not being identified as “a Bengali”. His Bengali look, he says, has been “acquired through effort”. The dhuti was his choice of everyday attire until two years ago, when he switched to his trademark white kurta-pyjama.
“I would get offended when people wouldn’t take me as a Bengali. I have always identified with the Calcutta of the 1960s and ‘70s — the shilpis, buddhijibis and their simple-living-high-thinking philosophy that defined the city’s cultural aristocracy. Emotionally, I see myself as that and I have really tried to become one for all these years,” smiles Vinayak.
What message do you have for Vinayak Lohani? Tell ttmetro@abpmail.com
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Calcutta / Front Page> Calcutta> Story / by Mohua Das / Monday – September 01st, 2014
Mahatma Gandhi wrote seven letters to the then Viceroy of India after wife of revolutionary Haridas Mitra approached him. Haridas Mitra is the father of West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra. (archive)
Mahatma Gandhi wrote seven letters to the then Viceroy of India, Lord Wavell, to commute the death sentence, and subsequently get released four young revolutionaries who were held guilty by the British of supplying information to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army (INA).
The startling historical fact is just on of the many mentioned in the jail diary of freedom fighter Jyotish Basu who died in 2000. The diary has been compiled by renowned researcher Pallab Mitra in the form of a book —- ‘Phansi Theke Phire’ (Back from the Gallows) – and details the last few days of Basu at Presidency Jail where he was brought back from the gallows, just a minute before he was to be hanged.
The four revolutionaries for whom Gandhi sought clemency were Jyotish Basu, Amar Singh Gill, Pabitra Roy and Haridas Mitra. Haridas Mitra is the father of West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra, and his wife Bela was the niece of Netaji.
All four were released in July-Agust 1946. While not much is known about the later life of Gill and Roy, Mitra joined Congress and later became the deputy Speaker of West Bengal Assembly. Basu spent his life in various social and cultural activities and died in 2000, at the age of 92.
As per the historians, the only known case when Mahatma Gandhi urged the British to commute the death sentence was for Bhagat Singh. The freedom fighter was ultimately hanged on March 23, 1931. “As far as we know it was in the case of Bhagat Singh that Gandhiji intervened,” says Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, historian and former chairman of Indian Council for Historical Research.
It was Jyotish Basu’s residence at 6A, Bipin Paul Road in Kolkata that the revolutionaries, then part of INA’s Secret Service, set up a communication centre. It was from this house that Basu was arrested on December 31, 1944 while other three were taken into custody some time later.
After a trial that lasted a few months, all four, lodged in Presidency Jail in Kolkata, were sentenced to death.
The book details the fearlessness of the revolutionaries. Asked if they had any last wish before they were hanged, Gill said he wanted to watched a dance recital by Sadhana Bose, while Basu said he wanted to hear Kanan Devi’s songs.
Bela Mitra, then 22, wife of Haridas Mitra, meanwhile, went to Poona and pleaded with Gandhiji to write to the Viceroy requesting for the release, or if that was not possible, commuting of sentence of all the four. A few days later, Basu’s father Ranjan Bilas Bose too met Gandhiji with the same request.
Gandhiji wrote seven letters requesting for release of first Haridas, and then the three others. All these letters have been kept at National Library, Kolkata.
In his first letter, dated September 14, 1945 and sent from Poona, Gandhiji wrote: “Shri Haridas Mitra, an MA of the Calcutta University, and the husband of Shri Subhas Chandra Bose’s young niece, age 22 years, is under sentence of death over what appears to be on untenable ground. I have perused the petition for mercy by the uncle of the condemned as also Advocate Carden Noad. I suggest that they furnish cogent grounds for exercise of mercy. In any event, the case for mercy becomes irresistible in that the war with Japan is over. It will be political error of the first magnitude if this sentence of death is carried into effect”.
“…My attention was drawn to the case by the prisoner’s wife as she has often sung at my prayer meetings when I had the honour of being a guest of advocate Sarat Chandra Bose (elder brother of Subhas Bose) who I am happy to learn from the government of India has ordered to be released”.
It was about five years ago that Jyotish Basu’s daughter told Pallab Mitra about the diary. “I consulted historians Amalendu Dey and Basudeb Chattopadhyay and then I got to know about Gandhiji’s letters. It was a wonderful revelation that because of his intervention four precious lives were saved from the gallows,” says Pallab Mitra.
Repeated calls and text messages to minister Amit Mitra failed to elicit any response.
source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Cities> Kolkata / by Sabyasachi Bandopadhyay, Kolkata / September 15th, 2014
The wall of the Azad Hind Dhaba in Kolkata adorned with M.F. Husain’s Gaja Gamini. Photo: SUSHANTA PATRONOBISH
The now-famous painting, titled Gaja Gamini (one with a walk like an elephant), depicts a dancing woman, in a bright red background, while a white elephant looks on with its trunk held aloft
The memory of seeing M.F. Husain colouring one of his sketches back in 1999 is still fresh in the mind of Madan Sharma, one of the owners of Azad Hind Dhaba, a popular eatery in south Kolkata.
One fine afternoon years back, Mr. Husain walked into the dhaba, which he frequented during his visits here, and all of a sudden started adding colour to the black and white sketch on the wall that he had drawn three years before.
“The experience made me speechless,” Mr. Sharma said, on the eve of the 99th birth anniversary of the iconic painter.
The now-famous painting, titled Gaja Gamini (one with a walk like an elephant), depicts a dancing woman, in a bright red background, while a white elephant looks on with its trunk held aloft. Mr. Husain arranged a private show of his film Gaja Gamini at Azad Hind in 1999.
Sitting at the cash counter with the painting behind him, Mr. Sharma fondly recalled his memories of the famous artist. He remembers Mr. Husain as a “moody and humble person” who would come to the restaurant and sit quietly in one corner sipping his favourite “kadak chai [strong tea].”
“He did not talk much. But sometimes told me what kind of food he wants,” Mr. Sharma said. He was initially apprehensive of talking to an artist of Mr. Husain’s calibre, but eventually they became friends. “Mr. Husain could mingle with adults and children with equal ease. He was totally devoid of arrogance.” Whenever schoolchildren spotted him at the eatery, they flocked to him and asked for autographs. The world-famous painter complied with their demands with a smile and even drew them impromptu sketches.
When asked about the controversy that erupted in 2006 over Mr. Husain’s depiction of Hindu gods and goddesses, Mr. Sharma said the thought of removing the painting never entered his mind. “Nobody asked me to remove the painting even when the controversy erupted.”
Mr. Husain eventually had to leave the country under pressure from Hindu nationalist forces. He passed away in London in August 2011.
Meanwhile, the dancing woman with an elephant walk lives on happily on the central wall of Azad Hind Dhaba, in the company of numerous Hindu gods and goddesses.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> Friday Review> Art / by Soumya Das / Kolkata – September 17th, 2014
Benoy Konar, a front-ranking CPM leader in West Bengal, died at a city nursing home on Sunday after a prolonged illness, party sources said.
He was 84. Konar, a leading figure in the militant peasants’ movement in the state during 1960s and early 1970s, is survived by his wife, two sons and two daughters.
A former CPM central committee and state secretariat member, Konar was the party’s prominent peasant leader from Burdwan district.
A former party legislator, he was elected to the West Bengal legislative assembly from Memari constituency in Burdwan district three times — in 1969, 1971 and 1977.
Konar was elected as chairman of the five-member CPM central control commission in 2012, an internal vigilance wing of the party.
But he was dropped from the state secretariat, the party’s policy-making body in the same year as he had requested to be relieved of the responsibilities on health ground.
Konar had not been keeping well for the last several months.
He was known for making caustic remarks against the Trinamool Congress and its chief Mamata Banerjee which had drawn flak even from allies during Singur and Nandigram agitations.
Konar had also taken potshots against the then West Bengal Governor, Gopalkrishna Gandhi, after the Nadigram killing in 2007.
Taking exception to Gandhi’s description of the Nandigram outrage as a “cold horror”, Konar had said at a public meeting “Gandhi should come out of Raj Bhavan and carry the Trinamool flag.”
He was the brother of Hare Krishna Konar, a fire brand leader of the CPM, who played a major role in land reforms in West Bengal.
Konar served as the national president of the CPM’s peasants’ front All-India Kisan Sabha for years and was the organisation’s vice-president at the time of his death.
He was also the secretary of the state CPM’s peasant wing Paschimbanga Pradeshik Krishak Sabha.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> India / PTI / September 14th, 2014
Kunal Banerji at the interactive session. (Anup Bhattacharya)
Kunal Banerji, an associate professor of management at Eastern Michigan University and a St. Xavier’s alumni, addressed students of JD Birla Institute’s management department on quality management.
The management guru dwelled upon the three cornerstones of business excellence — quality, profitability and productivity — at an interactive session organised by the Calcutta Management Association, in association with The Telegraph, on August 29.
He peppered his lecture with topics ranging from compensation and appraisal to use of suggestion systems and continuous improvement efforts to illustrate why it’s important to improve product quality, or how to do it more effectively, in the service sector.
Banerji drew from his Total Quality Management and Business Excellence, a research paper he co-authored with David E. Gundersen and Ravi S. Behara, to answer most of the questions.
He explained how quality is more perceptual than real. “Till a point of time all foreign goods were considered to be of the best quality… that is how our psyche was built. After 1992 (post-liberalisation of the economy), this perception of quality changed.”
On behalf of the CMA, its executive committee member Asok K. Banerjee thanked Banerji for discussing his research extensively with the students. “We had a great audience and a wonderful ambience.”
Banerji said: “It was a mixed crowd and that is always very interesting. Honestly, I didn’t expect such a big crowd. I don’t get such a big crowd in the US, probably because of the population rate.”
J.N. Mukhopadhyaya, the director of the JD Birla Institute’s management department, said he was happy that the seminar turned out well.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Calcutta / Front Page> Calcutta> Story / by A Staff Reporter / Friday – September 05th, 2014
Ravindra Rekhade played proxy for his 86-year-old father on the first evening of the Ganesh Chaturthi rituals at Maharashtra Nivas on Hazra Road last Friday.
The orthodontist can’t be sure he will have his son play the same role someday. The young man, who is in his early 20s, has already shifted to Bangalore.
The Ganesh Chaturthi celebration organised by the Maharashtra Mandal is among the oldest in Calcutta, a tradition it has upheld since the 1930s. For Maharashtrians based in the city, the Hazra Road address is still the place to be at this time of the year.
The list of VIP visitors over the past couple of years has included Mamata Banerjee, though it might not be gratifying for her to hear that the footfall is fast decreasing. There are hardly any young faces around at the venue because many have chosen to leave Mamata’s Bengal.
“Forget the Sixties or Seventies, as a child I remember playing cricket here in a large group. There were so many people of my age around then. They have all left,” said Ninad Sagade, 22.
Rekhade’s son is an engineer who studied in Calcutta but went to Bangalore to work. Ninad, whose brother has already shifted base to Pune, is planning to move out after completing his BCom. “All my friends have left. There are few job opportunities in the city,” he rued.
Ninad’s brother Yati works for a software company in Pune and has fond memories of the celebration at Maharashtra Mandal and of Durga Puja in the company of family and friends.
Yati, who left town in 2012, said: “I moved out because there was no opportunity for the kind of work I wanted to do. But I will be back during Durga Puja because I was born and raised in Calcutta. I love the festivity of the four days.”
Subhas Mantri, the 68-year-old president of the Maharashtra Mandal, remembers his college days when there would be at least 30 young men and women at the venue on each evening of the 11-day celebration. “The Ganesh Puja at Maharashtra Nivas had more visitors then. We had about 450 families as members,” Mantri said.
The Maharashtra Mandal may be struggling to retain members but Ganesh Chaturthi has become a major event in the city’s festival calendar. An officer at Lalbazar, the city police headquarters, said the increase in the number of Ganesh pujas had prompted the police brass to consider “deployment of forces” from next year like they do for Durga Puja and Kali Puja.
According to one estimate, there are around 1,000 Ganesh pujas across the city. Many are small roadside affairs controlled by local political leaders who do not yet have the deep pockets to finance a Durga Puja with budgets running into crores of rupees.
Most of these pujas bypass the niceties of tradition, unlike at Maharashtra Mandal where care is taken to retain the flavour of a Maharashtrian celebration. Khichudi and alur dam may be the staple of the new Ganesh pujas in town but the organisers of the Maharashtra Nivas event won’t compromise on their modak, the traditional sweet that is offered as prasad to visitors.
The modak looks like a samosa from outside. Bite through the crisp outer layer — there is a steamed variety too — and you find the sweetness of ground coconut rolled into a ball like the old Bengali favourite called narkel nadu (coconut dumplings).
The second Sunday of the 11-day festival is reserved for mahaprasad, where a traditional Maharashtrian meal of matki, masala rice and jalebi, among other dishes, is served.
Marathi theatre and recitals are a part of the celebration on each day. This year’s highlight is an hour-and-a-half-long oration called Athavave Shivaraiyanche Pratap, commemorating the deeds of Shivaji.
The programmes organised by the Maharashtra Mandal round the year include Gopal Kala, celebrated the day after Janmashtami when people climb on each other to break a handi. “We do not climb on one another here because we are all old people! But we do break the handi,” said Mantri, who was a commentator on Doordarshan during the 1982 Asian Games.
What makes the celebration extra special is the repository of stories that does the rounds, recalling the moods and manners of a different era.
An old-timer said Ganesh Chaturthi used to be a private celebration in homes before the late 19th century, when Lokmanya Tilak’s initiative turned it into a community event. “The British had imposed stringent restrictions on the assembly of people. But such restrictions were waived for religious aggregations. Tilak used the opportunity and turned Ganesh Puja into a sarbojanin puja,” Mantri said.
The Maharashtra Mandal was established in 1924 while Maharashtra Nivas came into being in 1932 as a guesthouse for Maharashtrians visiting Calcutta. “It was to give them the feel of home away from home,” Rekhade said.
The large auditorium on the ground floor where all cultural programmes are held has large portraits of Subhas Chandra Bose and Rabindranath Tagore alongside those of Lokmanya Tilak and Chhatrapati Shivaji.
Chief minister Mamata, who visited Maharashtra Nivas on Friday, has held several meetings at the address over the years. Immediately after her victory in the 2011 Assembly elections, Mamata had assembled her MLAs and MPs at the venue. She had also presided over party meetings there during her stints as the railway minister.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Calcutta / Front Page> Calcutta> Story / by Subhajoy Roy / Tuesday – September 02nd, 2014
During the freedom struggle, recordings of patriotic speeches and songs helped rally support.
Between 1877 and 1878, Thomas Alva Edison submitted patent applications for the phonograph in many countries, including British India. It is not known when these patents were granted, but it is known that in December 1878, the first phonograph recording was demonstrated in Kolkata.
For the next 30 years, recordings on the phonograph cylinder became quite popular, remaining so even in the early years of disc records.
Many members of royal families and wealthy people bought cylinder phonograph machines and recorded musicians and religious personalities. The Maharajah of Khetri recorded Swami Vivekananad’s speeches and discourses much before he went to America and gave his famous talks on religion. The internet is full of versions of his celebrated speeches.
Hemendra Mohan Bose (1864-1916) opened the Talking Machine Hall in Kolkata, a shop where one could get one’s voice recorded. Bose was a sound recording expert and also had an agency to sell Edison and Pathe brand phonograph machines. Many great writers, poets and political leaders would visit him and he would record their recitations and speeches.
A 1906 catalogue lists several cylinder recordings of Rabindranath Tagore. Unlike disc records, cylinders could not be reproduced for sale. Most of these cylinders have been lost. Some museums have broken or damaged copies of cylinders as artefacts but no audible sound can be extracted from them.
During agitations against the partition of Bengal in 1905, H Bose recorded many political speeches and songs, such as Bande Mataram, both on phonographs and disc records, and they became very popular. But his factory and shops were sealed, machines and discs destroyed ruthlessly by police. As a result, nothing has survived today except a very short piece from Bande Mataram, sung by Tagore.
Recording experts from Beka, a German company, were in Kolkata in November 1907. The British government went about destroying all nationalistic material, whereas the German company was the first to record a political speech right under the nose of the British.
The National Grand Record label had a saffron disc with a rising sun as the logo. On it was recorded a speech by Babu Surendranath Banerjee, on the partition of Bengal. The flipside of this unusual 78-rpm disc has a speech on Bande Mataram.
The man responsible for producing this disc was Sir Abdul Halim Guznavi, a political leader and agent for the Beka record company in Kolkata. Only few copies have survived. We have the image of the label only but no access to the audio file of this historically important recording.
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source: http://www.scroll.in / Scroll.in / Home> All News / by Suresh Chandvankar / August 15th, 2014
