Category Archives: Leaders

A tribute to Jagadish Bose, who proved plants have life

Group of scientists recreates Bose’s experiment, which was not received well 100 years ago
Bose’s peers in the West may not have got the same results as him because of the water used /
Image: The Telegraph

More than 100 years after Jagadish Chandra Bose conducted the experiment that established plants have life, a group of scientists in Calcutta came together this year to repeat it.

Supriyo Kumar Das, an assistant professor of Geology at Presidency University, led the initiative. The others on the team were also from Presidency — Debashis Datta and Rabindranath Gayen, both assistant professors of Physics, Snigddha Pal Chowdhury, a research associate in the Geology department, Abhijit Dey, an assistant professor of Botany, and Saranya Naskar, an MSc student of Physics.

Bose, who had joined Presidency College in 1885 as a professor in the Physics department, had conducted the experiment in a laboratory on these very precincts. No matter how much he is hailed today for his scientific genius, in his time Bose’s experiment had not been received well.

It all began when Peter V. Minorsky, a botanist and professor at Mercy College in the US, got in touch with Das earlier this year. Minorsky wanted to know about the groundwater composition in the College Street area, where Presidency University stands.

Says Das, “It is from him that I heard about the prejudices against Bose. In the course of our exchanges, I got interested and emotionally involved with Bose’s work.”

He had been savagely criticised by George James Peirce, professor of Plant Physiology at Stanford University. Peirce wrote in the journal, Science, in 1927: “The trouble with Bose… is that while his curiosity is directed to biological phenomena, his mind is inadequately equipped with the information and habits necessary for accurate study, and his reflections are addressed to philosophical problems.”

In 1929, the Indian Review reported that G.A. Perrson, who was from the US, was unable to find pulse in plants. And years later, in the mid-1960s, in the Handbuch der Pflanzenphysiologie (Encyclopaedia of Plant Physiology), it was said, “Unfortunately Bose’s theoretical views and his emotional style of reporting have generated what may be an excessive skepticism concerning the validity of his observations.”

This is what Bose had observed. By devising a wire electrode — an invention three decades ahead of its time — he identified a pulsating layer of cells abutting the vascular tissue in plants. In an email to The Telegraph, Minorsky says, “In the last few years, plant biologists have come to recognise this layer is the site of propagating waves of calcium release that are involved in communicating stress from local points of occurrence to the rest of the plant. The discovery of this calcium wave is one of the more exciting discoveries of the 21st century, and Bose’s ‘plant heart’ predates this discovery by a century.”

Bose has left notes aplenty about every aspect of his historic experiment. One of the lone omissions is the kind of water used. Says Das, “Being a geochemist and scientist, I understand the composition of groundwater and the effect of chemical stress of sodium on plants. I also know that the composition of water varies from place to place.” He adds, “It occurred to us that Bose’s peers in the West might not have got the same results as him because of the water used.”

PULSE TEST: A repeat of the experiment at Presidency University that Jagadish Chandra Bose conducted in the 1900s /
Image: The Telegraph

In Bose’s time, water was supplied to the Presidency campus from Palta in the Barrackpore area. Das points to a spot occupied by an elevator on the ground floor of Baker Building that houses the Physics department and says, “This is where the old pipeline ran.” Currently, the municipality takes care of the water supply. It comes from the Tala tank in north Calcutta.

When Das and and others repeated the experiment, they decided to use water from every possible source Bose might have accessed. “He could have also used water from the Ganges or from the pond in College Square,” says Das.

Datta explains, “We wanted to check the potassium and sodium concentration. Electricity flows through water only when there are some ions present in it. Possibly, the scientists from the West had not used ionised water.”

The “repeaters” used for the experiment the plant Bose had used — the Desmodium motorium, locally known as bon charal. Minorsky explains, “The lateral leaflets of Desmodium are unique in the plant kingdom for their pronounced and unprovoked oscillatory movements. If conditions are optimal, one can watch these lateral leaflets move at a pace slightly slower than the second hand of a watch.”

According to Minorsky, Bose enjoyed certain enormous advantages over his Western peers. First, Desmodium motorium is a native of Bengal, so he had access to an ample supply of healthy, thriving specimens. In contrast, in the West its cultivation was restricted to glasshouses. Those days, glasshouses were often heated by wheelbarrows of burning coal. These released a gas called ethylene, which in turn affected many plant processes, including a decrease in overall excitability. Second, he points out Calcutta’s temperatures and how they lend themselves to plant study. “Temperatures of 30-35° Celsius, which occur commonly, are optimal for studying plant movements and excitability. The temperatures at which scientists in the West studied plants would have been much lower,” he says. Finally, there was the salty water advantage.

Dey arranged for 21 Desmodium plants. Each was kept in a beaker full of a distinct water sample. Thereafter, they were all kept in a controlled atmosphere. Says Gayen, “We placed them in glass beakers and left them in the laboratory, where all the lights would be kept on so that all of them were exposed to the same amount of light. The air conditioner would be set at a particular temperature to control the humidity. We would connect the probes to two different parts of the stem. The source meter was used to read the fluctuating signals.”

The brainstorming went on for months and the experiment lasted a fortnight. Das says, “The apprehension of failure was there. But the moment when we got the first response was exquisite. The horizontal line that appeared on the screen formed a peak and then fell only to rise again. Though our graph did not have peaks and troughs as tall as Bose’s, we definitely had got a graph that roughly replicated the ECG graph of humans.”

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Online edition / Home> Culture / by Moumita Chaudhuri / November 25th, 2018

The Downton Abbeys of Dhanyakuria

Wandering in the Bengal countryside could bring you to these accidental Indo-English castles
Gaine Garden on the Barasat-Taki highway looks every bit the English castle
Image: Ankit Datta

Anyone who has travelled along the Barasat-Taki road — northwards from Calcutta, towards Basirhat — would have noticed the picture-postcard castle. Visitors are not allowed inside the gated compound, but you can stop and admire the turrets, spires, the uneven roofline broken by stepped gables.

But that afternoon, when we reach the place, the gates are wide open. A truck is downloading bricks — we learn they are for the construction of a government office building. It is a 30-acre campus and we are eager to explore it. We sneak in and manage some quick clicks, when some security guards spring into action. We are chased out with a stern — “You need permission from the [social welfare] department.”

Atop the Gaine Garden gateway is some colonial baggage in stone — figures of two Englishmen overpowering a lion with bare hands
Image: Ankit Datta

Out on the road, we ask a passerby what this grand structure is called and what it’s meant to be. “This used to be called Gaine Garden, property of the Gaines,” he informs us, and for details redirects us to the Gaine progeny living in Dhanyakuria village in North 24-Parganas.

Teacher and writer Monjit Gaine lives with his elderly father, Kanchan Gaine, and his family in a portion of yet another grand structure of long, open corridors and many wings called the Gaine Rajbari. Monjit ushers us into the majestic thakurdalan or collonaded altar for Durga worship. He says, “Every other month some tele-serial or movie is shot here. Villagers call this ‘shooting bari’.” According to him, it is the rent from film production companies that aids the upkeep and maintenance of the huge mansion.

Unlike Gaine Garden, Gaine Rajbari was meant to serve as residential quarters and is located inside Dhanyakuria village
Image: Ankit Datta

The Gaines made a fortune trading in jute, jaggery and other agricultural products. They worked in partnership with two other families of Dhanyakuria — the Sawoos and the Ballavs. All of them enjoyed the patronage of the British. “Huge tracts of agricultural fields and land ownership turned them into zamindars,” says Monjit. “Family lore goes that our ancestral properties extended to Satkhira in present-day Bangladesh, and in north, central and south Calcutta,” he adds.

Gaine Mansion was built in parts, primarily by Gobinda Chandra Gaine and his son, Mahendranath Gaine, mid-19th century onwards. Mahendranath was a prominent member of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and owned quite a few jute mills too. He was the one who built Gaine Garden by the main road. Post Independence, the state government acquired the property. Says Monjit, “A few years ago we heard it had acquired the heritage tag. [Once a property gets this tag, it cannot be defaced, its basic structure cannot be changed either.]” He has no clue about the ongoing construction.

Its thakurdalan has featured in films such as Guru Dutt’s Sahib Bibi Ghulam, the Indo-French production La Nuit Bengali and the Uttam Kumar-starrer Suryatapa. You can spy a Durga idol in one corner of the thakurdalan of the Gaine Rajbari. The Gaines have been commissioning the idols to the same family of artisans for nearly 200 years
Image: Ankit Datta

According to Monjit, the three leading families worked for the development of the area. They built hospitals, roads and schools. We cross the Sanskrit primary school-turned-private English medium prep-school founded by the Gaines. Beyond it, a little ahead of the trisection is the mansion of the Sawoos. The gate is locked, a neighbour says the caretaker has gone to the market and the owners don’t live here.

We peep through the collapsible gate and spy a thakurdalan almost as majestic as the Gaines’. Here too, there is a solitary and stark frame of an under-construction Durga idol. Later, we call Ashok Sawoo, who lives in north Calcutta. The house was built by his forefather, Patit Chandra Sawoo, 200 years ago.

The Sawoo Mansion usually remains closed; most of the family lives in Calcutta now. The house was founded by Patit Chandra Sawoo 200 years ago and extended by his son Rai Bahadur Upendra Nath Sawoo
Image: Ankit Datta

We walk down to Ballav Mansion next. Painted in green and white, the mansion has ornate cast iron gates and fencing. The Corinthian pillars, stucco work in the verandah and the grand thakurdalan reflect the wealth of the family. There is a well-kept garden too. Says family member Uma Ballav Biswas, “The house was built by my great-grandfather, Shyamacharan Ballav, 150 years ago. He made his fortune mainly in jute trade.”

At the time of filing this piece, Uma is looking forward to the annual family reunion on the occasion of Durga Puja. It seems the same artisans make the Durga idols for the Gaines, the Sawoos and the Ballavs. The same family of priests presides over the festivities. Says Monjit, “If anyone wishes to see our houses in full grandeur, this is the time. There’s no restriction on entries at this time. Just like our ancestors, we welcome villagers and visitors.”

Ballav Mansion is referred to as ‘putul bari’ or dolls’ house by locals — after the figurines on the central arch and those on either end of the roof
Image: Ankit Datta
The centrepiece is a princely figure wearing a cape and fancy headgear; the rest of the figurines include moustachioed Indian sentries and a lone peacock
Ankit Datta

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India – Online edition / Home> Heritage / by Prasun Chaudhuri / October 21st, 2018

Here lived Dr Rajendra Prasad

At a time when Calcutta’s Hindu Hostel is the subject of controversy, Moumita Chaudhuri chronicles the good ol’ days
Hindu Hostel /
Telegraph file picture

In July 2015, Eden Hindu Hostel for male students of Calcutta’s Presidency University, Maulana Azad College, Sanskrit College and Goenka College of Commerce and Business was vacated for repair work. Three years on, it is yet to be reopened. On August 4, students launched a protracted protest. On September 11, the annual convocation had to be shifted after angry students locked the university premises. And Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi chose not to attend the off-campus abridged event.

In the heart of north Calcutta’s College Street area stands the red building with green fenestrations. A plaque outside it reads: Here lived Dr Rajendra Prasad first President of India as a student of the Presidency College between July 1902 and December 1907. Once you enter the premises, you realise Eden Hindu Hostel is not just one building. There is the main building that houses wards 1 and 2. Another to its east houses three more wards. Construction of a hostel for postgraduates began in 1988 and took seven years to complete. Many old boarders were shifted to this one.

Heritage conservationist and architect Partha Ranjan Das’s firm is overseeing the repair and restoration of a part of the hostel. Das says, “The older buildings take after early 19th century British colonial architecture. They display the soft style of the late Baroque era.” According to Das, when his firm assumed charge in 2015, it came to light that a lot of additions and alterations had been made. “Such interventions are not allowed while restoring a heritage building,” he says. “Additions were made to the original structure, which we have removed. The buildings cannot withstand extensions like these,” he adds.

The hostel was more than a boarding and lodging space for students. It was a place of bonhomie, politics and spirited debate. It was also a creative space. From the centenary publication of Presidency College, we learn that the hostel ran a bilingual magazine called Suhrid in 1894. There are references to an assembly of poets till the late 19th century. There was a keen rivalry between the wards, each of which ran its own manuscript magazine with names such as Sense and Nonsense and Highland Review. All the wards would come together for Saraswati Puja.

This is the space where friendships were struck and history was made. Scientist Meghnad Saha met freedom fighter Jatindranath Mukherjee aka Bagha Jatin here. Says Swapan Chakravorty, distinguished professor of Presidency University and former director-general of National Library, “Those days, caste seating was followed in the dining hall. Saha felt discriminated against and left the hostel in protest.” More stories. Nationalist and founder of the Congress, Surendranath Banerjee, was a student of Doveton College but would frequent the place. When deputy superintendent of police Basanta Kumar Chatterjee was murdered in 1916, the hostel was raided. No one could be nailed though. Much later, during the Naxalite movement, eight boarders were expelled. “A movement coagulated around this expulsion,” says Chakravorty.

Jyotirmoy Pal Chowdhury, director and chairman of the Institute for Civil Service Aspirants, stayed here in the 1950s. Those days, the boarding charge for a ground floor room was Rs 5, first floor and second floor room charges were Rs 7 and Rs 8, respectively. The monthly charge for food was Rs 32. (In 2015, the monthly charge including lunch and dinner was Rs 1,500.)

Pal Chowdhury talks about student politics and how any boarder contesting elections was sure to win. He recalls the time when college senior Amartya Sen asked him to contest elections. He talks about the canteen. How each of the five wards had a kitchen representative who would go grocery shopping, decide on the menu and arrange for a monthly feast. With relish he recalls the menu, obviously hungry for a taste of those times — “Pulao, luchi, two kinds of fish, mutton, doi-mishti and dilkhusha paan that was sold at the college gate.” He has his own hand-me-down hostel tales — “Scientist Satyen Bose would play football in the adjoining field. He used to be the goalkeeper.”

The condition of the hostel deteriorated in the 1990s. Debarshi Das, a professor of Economics at IIT Guwahati, was a boarder during those years. He recalls the thick walls, high ceilings, “big rooms” sans fans. He says, “We used to rent DC fans (AC fans were not easily available on rent). You had to stick carbon sticks that would not last long.”

Chakravorty says that by 2000 most government grants dried up. The here and now we piece together from students. Sayan Chakraborty, a final-year PG student, says, “The hostel was in very bad state when we vacated the rooms in 2015. There were 250 boarders staying in all 123 rooms. Each room was heavily partitioned with possibly Burma teak wooden panels.”

Das has not seen any Burma teak partition, only “low quality wooden panels”. He says, “Each room is as big as a big classroom with 15-foot high ceilings, and teak doors and windows. The staircase is all mahogany. We have tried to put back the heritage building with minimum intervention to its original structure. But we did not get the original plan of the heritage structure and so we had to use our judgment in some of the cases.”

Currently, the Eden Hindu Hostel stands heavily guarded. Students are continuing with their fast. Vice-chancellor Anuradha Lohia said earlier this month that it would take another 4-5 months to do what was not achieved in the last three years — make the place “habitable and safe”. Last week, however, after one of the fasting students had to be hospitalised, the state government ordered that Building 1 be readied by November 15 and the university comply with the set deadline.

Pal Chowdhury had told us of the climate and culture of Hindu Hostel from his times, “We did not believe in fighting. We believed in debate. We were the Argumentative Indians.”

Hindu History

A hostel for students coming to Calcutta was the brainchild of college teacher Pearycharan Sarkar

He set up a boarding house on Bowbazar Street in north Calcutta, followed by the first students’ hostel on the same street in 1861

It was for male Hindu students. The Baker Hostel which came up in the early 20th century took in Muslim students from Maulana Azad (then Islamia College)

In Calcutta in the Nineteenth Century: An Archival Exploration, Bidisha Chakraborty writes that more than a decade later, a piece of land was earmarked for the Eden Hindu Hostel

It was named after Lt General of Calcutta Ashley Eden, who led the campaign to raise funds

The ground floor came up in 1886. In 1898, the British Government took it over

In 1947-48, it was thrown open to students of other colleges too.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India /’ Home> Heritage / by Moumita Chaudhuri / October 07th, 2018

Winners of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology 2018 announced

Dr Aditi Sen De is the only female winner this year
On the occasion of its foundation day, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has put out the list of recipients of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology for 2018.

Every year, several scientists below the age of 45 are selected from various institutions across the country and awarded for their outstanding scientific work in the last five years.

Here is the full list of winners this year in various categories

Category Winner Affiliation

Biological Sciences
Dr Ganesh Nagaraju IISc Bengaluru
Dr Thomas Pucadyil IISER Pune

Chemical Sciences
Dr Rahul Banerjee IISER Kolkata
Dr Swadhin Kumar Mandal IISER Kolkata

Earth, Atmosphere, Ocean and Planetary Sciences
Dr Madineni Venkat Ratnam National Atmospheric Research Laboratory, Tirupati

Dr Parthasarathi Chakraborty CSIR-NIO, Goa

Engineering Sciences
Dr Amit Agrawal IIT Bombay
Dr Ashwin Anil Gumaste IIT Bombay

Mathematical Sciences

Dr Amit Kumar IIT Delhi
Dr Nitin Saxena IIT Kanpur

Medical Sciences
Dr Ganesan Venkatasubramanian NIMHANS, Bengaluru

Physical Sciences
Dr Aditi Sen De Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad
Dr Ambarish Ghosh IISc Bengaluru

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Sci-Tech / by The Hindu Net Desk / September 26th, 2018

Sushila Goenka dead

Sushila Goenka

Calcutta:

Sushila Goenka, the wife of industrialist Rama Prasad Goenka, passed away on Sunday evening. She was 82.

Her eldest son Harsh Vardhan Goenka, who is the chairman of the RPG Group, and younger son Sanjiv Goenka, the chairman of the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group, were present along with their children and other family members during Sushila’s final moments.

R.P. Goenka’s brothers, Jagdish Prasad and Gouri Prasad, were also present.

Born in Calcutta on August 15, 1936, Sushila, a daughter of Ram Sundar Kanoria, got married in 1948. A devotee of Indian tradition and culture, she was known for her interest in Indian music and her intimate connection with musical legends like Lata Mangeshkar.

Sushila was a director of Saregama India Ltd. Along with her husband, she was instrumental in setting up the Mahalaxmi Temple on Diamond Harbour Road.

She was cremated at Keoratala on Monday morning in the presence of friends, family members, ministers, senior government officials and city-based industrialists.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / by Special Correspondent / July 17th, 2018

Hicky’s Bengal Gazette: The Untold Story of India’s First Newspaper review: Winds of freedom

In 1780, an Irishman took on the British in Calcutta with a tell-all weekly that covered everything from corruption to politics

It was 1780. Great events were shaping and shaking the world. Four years earlier, in 1776, Britain had lost its first colony; a new nation was born, namely, the United States of America. And nine years, later, in 1789, the French revolution ushered in a new era of freedom and hope in Europe.

At a time when the western world was changing rapidly a new spirit was also taking shape in one of Britain’s eastern colonies. Calcutta, then capital of British India, though the East India Company ruled only a small part of India at that time, was witnessing developments that were new not only in India, but in all of Asia. As free thought and freedom of expression swept across the world, an Irishman called James Augustus Hicky gave Calcutta and India its first printed newspaper in 1780.

Taking on power

Hicky’s Bengal Gazette, according to the young American scholar Andrew Otis, was a four-page weekly newspaper priced at ₹1. And it took on the rich and mighty of British Calcutta. What did Hicky publish in the pages of his newspaper? “He tried to cover everything that might be important to Calcutta, devoting many sections to politics, world news and events in India.” Topics that featured regularly were poor quality of sanitation and lack of road maintenance. Houses of poor Indians had thatched roofs, prone to catching fire. The outbreak of fires was frequently reported in Hicky’s paper. Through the letters he solicited and published, the editor gave voice to Calcutta’s poor.

He attacked corruption in the East India Company and in high echelons of society. The Bengal Gazette reported that the Governor of Madras, Sir Thomas Rumbold, had been recalled to England to answer charges of corruption in front of Parliament. “Hicky sarcastically wrote,” Otis tells us, “Rumbold was a great man for only amassing a fortune of about 600,000 pounds while in India, much of it from bribes and extortion.”

Hicky did not spare any institution. He exposed the problems of low pay for soldiers in the subaltern ranks of the Company’s army. Failed wars of the Company also came under its gaze. The Company’s army suffered a crushing defeat in the Battle of Pollilur at the hands of Hyder Ali, then ruler of Mysore. As the news of the disaster trickled in, Hicky questioned why the British were fighting in India. He accused the Company of squandering the lives of its soldiers. He even praised the noble actions of Hyder Ali in his treatment of the captured soldiers of the Company.

But as Hicky continued his fearless mission against corruption, the powers of the day did not sit idle. A rival newspaper was born in Calcutta. The India Gazette of Messink and Reed differed from Hicky in every possible way. The two papers represented two sides of the political spectrum.

Tough rival

Hicky emphasised independence while the India Gazette made no secret that they had the support of Governor Warren Hastings. So much so that Hastings had given the facility of free postage to India Gazette. There were hardly any opinion columns in it, a clear sign of their obeisance to Hastings’s authority. And they did so for a good cause, that was monetary rewards. India Gazette became the Company’s de facto mouthpiece; the Company’s departments placed advertisements and notices in that paper.

Press freedom

But Hicky took on the might of the establishment. He alleged through his pieces in the paper how one Simeon Droz had sought a bribe from him and wanted to get favours for him from Marian Hastings, wife of Warren Hastings, in lieu of the bribe. Hastings fumed that someone could show such imprudence. He passed an order that the Post Office would no longer extend its facility to the Bengal Gazette.

Hicky fought back. He hired 20 hircirrahs (courier men) to deliver his newspaper, and his newspaper’s popularity soared. He continued his fight against the most powerful man of the day and his entourage.

Hastings hit back and the Chief Justice Elijah Impey decreed that Hicky be imprisoned on charges of libel. A grand jury sat to decide the fate of Hicky.

After a fierce courtroom battle, the jury acquitted him. Hicky won, Hastings lost. As Otis tells us, “He had proven that it was possible to protect the Press against the most powerful people in British India.”

There were still three more trials to come that tried to muffle the voice of Hicky. What happened; did freedom of the press triumph? For that you must turn to Otis’s book, as he sketches a riveting tale of the struggle of India’s first newspaper editor.

Hicky’s Bengal Gazette: The Untold Story of India’s First Newspaper; Andrew Otis, Westland/ Tranquebar, ₹899.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Books> Reviews / by Sunandan Roy Chowdhury / July 14th, 2018

Gods, demons and myths

Jawhar Sircar delivers the Dr Biman Behari Memorial Lecture at Asiatic Society.
Picture by Sanat Kumar Sinha

Park Street:

When Jawhar Sircar, the former Prasar Bharati CEO, took the stage at Asiatic Society to deliver the Dr Biman Behari Memorial Lecture on a topic drawn from Indian mythology, it was a deliberate act to lift what he described as the “academic apartheid with gods and demons”.

“The huge area of mythology and folklore is taken as nonsense by academics, thus leaving it to those who are deliberately misusing it to threaten the idea of India,” Sircar said.

Among those who deal in the area, Devdutt Pattanaik, he said, is too text-based in his interpretations. “At times he does refer to context but that pleases rather than disturbs the reader into challenging dangerous fundamentalism.”

Amish Tripathi, he said, builds modern myths on age-old ones that leaves the reader more firmly rooted in the imagined past. “The difference between myth and reality is fast disappearing in India.” Only a few bravehearts like D.D. Kosambi have explained “why colourful tales are needed to sugarcoat religious values”.

Elaborating on his theme ‘ Asuras in Indian tradition’, Sircar said his fascination with asuras was from a desire “to get their side of the story”.

He was using asuras, mentioned in the Mahabharat and the Puranas, as an umbrella under which to put all demonised anti-gods. “They are indigenous forces who stood in opposition to the emerging and dominating Sanskritic narrative.”

“The idea,” he said, “is to try to retrieve bits and pieces of the alternative narrative that was wiped off by priestly officialdom but survived through disjointed tales embedded within the mega narrative.”

Delving into the root of demonology, he pointed out that for ages Man knew certain deities were not benign. “But our binaries do not operate on the same plain (as the God vs Devil construct in the West). We have internalised much of the malevolent pantheon.”

An example of the process, he said, is Shani, who is still treated with suspicion and carries signatures of demonic worship. “You cannot place him indoors. Yet Brahmanism has managed to fit him within the system so that he does not run out of it and become the rallying point of dissonance.”

A difference between gods and demons, he said, is that one has to be worshipped and the other propitiated. Deities were metaphors for ethnic groups. “In pre-legislative times, policy-making depended on whose god one was able to foist upon the others in the pantheon.”

The expulsion or suppression of gods reflects social changes. “Of the ruling three in the Aryan narrative, Brahma was pensioned off to a temple in Pushkar and Indra was banished as a suffix to names. By this time, pastoral economy was on the upswing and Indra was pitted against Krishna.” The Govardhan mountain episode, with Krishna sheltering Vrindavan from the thunder of Indra, is iconic in the Krishna lore.

“Monotheism makes no compromise with the demonic. The devil had to be opposed to God. Christianity and Islam have kept the demon alive on a day-to-day basis as temptation, Sircar said, referring to rituals such as stoning of the devil at Mecca.

But in Hinduism, the asura is already defeated and his memory is celebrated in the burning of Ravan. “Over time, even figures in opposition were deified. Ravan, for example, was shown as a Shiva disciple.

“The story of India lies in this absorption and continuous process of accommodation.”

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / by Sudeshna Banerjee / July 1oth, 2018

The dead poet’s society

Swachchhasila Basu visits Michael Madhusudan Dutt’s Bengali debut stage on the poet-playwright’s 145th death anniversary
DUTT ADDRESS: Belgachia Rajbari

A two-storey structure off north Calcutta’s Belgachia Road nudges curiosity. The portico cuts though the building like a tunnel. Trees grow on the walls, their aerial roots weaving a veil over it. The pink ground floor walls are peeling like scabs, the upper floor is unpainted. The bricks that seal the arched spaces to the right of the portico talk of secrets buried. The red doors to the left are not welcoming either. And yet, once, the doors of this very house had been thrown open to Bengal’s cultural elite.

The Belgachia Rajbari hosted, among other things, the first performance of Michael Madhusudan Dutt’s Sarmistha, the first original play in Bengali.

According to the Mahabharata, Sarmistha is the second consort of prince Yayati. Says 83-year-old Nityapriya Ghosh, “It was 1859. While translating Ramnarayan Tarakanath’s Sanskrit play Ratnavali into English, Dutt realised there were no original plays in Bengali. Encouraged by friends and patrons, among them the rajas of Paikpara and Jyotindramohan Tagore, he wrote this five-act play.”

This was supposed to be the most productive phase of Dutt’s literary life. In a letter from 1859, written to a friend whom he refers to “as one of the best dogs in creation” he writes, ” Sermista [the English translation by Dutt himself is spelt thus] has turned out to be a most delightful girl… Jyotindra says it is the best drama in the language.”

Ghosh, who used to live in Belgachia Villa – a government housing that came up in a portion of the Rajbari estate – says that around 1836, Prince Dwarkanath, entrepreneur and grandfather of Rabindranath Tagore, bought the estate and a single-storey house and converted it into this palace. In Bonedi Kolkatar Gharbari, Debasish Bandyopadhyay writes that Dwar-kanath had spent over Rs 2 lakh on the estate makeover.

“The who’s who of society would look forward to an invitation to the innumerable parties he threw here,” says 88-year-old Deboprosad Majumdar, who has done much research on the region.

Later, Dwarkanath’s son, Debendranath, auctioned the property. Its new owners, the Singhas of Kandi in Murshidabad, who were the rajas of Paikpara, got it for Rs 54,000.

Paikpara is adjacent to Belgachia.

In Calcutta – The Living City, writer Tapati Guha Thakurta talks about the drawing room of the palace being full of European style furniture, art and sculptures.

Ghosh’s daughter, Sahana, recalls playing with her friends in the palace gardens till the early 1970s, while attending mothers would sit around on marble chairs fixed to the ground, around a marble table, chatting, knitting and soaking up the winter sun.

At that time, the then owners lived in a second house further down, across a large water body known as the Motijheel. Sahana says, “It extended quite a bit across the estate even in the 1970s. An uncle used to take us bird-watching there.” The jheel has vanished in places today and what remains of it are unrelated ponds and garbage dumps.

Theatre artiste Ditipriya Bandopadhyay, who got a chance to enter the palace building recently – she was shooting for a TV serial – says, “I saw some black-and-white photographs. They were captioned but the writing was so blurred that there was no telling what was what.”

Sarmistha opens in the Himalayas. Dutt writes in yet another letter: “Everyone says it is superior to that [Ratnavali] book; as for the Bengali original, the only fault found with it is that the language is a little too high… This I need scarcely tell you, is nothing; for if the book is destined to occupy a permanent place in the literature of the country, it will not be condemned on this head.”

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / by Swachchhasila Basu / July 01st, 2018

When Bourdain visited Kolkata and indulged in a plate of poori-bhaji

Anthony Bourdain | AP

The news of US celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain’s death has sent shock waves across the food world and beyond. Bourdain, who will be remembered as a renowned chef, author and TV personality, was also an intrepid journalist. He pioneered a kind of a cultural field reporting which offered an unpretentious window into the lives of people who toil and sweat to earn their bread, who are the hidden cogs of a food chain whose most ostentatious and snobbish aspects are held up as aspirational. He travelled the world in search of stories connected to food and eating and living. He patiently listened, and allowed himself to be carried away. When he came to India in 2006 to shoot an episode of his TV series No Reservations, he characteristically observed: “To be in India, anywhere in India, is to risk being endlessly enchanted and repelled, until your senses wanna to shut down.”

A major part of that episode was devoted to his time spent in Kolkata, although the same episode also featured the high-energy Maximum City Mumbai. Bourdain pointed out how these two were the only cities in India, with their tightly-packed interweaving of class and cultures, which reminded him of home, that is New York. Bourdain took a second class train to reach Kolkata and immersed himself in its sounds, smells, shapes and colours, traversing a journey which has charmed countless other dreamers, authors, filmmakers.

After intently watching a cock-fighting match in rural Bengal, digging into a two-rupee plate of poori-aloo bhaji in a flower market under the Howrah Bridge and attending local wrestling matches and temple rituals, you could only trust Bourdain to cleverly remark, “Incidentally if you are going to be reincarnated in India , I highly recommend being a cow. The service is excellent.”

He even waded into the sets of a TV serial shoot, where he dined on a simple, wholesome thali with the cast and crew. Mamata Shankar, Bengali actress and daughter of famous Indian dancer Uday Shankar, was in the middle of a shoot, but happily entertained her curious guest who derived a great sense of reassurance from the fact that soap operas the world over are the same, like good old comfort food. In a Mid-Day article, Mamata fondly reminisced: “He was a happy Frenchman, consumed by food. We ate together that afternoon and he surprised me with his knowledge of Bengali food. He was a khaddo rashik (gourmand). I told him about my father and uncle (Pandit Ravi Shankar). He was familiar with their work. I was surprised how much he knew about my family.”

Accompanied by a popular food columnist Nondon Bagchi, Bourdain played a hectic round of cricket at Kolkata’s Maidan and followed it up with a round of jhaal muri and a similar version of the savoury snack served with crackers from vendors on the fringes of the park. This wasn’t very dissimilar to eating nachos after a game of baseball, the dapper chef thoughtfully pointed out.

When onboard a ferry in the Sundarbans to escape the hectic flurry of the city, Bourdain was your green hero worried about submerged islands and sustaining biodiversity. But every global issue for Bourdain had an entry-point from food. Who would have thought that prawns and bhetki fish in extra virgin diesel oil could be so tasty, Bourdain observed as any real journalist would, always curious, open-minded and unafraid of the unknown.

source: http:theweek.in / The Week / Home> Leisure> Lifestyle / by Sneha Bhura / June 09th, 2018

An orator and a gentleman

In memoriam: Satya Sadhan Chakraborty(1933 – 2018) FE Block

Satya Sadhan Chakraborty, former higher education minister in the Left Front government, passed away at his FE Block residence on Saturday morning. He was 85.

According to family sources, he suffered a massive cardiac arrest at 10.30am. He leaves behind his only daughter Sharmistha Bhattacharjee. “I stay in Delhi but was spending a lot of time in Calcutta to be with Baba and was there with him continually since May,” she said. Chakraborty’s wife Shukla had died four years ago.

Chakraborty hailed from Comilla, now in Bangladesh, and came to Calcutta for higher studies after Partition. He did an MA in political science from Calcutta University.

He became an MP defeating Bhola Sen in the Calcutta South constituency in 1980 but was defeated by the same rival in 1984. “It was one of the 16 seats we lost in the Congress wave after Indira Gandhi was killed,” recalled colleague and Salt Lake neighbour Rabin Deb. He also worked in the education cell of the West Bengal College and University teachers’ Association (WBCUTA) and became its general secretary.

He was elected thrice from Chakdah to the Assembly. After his first victory in 1991, he became the higher education minister in Jyoti Basu’s cabinet, a post he held till 2006 even after Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee succeeded Basu as chief minister in 2000.

“Baba had suffered a slipped disc when he was a minister. That led to a problem in movement in later life. For the last few years, he was wheelchair-bound,” recalls Sharmistha, who remembers her father as a “very positive thinking individual”.

Deb, a resident of FD Block, knew Chakraborty as a teacher at Vidyasagar College from the time he was a student himself in a different college. Chakraborty would later retire as head of the political science department there. “But he caught my eye with his impromptu Bengali translation of (Marxist leader) B.T. Ranadive’s speech at the Lenin centenary celebration at Eden Gardens.”

Chakraborty, Deb recalls, was a large-hearted man and a good orator. “Such was his way with words that he could say tough things couched in high civility, leaving the Opposition at a loss for response on the Assembly floor. He had come up the hard way. He worked on the factory floor to support his family even as he studied in the evening course.”

In those days, they lived in Dum Dum. Chakraborty shifted to Salt Lake in 1992.

During his own stint as Ballygunge MLA, Deb recalls needing money to build premises for Charuchandra Evening College.

“Classes of the college were being held in a dilapidated school building. As per rules, the government could not give money to buy land. But we found a way. I raised the matter as a supplementary question in the Assembly. As minister, he assured me help to construct the building. Thus we could get around the legal hurdle. The building now stands as Naba Ballygunge Balika Uchcha Mahavidyalaya beside Kasba police station on the Rashbehari connector,” he smiles.

Chakraborty, he points out, also played key roles in the party’s Cuba and Nicaragua standing committees. “He was also the Bengal representative in an Afro Asian Peace Conference which was attended by Frontier Gandhi and Sheikh Hasina.”

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / by Special Correspondent / June 22nd, 2018