Hockey player Keshav Chandra Dutt | Photo Credit: Rajeev Bhatt
He was part India’s historic feat at the 1948 Olympics where they beat home team Britain 4-0 at the Wembley Stadium in London to win the first gold post Independence.
Two-time Olympics gold medallist Keshav Chandra Datt, the last surviving member of the Indian hockey team in the historic 1948 London Games, passed away here early on Wednesday, according to a Hockey Bengal (HB) statement. He was 95.
An HB official said Datt’s last rites would be performed after the arrival of his daughter Anjali from abroad in a few days’ time.
A product of the famous Government College, Lahore — which also produced Olympians like Syed Jaffar, Commander Nandy Singh and Munir Dar — Datt, born in Lahore on December 29, 1925, participated in the 1948 London and 1952 Helsinki Games respectively.
Some claim that he could not take part in his third Olympics, in Melbourne in 1956, due to “professional commitments with Brooke Bond”.
Datt — who migrated to India after the partition and played in Bombay and then in Bengal — was part of the Dhyan Chand-led Indian squad that toured East Africa in 1947. As a half-back, he played in 22 matches and scored two goals.
In 1949, Datt had the honour of playing against hockey wizard Dhyan Chand, who led the Rest of India squad, in two exhibition matches here.
First, Datt was part of the 1948 Olympics squad and in the second he was a member of the Bengal team.
In his autobiography Goal, Dhyan Chand rated Datt as one of the finest half-backs of that time.
Best moments
Defeating host Great Britain 4-0 in the final at the Empire Stadium, Wembley, London, to win Independent India’s first gold in 1948 on the British soil and then thrashing the Netherlands 6-1 four years later in Helsinki to bag the second consecutive Olympic Games title were the finest moments of Datt’s career.
By the age of 26, he had the prized possession of two Olympic gold medals.
He was among the last ones to witness India’s monopoly in the Olympics as it faced some challenge in the 1956 Games where it experienced tight matches — including 1-0 wins over Germany and Pakistan in the semifinals and final respectively.
Datt shone in his club career as well.
“While playing for Calcutta Port Commissioners, he impressed famous actor and Mohun Bagan Hockey secretary of that time, Jahar Ganguly. He joined Mohun Bagan in 1951 to respect the wishes of Ganguly and played till 1960.
“In 1952, Mohun Bagan achieved the first double in hockey when it lifted the Beighton Cup for the first time along with the Calcutta Hockey League (CHL),” the Bagan website said.
Datt won CHL six times and the Beighton Cup three times in his 10-year Bagan career. He was the first non-football sportsperson to be conferred the Mohun Bagan Ratna, in 2019.
Datt represented Punjab (in undivided India), Bombay and Bengal in the National championship.
Badminton player
He was also an accomplished badminton player and was Bengal No.1 of his times.
Datt’s passing away snaps the only living link with Independent India’s first sporting glory.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Sport> Hockey / by Y.B. Sarangi / Kolkata – July 07th, 2021
The football legend had conducted a clinic for schoolchildren at that facility three years ago
A stadium near Barasat, where Diego Maradona was last seen in action in India, was on Friday named after the football legend.
During his last visit to Kolkata three years ago, Maradona had conducted a football clinic with school children at the Aditya School of Sports in Kadambgachi on the outskirts of Barasat, about 35 kilometres from here.
“The stadium has now been converted into a full-fledged cricket stadium and we have named it ‘Diego Maradona Aditya School of Sports Cricket Stadium’,” chairman of Aditya Group Anirban Aditya told PTI.
“This is the first-ever cricket stadium in the Argentine football legend’s name. We also have special Maradona memorabilia in the changing room. The seat and the cloth hanger that Maradona used would now be preserved with his autographed No. 10 jersey.”
Intense session
Maradona was last seen in action in India on December 12, 2017 when he turned up in shorts on a humid afternoon playing with 60-odd school kids. He was seen drenched in sweat, pouring water on his head during the gruelling session.
He also crooned Spanish songs and inaugurated a seven-a-side exhibition match featuring former India cricket captain Sourav Ganguly.
He was slated to feature in a match billed as ‘Diego vs Dada’ but by the time the match began, the 1986 World Cup-winning Argentine captain was completely drained out after the session with school kids.
Anirban said the stadium was built in four months and Maradona was the first sportsperson to step into it. “I remember taking Maradona from his hotel. He was tired but when he saw the crowd he became full of life. Initially, it was to be a 45-minute affair but it went on. He had promised he would be back and train the kids. So as a tribute to him we have named the stadium after him.”
Students heartbroken
Some of the students who had interacted with Maradona at the school were heartbroken.
“I had always heard of Maradona but never thought that we can touch him and play with the ‘God of Football’. It was completely magical.
“I will always remember the workshop that he took as the most remarkable event of my life, said 17-year-old Avita Sarkar of Aditya Academy Senior Secondary School.
“I was one of the lucky ones who got the football pass from Maradona. It was unbelievable,” said 18-year-old Aritra Sarkar.
Built on a 30-acre campus, the school conducted grass-roots programmes for Indian Super League franchise ATK Mohun Bagan.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News< Cities> Kolkata / by PTI / Kolkata – November 28th, 2020
For the first time from Bengal, 4 mountaineers will soon start their expedition to one of the most aesthetic and challenging peaks in the Himalayas—Mt. Ama Dablam. The peak rises 6,856 meters in elevation.
Overcoming the challenges posed by the pandemic, the mountaineers—Satyarup Siddhanta , Malay Mukherjee, Kiran Patra and Debasish Biswas, have already reached Nepal. The climbers left the city to reach Siliguri by train on November 1. They had to follow the stringent COVID guidelines of the Nepal government before leaving for the final expedition.
“We will face the daunting task amid the chilling weather conditions. When we will be scaling the mountain, the temperature is expected to hover around minus 40 degree Celsius mark. The steepness of the peak will be another hurdle that we will have to overcome. If everything goes as per plan, the expected summit will end on November 24 or 25,” said Siddhanta.
Interestingly, Prince of Bahrain will simultaneously take up the expedition along with the Bengali mountaineers. They will be assisted by a team of experienced Sherpas.
The team claimed that chances of frost or blizzard during the summit would be minimum. Rudra Prasad Halder, who works with the state Police, was also expected to join the expedition. However, Halder—who had climbed Mt Everest in 2016—had to stay back for official reasons.
source: http://www.millenniumpost.in / Millennium Post / Home> Kolkata / by MPost / November 03rd, 2020
The Canadian-turned-Calcuttan did not share the disdain arty Indian filmmakers had for commercial cinema.
The exchange between the little prince and the fox from the classic 20th century post-war French fable, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince, holds the key to how two men – Satyajit Ray and Fr Gaston Roberge – met every Sunday at 9 am at the residence of Ray on the Bishops Lefroy Road in Calcutta. Like the fox and the prince, they kept their ritual and explored the world of ideas. Alas, now with the passing of Fr Gaston Roberge, we will never know who was the prince or the fox between the two. This rite of friendship lasted for 22 years, ever since their first meeting in 1969. They institutionalised their friendship in the form of Chitrabani, the first development communication institution in the eastern part of India, and thus the lore continues.
Unlike their rendezvous, I encountered Fr Gaston Roberge on three occasions, serendipitously – in Pune, Ahmedabad and Goa – in the early 1990s. The third time, at an International Canadian Studies conference, I decided to record the moment in the form of an interview which was then published in the Sunday Magazine of the Indian Express on November 13, 1994. Each time it was his Canadian cadence of directness, and unassuming presence, coupled with the mischievous smile and the phenomenal capacity to talk cinema that stood out.
Let’s take the case of the blockbuster hit Sholay. This year marks the 45th anniversary of its theatrical release in 1975, and I do not recollect anyone who has brought together the arrival of the train at the Ramgarh and the Lumière brothers’ 50-second shot of L’Arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat in Paris (1896) together in a sentence: It is in such moment of equivalence that one is deschooled and taken on a parallel journey of Indian cinema.
For Fr Roberge, “a proud Calcuttan”, embedded in culture and ethos of the host society – becoming native was a natural process. “I am at a loss when I am asked, ‘Where are you from?’,” he confesses. “I have been called ‘Fadar Gautam Roberjee’,” he said, recounting an incident of his earlier days after his arrival in Kolkata while learning the Bengali language and doing missionary work in the schools. When asked how he felt about that name, an accident of accents, he smiled. “I like it! I still use ‘Fadar’, he said to me. Fadar speaks Bengali with a French accent among other languages like Italian. Through interacting with Bengali people, I have come to know myself further,” he had said.
Writing about his journey to India, he said it was an “urge” to come over to India, to dialogue with her people, and learn from them whatever he might discover that he did not know, especially about God. “In return, of course, I was keen to share whatever my own tradition had given me. But my journey was one of discovery, not of colonization, religious or political. I had joined the Society of Jesus at the age of 21 years. I already had five years of religious life when I volunteered to come to India, and my superiors decided I would join the Jesuits of Kolkata.”
I recollect him telling me how the city was encoded in him in form of a tri-murti, an image with three faces: “the face of cineaste Satyajit Ray, Mother Teresa, the face of the rickshaw-puller in Dominique Lapierre’s The City of Joy—each representing the creativity of the intelligentsia, unconditional charity and the heroism of an ordinary citizen.” He had a very close relationship with both Mother Teresa and Dominique Lapierre.
Fr Gaston Roberge with Mother Teresa. Photo: chitrabani.net
In drawing attention to the imperative to think about cinema, he implores, “thinking allows the mind to progress in its search for plentitude and unity. When one is dissatisfied with a particular social order, one is tempted to reject the type of thinking that is associated with that order. This is indeed a mistake. For, if one cannot transcend the limitations of a social order with the help of the ideology of that order, one is not likely to be able to transcend the limitations of the alternative social order either, with whatever ideology.”
Writing was his mode of thinking – at the last count he had authored 31 books – especially after he discovered his inability to do much on the field during the violent times of the 70s in Calcutta during which many conspiracy theories flourished, making him, his work and the institution of Chitrabani the suspects of an international conspiracy, ranging from cold war rhetoric to missionary conversions.
The confluence of Derrida and his missionary invocation produces statements like:
“A text always already defies the authority of its author. What is true of films is generally true of all texts. The author of a text, filmic, literary or dramatic, is not the author—God.” (original stress)
In conversations, his pauses and the idea of silence were eloquent and an exercise in listening, an endangered practice as Nuruddin Farah would say. His witty deployment – “I am a priest” – as a strategic reminder of drawing the line in refraining to speculate in a discussion despite being tempted intellectually.
Woven into his discourse were emotion and theology and implicit in his teleological imbuement of Cinema was the providentialism. Once I asked him about Kalaignar Karunanidhi writing out god from the Tamil cinema. He paused and alluding to the 17th century tension between Blaise Pascal and Rene Descartes, who tried to dispense with God in philosophy, and quoting Pascal said, “the heart knows of reasons that reason cannot grasp”. Much like a Bernard Crick, he elaborated the treatise in defence of Indian cinema. “[P]opular films are collective dreams and song and dance is an integral part of it. Song and dance are sight and sound,” he wrote, invoking Bharat Muni’s Natyashastra. He was the Master Preacher of Film Theory, as the 2017 39-minute long documentary by K.S. Das encapsulates the remarkable Father Gaston Roberge.
Among the critical three decades of the 70s-90s, it was in the 80s that his work bore much meaning as filmwallahs, writers, academics, critics and even politicians were flailing in an effort to keep their feet on shifting ground, as everything was up for question.
At the beginning of the 80s, the film society movement, having spread across the nation fostering an orientation of an alternative film culture with an international outlook, found itself in a crisis as it embattled the state bureaucracy’s wrongful interpretation of its activities – sites of commercial entertainment. At the same time, as questions about Indian cinema became part of a milieu for the 800-odd graduates who had come out of the Pune Film Institute, brandishing “a consciousness of the social responsibility of the artist”, as Jagat Murari wrote about as the mandate of the institute. Fr Roberge countered the dismissive and patronising gaze of the film society-wallahs, as he sought answers in a fuller engagement with the popular Indian cinema. In response, Fr Gaston offered Another Cinema for Another Society, a militant manifesto of sorts: “A new cinema can only be born along with a nascent society and a new cinema can contribute to the growth of that society. ”
Similarly, the two key reports – the Patil Report of the Film Inquiry Committee (1951) and Karath Report of the Working Group of Film Policy (1980) – are like bookends to the bureaucratic rationalisation of the political economy of the Indian film industry. Often the disdain was visible, as the Karath report framed the film industry, “vulgar, trivial, reactionary, tasteless and exploitative”.
With his trademark clear-headedness, Fr. Roberge defined his position:
“Every effort should be made to salvage from total oblivion the report of the Working Group on National Film Policy (1980) for a new Indian Cinema. The report has ideological limitations but argues well for ‘another’ Indian cinema. This cinema would take on the social tasks which critics of the so-called commercial cinema want the latter to perform. In our socio-economic system, commercial cinema functions best when it is is spared the irritant of false expectations, and when the social value of the commodity it produces—entertainment—is recognised.”
He was a faithful witness to these turbulent times as Indian cinema was in the throes of its identity crisis – “good Indian cinema” vs “radical cinema” – as the questions of a ‘third cinema’ began floating around.
There were many endeavours in that decade in search of the quintessential Indian idiom.
Earlier, Satyajit Ray laid out the schema in Our films, Their films. As Chidananda Das Gupta was Talking About Films, we read that Kishore Valicha had pronounced Amitabh Bachchan as the urban machine. In the context of the Sikh pogrom, Nirmal Verma proclaimed at the Gandhi Peace Foundation the need to address “religion, the most prestigious thing in the life of every Indian. Why should we in the name of this faithless secularism try to deny the deepest, the noblest quality of Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, every religion?”; K.S.Singh and Bapu Jayasinhji Jhala were trying to institutionalise visual anthropology in India; G.N. Devy was calling out the amnesia in literary criticism; Arundhati Roy scripted and acted in, In Which Annie Gives it Those Ones; and, Pankaj Mishra was still on his way to Ludhiana for his butter chicken!
Satyajit Ray and Fr Gaston Roberge. Photo: chitrabani.net
Despite cinema as his apostolic calling, he resonated with Arturo Escobar in the critique of development: “Sustainable development is an oxymoron and is not some project but a quality of human mind”. In the same vein, he added, “Spirituality is not a part of any religion but a quality of humans.”
With his friend Apu and uncle Bharat Muni, he made his way through the cinematic maze, addressing the poverty of Indian cinema, enriching the Indian people through a mass literacy in the means and technologies of communication as tools of conviviality.
Displaying admirable epistemic fluency, patience, discernment and prescience, the way Verrier Elwin responded to the tribal question, Fr Roberge did on the question of communication, and for him, the modality of cinema became a point of entry into that communication—human communication. All his life, Fr Roberge argued and endeavoured to define the social contract of image making in India, which unfortunately is under duress once again.
Narendra Pachkhédé is a critic and writer who splits his time between Toronto, London and Geneva.
source: http://www.thewire.in / The Wire / Home> Film / by Narendra Pachkhede / September 01st, 2020
The East India Company wanted the law of forfeiture to apply in the colonies, which would have allowed a suicide victim’s property to pass to the Crown.
The Court House, Calcutta, where the case would first have been heard. A hand-coloured print from the Fiebig Collection: Views of Calcutta and Surrounding Districts, by Frederick Fiebig in 1851 | British Library Online Gallery
In a delicate case from 1864, the Privy Council considered whether the English practice of forfeiture following a suicide should apply to a subject of the British Raj.
Following the death of Rajah Christenauth Roy Bayadoor in Calcutta on October 31, 1844, a second will was discovered, written by him that morning, which left a portion of his estate to the East India Company. Since his death was by his own hand, Bayadoor’s widow, Ranee Surnomoyee, disputed the validity of this will on the grounds that it was not written in sound mind. The court found in favour of Ranee Surnomoyee, declaring the second will to be invalid.
An appeal was then made to the Privy Council against this verdict on behalf of East India Company, citing the law of forfeiture in cases of suicide. A digitised copy of the response of the Council is available to view on the website of the British and Irish Legal Information Institute.
Known as felo-de-se within English common law, meaning “crime of his-, or herself”, suicide in England was associated with restless souls. Confirmed victims were historically buried at crossroads with a stake through their heart, possibly in an effort to stop the soul from wandering. The law was only changed to allow burials within churchyards following the tragic death of Foreign Secretary Viscount Castlereagh in 1822.
Even then, restrictions still applied. In her book on Victorian attitudes to suicide, Barbara Gates states that churchyard burials were allowed without Christian rites and restricted to “at night, between the hours of nine and midnight, and his/her goods and chattels must still be turned over to the Crown”.
Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, took his own life in 1822, probably due to stress and depression caused by the strain of his political career and public unpopularity. The suicide of such a public figure inspired the re-examination of related English laws. Image from Jonah Barrington, Historic Memoirs of Ireland (London, 1833) Photo credit: British Library flickr
Intended as a deterrent to criminals, the law of forfeiture passed the deceased’s property to the Crown and away from inheritors. It also applied to suicides, which were considered a crime against the individual, God and the Crown. Abolished by the Forfeiture Act 1870, the practice was applied infrequently, even at the time of our case.
In the appeal, the representative of the East India Company did not further contest the second will. Instead, he argued that English law, including forfeiture, applied in the colonies. The privy councillors, therefore, had to consider the application of these laws in India.
They examined cultural differences between Britons and Indians to find examples of where British law did not fit with Indian traditions. The main examples given by the Council were polygamy and child marriage. Although shocking to Victorian sensibilities, these were part of the culture and beliefs of Indians at the time and so the East India Company had allowed them to continue. Therefore, by adapting English law to suit Indian culture, the East India Company had set a precedent.
In conclusion, the Privy Councillors expressed their surprise at an effort to enforce forfeiture following a suicide as late as 1844 and their confusion at its application to an Indian Hindu. They found in favour of the descendants of Rajah Christenauth Roy Bayadoor and allowed them to retain possession of his property.
The author is a Cataloguer of Modern Archives & Manuscripts.
This article first appeared on the British Library’s Untold Lives Blog.
source: http://www.scroll.in / Scroll.in / Home> History Revisited / by Matthew Waters / October 12th, 2020
Researchers from four universities in West Bengal have been looking for fossils in the sediments of Chotanagpur plateau for almost a year
The dragonfly is around 3cm long and has a wingspan of around 2.5cm. This is, however, much smaller than the fossils of giant dragonflies, which have been found elsewhere in the world. (Sourced)
A team of scientists from West Bengal has discovered the first dragonfly fossil in India from Jharkhand’s Latehar district. The fossil is at least 2.5 million years old. A paper on the finding was published in the October 10 edition of Current Science journal.
“This is the first dragonfly fossil from India. It is a well-preserved one. The fossil belongs to the late Neogene period, which dates between 2.5 million and five million years ago,” said Subir Bera, a professor with the Centre for Advanced Study of the Botany department, University of Calcutta.
The dragonfly is around 3cm long and has a wingspan of around 2.5cm. This is, however, much smaller than the fossils of giant dragonflies, which have been found elsewhere in the world. Experts said that the wingspan of one of the giant dragonflies Meganeuropsis permiana measured around 2.5 feet. It dates back to the Permian era, around 300 million years ago. In 2013, a giant, well-preserved dragonfly fossil, dating back 200 million years, was discovered in China.
Researchers from four universities in West Bengal have been looking for fossils in the sediments of Chotanagpur plateau for almost a year. In January 2020, they dug the dragonfly fossil from a depth of around 5m below the soil surface.The team has also found fossils of various insects, fishes and leaves of some flowering plants.
The research was headed by Mahasin Ali Khan, assistant professor of Botany at Sidho-Kanho-Birsha University.
“The nearest living member of the fossil is Libellula depressa, a species of dragonfly that is found in any tropical country, including India,” said Manoshi Hazra, one of the team members and the first author of the research paper, which has been published in Current Science.
As dragonflies spend most of their lives near fresh water bodies, the scientists said that millions of years ago a freshwater body might have existed there, which has now dried up. The other fossils of plants and fishes, which the scientists have found, also support the theory.
“The very fact that the team has found the fossil of an adult dragonfly from the sedimentary bed is very interesting. Usually the prospect of finding an immature dragonfly from the sedimentary bed is huge because dragonfly-larvae live underwater. The prospect of finding insect fossils from sedimentary beds and coal beds is huge, but unfortunately little work has been done in India in this regard,” said TK Pal, a former scientist of the Zoological Survey of India.
source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home> Kolkata / by Joydeep Thakur / Hindustan Times, Kolkata / October 08th, 2020
Saheli Pal an MA English student at Calcutta University, created the image on 6 feet by 4 feet board. She had started her work in mid-August after receiving the guidelines from the Guinness World Records authorities and completed it on September 30
Saheli Pal of Ghurni locality in Krishnanagar seeks to break the Guinness World Record of Iran’s Meysam Rahmani, who had made a UNESCO logo with 1,36,951 matchsticks in 2013. (Photo by Getty Images/Representational)
A 22-year-old woman in West Bengal’s Nadia district has created an image of the Taj Mahal using more than 3 lakh matchsticks.
Saheli Pal of Ghurni locality in Krishnanagar seeks to break the Guinness World Record of Iran’s Meysam Rahmani, who had made a UNESCO logo with 1,36,951 matchsticks in 2013. Pal, an MA English student at Calcutta University, created the image on 6 feet by 4 feet board.
She had started her work in mid-August after receiving the guidelines from the Guinness World Records authorities and completed it on September 30.
A video of her artwork has been made and it will be sent to the Guinness World Records authorities soon.
“I have used matchsticks of two colours to depict Taj Mahal at night,” she said.
Pal had in 2018 created a world record by making the smallest clay sculpture of the face of Goddess Durga, measuring 2.54 cm by 1.93 cm by 0.76 cm and weighing 2.3 gm. Her father Subir Pal and grandfather Biren Pal had won the President’s Awards for their sculptures in 1991 and 1982 respectively.
“I want to carry forward the legacy of my father and grandfather,” she added.
source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Cities>Kolkata / by PTI / Krishnanagar / October 03rd, 2020
A Calcutta physicist’s mathematical formulation served as an elegant basis for research by laureate Roger Penrose
RRR Roger Penrose in Calcutta in January 2011 / File picture
Amalkumar Raychaudhuri, a young teacher at Calcutta’s Ashutosh College in 1955, had developed a mathematical formulation that served as an elegant basis for the research by British physicist Roger Penrose a decade later that brought him the Nobel Prize on Tuesday.
The Calcutta physicist’s formulation, known as the Raychaudhuri equation, sought to quantify certain but tricky aspects of geometry with widespread use in Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, essentially a geometric description of distortions and bends in space and time.
Penrose teamed up with the celebrated late British physicist Stephen Hawking and used the Raychaudhuri equation for a mathematical description of black holes — objects with such intense gravitational pulls that not even light escapes them — and singularities, extreme situations where laws of nature break down.
It is for these singularity theorems that the Nobel committee awarded Penrose the prize, citing that he showed that “…at their heart, black holes hide a singularity in which all known laws of nature cease”.
Without Raychaudhuri’s formalism, and Hawking’s early work connecting it to black holes, this work of Penrose may have not happened at all.
When I was a student at Oxford in the mid-eighties, Penrose and Hawking had still been working on some aspects of these ideas. Penrose, as a mathematics professor, had also been working on various other forms of mathematics.
I once knocked on the door of Penrose, together with one of his students, to ask whether I could attend his course on Spinors, the theory of which he was then developing. He had company, but in addition to saying yes, he asked where I was from. When I mentioned I had come from Presidency College in Calcutta, he asked whether I was related to THE Raychaudhuri.
I nodded, and said that while he was no relation, he was of course the head of my undergraduate department, and that Amalkumar Raychaudhuri had indeed taught us mathematical physics in the first year, and electromagnetism in the second. On the side, he had taught us general relativity, which wasn’t in our syllabus.
The other person in the room, who introduced himself as Stephen Hawking (in his own voice still), said that I had been fortunate to have been taught by AKR himself, and that they hoped to meet him one day.
Later on, of course, as a PhD student in Cambridge, I attended several courses given by Hawking, and I continued to meet Penrose, including several times in Pune.
Lord Martin Rees, another of my gurus from Cambridge, has rightly said today: “There would be a consensus that Penrose and Hawking have done more than anyone else since Einstein to deepen our knowledge of gravity. Sadly, this Nobel award was too much delayed to allow Hawking to share the credit.”
Somak Raychaudhury is the director of the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph Online / Home> India / by Somak Raychaudhury, Pune / October 07th, 2020
Two Bengali musicians from Calcutta, one Israeli sax player in Berlin and a Russian contrabassist in New Delhi got together, the outcome is the hauntingly beautiful Detour aheadS
Shooting the music video I had an idea on how to go about it . I had a dark backdrop and my studio lights set-up and then I set up the camera on a tripod and shot in multiple takes and from different angles. I wanted to keep the look classic and retro. So I went with a long black dress with lace trims wore my hair the way it is, naturally curly, and went for a dark red lip and a smokey eye. It was fun dressing up for the video, definitely an experience ! — vocalist Rupsha Sen / Sourced by the Telegraph
Vocalist Rupsha Sen heard the classic Detour Ahead for the first time in April 2020. “I was transported to that special place where powerful art can take us sometimes,” she says. Soon Rupsha got together with musicians Soham Dey, Omri Abramov, Ekaterina Aristova to work on a version of the song. On September 19, the music video for Detour Ahead dropped and has met with heartwarming feedback. A chat with Rupsha…
What was the starting point for this collab?
As the pandemic hit, we were forced to retire to our homes, lock our doors and ride out the storm. Subsequently, all establishments were shut down along with venues that hosted live music in the city and thus we were all forced to stay apart and put a halt to rehearsing and performing live music. This birthed the surge of virtual performances and collaborations including ours. Although some of us knew of each other distantly, Soham, Omri, Ekaterina and I officially met online and came together for this collaboration based on our shared love for this genre of music.
Why pick this song to perform?
Firstly, because it’s a gorgeous jazz standard that all four of us love. Secondly, it is harmonically rich, evocative and beautifully structured with such simple yet poignant lyrics and lastly, it is not very often performed or covered, which makes it an interesting choice.
Do you remember the first time you had listened to this tune?
I actually heard this song for the first time back in April 2020 when Soham posted a rendition of it online and I was immediately hooked. This made me look up the different versions available online, such as Mark Murphy, Ella Fitzgerald, Kurt Elling but I have to say the version I ended up channelling for this collaboration and also my favourite is the rendition by Sarah Vaughan. It’s hauntingly beautiful.
It’s safe to say that when I heard the song for the first time I was moved and could feel exactly what Sarah was singing about — comparing love’s progress to a motor trip… of course credit for the lyrics goes to the composers of the song — Herb Ellis, Johnny Frigo and Lou Carter.
I remember Soham telling us about his memories of how he listened to the song on his long bus rides back and forth from his work in 2016 and how this song was a constant companion to him at that time.
Music definitely has the power to evoke all kinds of emotions in us, including nostalgia, which is beautiful in a melancholic way.
How did you put together the group and why pick them?
The line-up of this collaboration includes Omri Abramov, an incredible saxophone and EWI (electronic wind instrument) player originating from Israel, currently residing in Berlin; the wonderful Ekaterina Aristova on contrabass hailing from Russia, currently living in New Delhi; Soham Dey, a talented singer and guitar player from Calcutta, and of course me on vocals. Omri, Soham and I had already collaborated on a song before and we had a wonderful experience working together so it was a no-brainer really that we wanted to work together again, which manifested in the form of this collaboration after we decided to bring in Ekaterina on double bass, as we really felt the song needed the sound of a double bass to make it wholesome. We had a particular vision and sound in mind for this collaboration and we were fortunate enough to be able to bring together the people who we thought would help us get as close to that as possible.
How did you record the song? How did you rehearse for it?
The song was recorded in parts as we were all situated in different parts of the world. Having the benefit of living in the same city, Soham and I recorded the guitar and vocal tracks at Blooperhouse Studios, after which we sent the track to Ekaterina over at Delhi.
She was able to record her parts with the help of her friends at Chizai who have a studio set-up.
Lastly the track was sent to Omri, who has a studio of his own where he was able to work on the piece and come up with a combination of saxophone and EWI, which he used to simulate sounds of the clarinet, cello, violin and viola, giving the song a beautiful bed of sound to flourish on.
We were not able to rehearse together but we listened to different versions of the song to familiarise ourselves with the essence of it and came up with a way of how we wanted to approach it and also discussed all of it together so that we were all on the same page about the final piece.
How did you shoot the video? Did you have a theme for it?
Again as we were all in different locations we all had to shoot it ourselves from our respective homes/studios. It was definitely not easy and involved a number of challenges. I’m grateful to each and everyone for taking the trouble to follow the guidelines we had discussed, not only for the musical part of it but also for the video. It was also definitely an uphill task to edit the video but thankfully it all came together in the end. The theme I had envisioned for the video was always something that had a distinctly noir feel to it, so that is what we discussed and that is what we all tried to achieve.
You must have heard/watched some inspiring lockdown collaborations in the last few months. Which were your favourites?
Yes, this lockdown has definitely inspired some great collaborations, the ones that come to mind are definitely an online concert that I watched by Bireli Lagrene Trio comprising Bireli Lagrene and Adrien Moignard on guitar and William Brunard on contrabass. It was a bevy of amazing musicians creating magic together and was absolutely a treat for the ears… loved it completely.
Apart from that I have been following some Brazilian and French artistes on Instagram who have been dishing out some beautiful collaborations, namely Vanessa Moreno and Camille Bertault. From India I enjoyed a number of collaborations by the Delhi-based band The Revisit Project. I’ve been following their work online and through the pandemic they have been doing some great work and are also about to release a new album, which is a testament to their hard work.
How important a role did music play in your life in the last few months?
I felt like a teenager again, listening to music all day, watching incredible musicians come live and host free concerts, watching musicians collaborate with one another to make beautiful music.
Music has always played an incredibly important role in my life and it did more so in these last couple of months as when you take everything else away only the most important things remain.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph Online / Home> Arts / by Arindam Chatterjee / September 27th, 2020
From October 1, the West Bengal Transport Department (WBTD) commences a 90-minute Heritage River Cruise that starts from the Millennium Park Jetty. | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
Affordable 90-minute guided experience guide launched by Bengal Transport Department on October 1
It is along the bends of the river Hooghly that the city of Kolkata grew from three villages to a bustling metropolis. Now a cruise on the Hooghly will take people past the different ghats of the river, providing a peek into the history of the metropolis.
From October 1, the West Bengal Transport Department (WBTD) commences a 90-minute Heritage River Cruise that starts from the Millennium Park Jetty.
Sailing upstream and downstream, the vessel will pass beneath the majestic Howrah Bridge, and go past ghats such as the Armenian ghat, Nimtala ghat and Mayer ghat. Each ghat on the bank of the river has a bit of history attached to it.
For instance, the Armenian ghat was built back in 1734 by Manvel Hazaar Maliyan, a trader of Armenian origin. The ferry ghat stands testimony to Kolkata’s cosmopolitan culture in the colonial times, and the Armenian community’s contribution to the city.
There is also the Mayer ghat (the mother’s ghat), which draws its name from Maa Sarada Devi, wife of Ramakrishna Paramhamsa. She would visit the ghat daily, and stayed near it from May 1909 to July 1920.
Similarly, the Nimtala ghat is a historical landmark where the cremation of Rabindranath Tagore and other important cultural icons was performed. The famous Bhootnath temple is located here.
The cruise’s itinerary also includes Chandpal ghat, located just on the northern side of Babughat, the very place where Lord Cornwallis, the first Governor General of India, landed on September 12, 1786. Guides on board the cruise will tell people about the ghats, and visitors will also be provided with complimentary cruise heritage navigation brochures.
Officials of the Transport Department said that tickets have been kept affordable at ₹39 for the entire cruise to attract more people. “The idea is to make the heritage river cruise experience affordable, and popular among the youth,” said the Managing Director of WBTD Rajanvir Singh Kapur.
Following physical distancing norms, as of now, not more than 150 people will be allowed on each trip.
Attempts have been made in the past to boost waterfront tourism in the city by State governments and different agencies. About 17 km of the Hooghly river’s waterfront lies within the metropolitan corporation’s boundaries, of which about a 10 km length of riverfront, from Taktaghat in south Kashipur and Pramanik ghat in the north, represent the most active and vibrant portion of Kolkata’s diverse engagements with the river. There are dozens of ghats on both banks of the river that not only provide a rich slice of history but are associated with the way of life of the city’s people.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Kolkata / by Shiv Sahay Singh / Kolkata – October 01st, 2020
