The burgeoning vision of heritage preservation must expand to districts and villages
Monochrome view of a heritage hand pulled rickshaw on Kolkata city street with the Metropolitan building at the background. / Shutterstock.
There is a lot more worth saving than meets the eye — or, more accurately, than the eye has been willing to see. That is why it is heartening to hear that Calcutta’s heritage list, which has been lying dormant and unchanged since 2000, is finally set to be updated by the Calcutta Municipal Corporation. The inordinate delay notwithstanding, the revision is a welcome move, as it will add greatly to the representational nature of the list with the inclusion of more structures of cultural, economic and historical value. It is no secret that in spite of its diverse culture and history, Calcutta, much like other Indian cities, is known for doing precious little to preserve and protect the remnants of its past. This disregard has been amply reflected in the apathetic response to conservation; as recently as 2018, the old Kenilworth Hotel was razed to the ground after its heritage status was quietly downgraded. Well before that, the exquisite Darbhanga palace on Chowringhee was demolished; in its place today stands Calcutta’s ‘tallest building’, promoted by the same consortium that acquired and demolished the old Kenilworth Hotel.
In the light of this, it is reassuring that the practice of downgrading heritage buildings without public knowledge is set to end and, more important, public participation is to be made a significant part of the municipal framework of conservation activity. In this case, archivists, heritage enthusiasts and activists will be able to identify not just mansions but also entire precincts within the city that deserve to be preserved for their unique cultural and historical dimensions. This kind of cohesion and dialogue between administrative bodies and experts is rare in Indian policy-making; and yet, it is crucial for firing up the bureaucratic imagination to transcend established codes of conservation. After all, heritage is a fine mesh of the tangible with the intangible. It is an endangered space where old buildings and edifices jostle for survival along with cultures and livelihoods. This ecosystem is in dire need of regeneration. Calcutta’s Chinatown, a vibrant but marginalized hub, is a case in point. There is an added advantage to this nimbler comprehension of heritage. The preservation of livelihood, integral to heritage precincts, could, in turn, strengthen local — neighbourhood — economies, bolstering public mobilization to demand conservation. Heritage then can turn truly participatory and democratic.
This momentum must be widened in its scope. The burgeoning vision of heritage preservation must expand to districts and villages. Apart from Serampore or Chandannagore, places such as Tamralipta and Chandraketugarh — from where there is archaeological evidence to suggest a sea-faring history of the region’s people — as well as Bengal’s crumbling terracotta temples must be brought within the ambit of a collective culture of conservation. The future of heritage and its protection in India rely on enterprises that are modern, well-funded and truly participatory in character.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, online edition / by The Editorial Board / August 22nd, 2020
Along with the rest of the world, the Queen of the Hills commemorated the 110th birth anniversary of St Teresa of Calcutta popular as Mother Teresa. Darjeeling occupied a special place and was a turning point in the life of the Saint.
“We had Mass (prayer service) in the Houses in Darjeeling, Tukdah, Tindharia, Kalimpong, Siliguri and Sikkim on Wednesday to commemorate her birth anniversary” stated Sister Marjelle of the Missionaries of Charity.
Agnes, who later became Saint Teresa of Calcutta had arrived in India in 1929. She had then joined the Loreto novitiate in Darjeeling.
She took her first religious vows as a Nun on May 24, 1931 in Darjeeling and made her final profession as a Loreto nun on 24 May 1937 in Kolkata, and hereafter was called Mother Teresa. While in Darjeeling she used to teach at St Teresa’s school under the Loreto Convent.
The school was founded in 1921.
On 10 September 1946, on a train journey from Calcutta to Darjeeling during annual retreat in between Siliguri and Darjeeling, Mother Teresa received what she termed the “call within a call,” which prompted her to start the Missionaries of Charity. Thus she had stepped out of the Loreto Convent in Darjeeling into the slums of Kolkata. She was canonized on September 4, 2016 as St Teresa of Calcutta.
The Cathedral of Immaculate Conception located at the Loreto Convent in Darjeeling also houses an Oratory (a place of worship) in her name. On December 3, 2016, Darjeeling had named a road after St Teresa of Calcutta. The road connecting Gandhi Road to Dr. Zakir Hussain Road (TV Tower) has been named the “Saint (Mother) Teresa Road.” The Missionaries of Charity House of Darjeeling is located on this street.
“People of her stature cannot be confined to any religion, color, caste or creed. She was a world citizen. She inspired people to become better human beings, to love and serve others. Let us strive hard to continue her legacy” stated Reverend Stephen Lepcha, Bishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of Darjeeling.
source: http://www.millenniumpost.in / Millennium Post / Home> Kolkata / by Amitava Banerjee / August 27th, 2020
Swimmer Sachin Nag, who won the country its first gold medal at the inaugural 1951 Asian Games in New Delhi, gets Dhyan Chand Award
Sachin Nag’s son Ashoke will attend the online awards ceremony at the Sports Authority of India centre in Kolkata, where the president will virtually bestow the Dhyan Chand Award to his late father. (Photo courtesy: Ashoke Nag)
Ashoke Nag talks about having sleepless nights before the national sports awards were announced earlier this month. The son of late swimmer Sachin Nag, winner of the first gold medal for the country at the 1951 Asian Games in New Delhi, had experienced rejection in the past when he tried to secure his father’s legacy.
This was the fifth time Ashoke had applied to the sports ministry to bestow an award posthumously to one of Independent India’s first sporting superstars.
His father passed away in 1987 ‘with a broken soul’, Ashoke says.
Armed with 47 supporting documents, including black-and-white paper cuttings, certificates and a recommendation from paralympic swimmer Prasanth Karmarkar, Ashoke, a former sergeant in the Indian Air Force, applied again this year. The willpower to fight for the recognition his father deserved grew stronger every year that Sachin Nag’s name was not included in the list of awardees. 2009, 2012, 2018 and 2019 had brought only heartbreak.
“This year, I had reason to be hopeful because it is his birth centenary. And remember, he won three medals at the 1951 Asian Games. The gold in the 100m freestyle and bronze medals in the 400m freestyle relay and 300m medley relay. This was just four years after independence. India was a young country, those medals mattered a lot to the nation. I felt frustrated in the past when my father’s name was not included. My father passed away with a broken soul,” Ashoke, who has also penned his father’s biography in Bengali, says.
On Saturday, Ashoke will attend the online awards ceremony at the Sports Authority of India centre in Kolkata, where the president will virtually bestow the Dhyan Chand Award to his late father. “I attended the rehearsal on Thursday. I met archer Atanu Das and sprinter Dutee Chand. Felt good to be in the company of young achievers. I am looking forward to Saturday. After applying for the award, I would wake up at night and wonder if this would be the year,” Ashoke says.
As time went by, Ashoke knew he was in for a long battle.
The family had generously handed over Nag’s medals and blazers to the museum at the National Institute of Sports in Patiala in 1992, five years after the swimmer passed away. Nag was also a two-time Olympian and also part of the Indian water polo team. He coached for three decades as well. Ashoke felt his father got nothing in return after the initial fanfare died down.
Former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Lady Edwina Mountbatten watched the event at the pool in 1951, Ashoke says. “Nehru ji was the first one to congratulate my father poolside when he won the gold in the 100m freestyle. I have pictures of Nehru ji and my father together. My father would say PM Nehru gave me respect but at times he felt that over the years people had forgotten him,” Ashoke, the third of six children, says.
Sachin Nag had won the first gold medal for the country at the 1951 Asian Games in New Delhi. (Photo courtesy: Ashoke Nag)
Nag, according to his son, was a proud man. He never asked for favours. Ashoke remembers how his father shot down the idea of approaching a top Swimming Federation of India official to recommend his name for the awards after they were instituted in 1961. “My father said, ‘I used to beat him in the 100m freestyle in the pool. I can’t go and ask him for a favour just because he has become a powerful official.’ He was a proud man,” Ashoke recalls.
Hurtful barbs
Some of the barbs Ashoke faced over the years still sting. Once after the awards were announced, he asked a footballer on the committee what went against his father. “The footballer asked me, ‘how many times did your father represent India? The footballer himself had won the Dhyan Chand award earlier. Yet he insulted my father by asking that question. It hurt me back then,” Ashoke says.
Nag had to deal with official apathy in the run-up to the 1951 Asian Games. The games were scheduled for early March, but Nag had arrived in Delhi in December, hoping to train in the capital. “An official of the organising committee asked my father why he had come so early and told him to go back to Calcutta. He was told there were no swimming pools in Delhi that he could use. But my father decided to find a way to train in Delhi. He located Sisil Hotel in old Delhi, which had a 20m by 10m pool, and requested an Italian lady who was the manager to allow him to use it for training. She agreed for a fee of about Rs 5. That too was waived off later.”
When he won the gold at the Asian Games a few months later, one of his first stops was the hotel. “He went to Sisil hotel to thank everyone for the support. He always remembered those who supported him.”
Caught in riots
If not for Nag’s steely determination, his swimming career would not have reached the heights it did in the late 1940s and early 50s. Nag suffered during the tumultuous days of Partition when he inadvertently got caught in the Calcutta riots. “He was returning from training at the Ganges when a bullet hit him on the right leg. He was badly injured and was admitted in a hospital for five months. When he was being discharged, the doctor told him that it would take him two years to get back to swimming,” Ashoke says.
But in a year’s time, Nag was at the 1948 London Olympics. He participated in the 100m freestyle and was a member of the Indian water polo team that beat Chile 7-4. All four goals were scored by Nag, Ashoke says.
To speed up his recovery, Nag returned to Banaras, where the family was based. He returned to the pilgrim town to rejoin the Saraswati Swimming Club, which he had founded. The masseurs in Banaras were excellent.
Another incident connected to the freedom struggle, where a young Nag was chased by police who were trying to break up a protest, resulted in his swimming talent being discovered early.
Ashoke narrates the sequence of events. “My father jumped into the Ganges to give the police the slip. He first hid underwater between two boats. But how long can someone stay underwater? There was a 10km swimming competition starting in the river and my father joined them. He finished third,” Ashoke says.
Back then, reputed swimmers from Calcutta clubs would enter long-distance competitions in Banaras. One of them, Jamini Das, who would captain the national waterpolo team at the 1948 Olympics, believed Nag had great potential and asked him to shift to Calcutta where he joined the Hatkhola Club.
One of Ashoke’s cherished memories from his childhood was his father pushing him and his brothers into the Ganges to swim. “We never became top-class swimmers like our father. But being successful in getting my father the prestigious award gives me immense satisfaction.”
source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Sports / by Nihal Koshie / August 29th, 2020
…being on the Academy voting panel and lockdown lessons
Tess Joseph / sourced by the Telegraph
Calcutta girl Tess Joseph, who had found Sunny Pawar to play little Saroo Brierley in Lion that went on to the 2017 Oscars with six nominations, will now be in the powerful Academy voting panel. The casting director has recently received the invitation to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. An alumnus of Loreto House and St Xavier’s College, Tess started her career as a casting director in Calcutta with Mira Nair’s Namesake in 2006. She tells The Telegraph about her profession, recent works, accolades, lockdown days and more…
Getting an invitation from the Academy to be a member…
I remember tweeting on July 1: “I feel like I made the valedictorian list of 2020”. I feel humbled and grateful to be recognised by my peers globally. It’s truly a great honour. The Casting Directors Branch is the one of the newer, youngest branches at the Academy, so it’s great to be a part of it.
Life after Lion…
It’s been busy days for me and my team! After Lion, we worked for Guy Ritchie’s Aladdin. Then we cast Netflix’s biggest success of the year, Extraction. Yeh Ballet by Sooni Taraporevala was also very special with a young new cast at the helm. We have Ramin Bahrani’s The White Tiger coming up, which is based on Aravind Adiga’s book. We cast Apple TV+’s Shantaram and we have also been part of the casting team for Foundation, a science fiction series for Apple TV +, and the Amazon series The Wheel of Time.
The journey from a Loreto House girl to an Academy member…
I would say it’s been a serendipitous and ever-changing journey. Loreto House is in many ways the foundation of who I am as a person. Among scores of uniformed girls, I do believe, I found my voice at Loreto House. I discovered who I am, what I love doing, how to communicate that well. I had picked up most of the awards for extracurricular activities. My schooling exposed me to literature, musicals and movies as my family cemented my love for the art. Loreto also helped me discover the “rebel” in me, from debates to breaking the rules. I feel that’s an integral part of schooling. Everything that I loved as a “hobby” plays a role in what I do today, probably that’s why I love what I do as “work”. Nothing goes to waste. Whatever you discover and explore will connect to your future in ways you can only understand when you look back!
When I was growing up, TV, films, media, these were careers no one spoke of. Like many others, I too wanted to be a doctor. My Ma pushed me to give the entrance examination for mass communication which had just started as a graduation course at St. Xavier’s College. The course was supposed to be my stop gap while I prepped for medicals. Once I joined, there was no turning back. Serendipity has always played a role in my choices.
Memories from school days…
I wasn’t a very good student till Class V. Then I realised that if you are good at your studies, you can get away with a lot of things. I was talkative and often got into trouble in class. The Famous Five and The Secret Seven were my favourite books and I used to go to places in the school where we were not allowed to go. So it was like we were living the books we were reading. However, my most favourite school memory till date is when I was in Class IX, there were three certificates for the top three students of the class — one is for excellence, one is for doing well and the other is for best improvement. So one day I stood up in the class and asked my class teacher, who was also our math teacher, as to why the girl who came third got the most improvement certificate and why the girl who worked the hardest won’t get it. For example, if a girl who was failing got 60 per cent, she should get the best improvement certificate. On the basis of that beautiful discussion, our school decided to change the certificate that year and one of my close friends got that. My school taught me to stand up and express myself. It allowed me to do what I believe in. I was in love with music, dance and basketball. I played district-level basketball, performed in several inter-school fests in Calcutta and also won the best performer in the Eastern region award once.
Missing Calcutta…
I always miss Calcutta. Though I’m settled in Mumbai now, Calcutta is my home, comfort, familiarity, and “reset” button. My parents are in Calcutta and they, along with the city, have shaped me in so many ways. I feel blessed that I grew up in Calcutta where art was treated with respect, always encouraged and celebrated. I do feel if I had grown up anywhere else, I would be a different person today. My baba was a Cine Central member and always saw film as an art form. My brother and I were reading subtitles once we knew how to read! From Bicycle Thieves to Chaplin, musicals to horror and documentaries, baba encouraged us to watch everything and we would end our film festival days with dinner at New Cathay or rolls from Badshah! I was more of an auditory learner than reader and my father gave lyrics the same standing as poetry. I was always encouraged to listen and remember Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Hasrat Jaipuri.
Choosing to become a casting director…
Even today if you ask my parents or friends how I relate or remember cinema, books or stories, they will tell you that I’m constantly in love and raving about characters and performances and now, I get to make those memorable performances happen. As a casting director, my team and I bring to life the one living and breathing aspect of all cinemas — the actors! It’s often daunting because I get to be the first person to show the director what his/her film could potentially feel and sound like. I love watching and fine-tuning performances, discovering and elevating talent and now I get to do that all day!
My job is to collaborate with producers, directors, networks and studio executives to cast the best talent for each part. We need to be the biggest supporters of actors. We want actors to succeed, and often the perception can be the opposite, but the truth is, if life were perfect, the right actor would be the first actor walking into our rooms for the audition!
Beating lockdown blues…
Generally I don’t approach things I cannot control with panic. My fears were mostly heightened for my parents, senior family members, friends’ parents and those I knew who were stuck in other countries. Of course I first treated it as a break, which I desperately needed because we had been working non-stop for six months. After a couple of days off, I found a routine very quickly that has been integral to my lockdown days and beating the blues! I have been learning during the lockdown and I’ve been writing and listing them as I discovered each one. They are:
Stay close, while in distance: The pandemic doesn’t dictate your relationships, so remember to stay close always and remember the distance just shows you care, be it 6ft apart or choosing not to travel home, you’re doing it to safeguard the people you love and yourself.
The extra hours mash-up: I had a little cube or dice which I wrote things on to decide what to do with my extra hours. The cube had things like meditate, binge watch, read that book, course/workshop, write, go walk etc. If I ever felt the “I’m bored” or the “I’m not feeling inspired” coming on, I’d roll it!
Remote working is an option, not a reactive solution: We never treated Zoom like a sad solution to casting, instead we adapted fast and moved our casting online, constantly pushing and learning to make the process better and more intimate for actors.
Listen and notice: This time has shown me a thousand things, from epic sunsets, silence, greed, claustrophobia, kindness to the crack of an egg as I relearnt to cook, fold, clean and even talk to myself. I’ve seen a myriad of things — empty roads, a nation coming together to show gratitude to essential workers, watched migrants left to walk home, I’ve also been the person feeding stray dogs in the afternoon sun and answered appeals from friends reminding me to donate, to help and to share. More than anything, I’ve learnt that progress is an elastic word, sometimes it meant just getting through a day, finishing chores and cooking to the efficiency of 10-hour work days — both are progress.
Be relevant: Be relevant by contributing your time, your learnings. I’ve been mindful of what I’ve shared on social media to how we help others cope at a time which might be very different and difficult for them. From learning sessions to workshops to helping people discover their stories and voices, I’m glad I could use this time to be relevant to make someone’s day better.
Looking forward to the post-pandemic world…
I miss my friends and family, I miss hugs, I miss that feeling of shared energy in a room, of shared laughter in a room and the shared experience of watching a movie with strangers. I just want to rediscover a sense of trust that allows me to experience all these simple things without questioning my health and safety while doing so.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, online edition / Home> Entertainment /pix Tess Joseph, picture sourced by the Telegraph / by Ayan Paul / August 28th, 2020
