Kolkata :

Few in Kolkata seem to remember Sir C V Raman on his 226th birth anniversary or the fact that he discovered the Nobel-winning Raman Effect at a small laboratory in this city.

The memorial on the campus of Goenka College of Commerce at BB Ganguly Street stood forlorn and deserted on Friday. A bust of the scientist had been garlanded and a bunch of agarbattis lay nearby. Nobody had bothered to relight them after they went out soon after being lit the first time.

“We haven’t seen any programme organized here. The college administration takes care of garlanding the bust and keeping the place clean. We sometimes use it as a shelter when it rain,” a student said.

When the ‘Hall of Scientific Fame’ was inaugurated in January 2013, it was announced that scientific discourse would be held there routinely. Replicas of Raman’s instruments were to be displayed. An enclosure exists but it is empty.

The original building of IACS, the first science research unit of India, was established during Bengal Renaissance where Goenka College now stands. It was here that Raman carried out his research between 1907 and 1933 that won him the Nobel Prize in 1930.

When Bidhan Chandra Roy was chief minister, he offered land to IACS at Jadavpur as the BB Ganguly Street plot had to be returned to the government so that Goenka College, which was in Presidency College, could become an independent institution. Raman was extremely unhappy on coming to know that the original campus of IACS hadn’t been preserved and resigned his membership.

In 2012, scientists from Kolkata appealed to then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to build a memorial on the original site. This was inaugurated in 2013. “It’s just a memorial where no other activities are held. Little effort is made to preserve heritage in our country. We can’t carry out any activity at BB Ganguly Street as we are located quite far now. We can’t keep replicas there as the space is open,” said Prof Deb Shankar Ray, acting director, IACS.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Kolkata / by Jayanta Gupta, TNN / November 08th, 2014