Tag Archives: Calcutta

A chance encounter in the pavilion and a suitable boy

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I HAVE NEVER MET the Indian author, Vikram Seth, who wrote the long novel “A Suitable Boy”, but today, 30 July 2026, my wife and I met his sister, Aradhana, quite by chance while visiting the beautiful brickwork Serpentine Pavilion in London’s Kensington Gardens.

In about 1968, my wife was awarded a scholarship to study for her A-Levels (university entrance examinations) in the UK. That year, she was not the only one to receive such an award, which allowed her to travel from India to study in England. Another awardee that year was Vikram Seth, now a renowned author.

In 1994, a few months before my first ever visit to India, my then fiancé, now my wife, suggested that I read Vikram Seth’s “A Suitable Boy” because it might have helped me to ‘acclimatise’ to Indian ways of life before I arrived in the country. The book, first published in 1993, is well over 1400 pages long. Dutifully, I began reading it, but then little of it made much sense to me, and I gave up reading the book by the time I reached page 300. Thereafter, I have not touched the book until this month, July 2026.

Since 1994, I have visited India at least 50 times, often for long sojourns, and have become familiar with many aspects of life in the country. A few days ago, I started reading “A Suitable Boy”, and I am finding it both enjoyable and incredibly engaging. Much of what Seth has written makes much more sense to me than it did in 1994. And despite it being published without a glossary, many of the Hindustani words (transliterations of Devanagari and Urdu scripts) now mean something to me.

Seth has managed to write an epic novel whose pages contain a brilliant portrait of life in certain social circles in India. Although I have only just passed page 230 (in four short episodes of reading), I feel that by the end of the following few weeks, I will have read the whole book.

Meeting Vikram Seth’s sister by chance was only one part of an amazing encounter today. My wife thought she looked vaguely familiar, and that is why we engaged her in conversation. It turned out that Aradhana and my wife had attended the same school, Loreto House, in Kolkata (Calcutta), and although they differ in age, their times at the school overlapped. In addition, Aradhana, was with her friend, Amrit, whose father, we discovered, had worked in the same company as my wife’s father.

Although India’s population is about one and a half billion, I am always amazed how often we ‘bump into’ Indians, with whom my wife can find some not too distant connection.

Recycling in nineteenth century Kolkata (Calcutta) and London

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THE GWALIOR MONUMENT stands on the bank of the Hooghly River in Kolkata (Calcutta). The monument commemorates British officers and their men, who died in the Gwalior War of 1843. Constructed in 1847 by the then Governor General of India, Lord Ellenborough, its roof is made of metal.

Several thousand miles away near London’s Hyde Park Corner and the towering Hilton hotel, there is a statue of the ancient hero Achilles. It commemorates the victories of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, and his men who helped achieve them. Standing on a granite plinth, Achilles is made of metal.

These two distantly spaced British memorials both contain metal in their construction. They have one more thing in common. The metal on the roof of the Gwalior Monument and that used to make Achilles is recycled. In each case, the metal was obtained by melting down the canons of the defeated armies. In the case of the Gwalior Monument, the metal was derived from the cannons of the defeated Marath army, and in the Achilles statue, it was derived from the enemy’s cannons captured at the battles of Salamanca, Vittoria, Toulouse, and Waterloo.

I wonder how the defeated armies would have felt if they had known that their weapons were being melted down to celebrate their opponents’ victories.

A shared taxi and Greeks buried in Kolkata (Calcutta)

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Having visited the Jewish cemetery in Kolkata, we hailed an autorickshaw to carry us to College Street. There was already one passenger in the three-wheeler that stopped for us. He moved from his seat in the rear of the vehicle to make room for us, and then sat next to the driver on his seat. After going a short distance, our driver stopped to pick up another passenger, who squeezed into the seat alongside us. She disembarked after we had driven a few blocks further, and handed the driver a few rupees. After we left the autorickshaw and paid the driver a modest fee, the other passenger continued his journey in the vehicle. Like most autorickshaws in Kolkata, the one we had just taken was a shared cab that ran on a pre-determined route.

On the way, our autorickshaw rushed past a gateway on Narkeldanga Main Road, which I noticed was marked “Greek Cemetery”. Established in 1777, it is India’s only Greek cemetery. In Henry Cotton’s encyclopaedic “Calcutta Old and New” (published in 1907), he noted that the first “eminent” Greek settler in Kolkata was Hadjee Alexios Argyree, who arrived in Bengal in 1750, and worked as an interpreter. Other Greeks in Kolkata were involved in trade and commerce. The city’s only Greek church was erected in 1780, and still stands near Kalighat on Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Road, along which we often travel between central Kolkata and Tollygunge to the south of it. The well-maintained building is neo-classical in style, and Greek Orthodox services are held there regularly.  Today, there are few if any Greeks left in Kolkata, and the cemetery in Narkeldanga, home to about 300 graves, is in a sad state of disrepair (according to a report in the online Times of India, dated March 2018).

A museum of money in Kolkata (Calcutta)

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BY TAKING A SHORT walk north of Kolkata’s 18th century Church of St John one reaches number 8 Council House Street, now home to the Reserve Bank of India (‘RBI’) Museum. In an interesting article published online, Sudabhip Mukherjee wrote that the museum is housed in what was originally the building constructed for the now non-existent Alliance Bank of Shimla, which flourished from 1874 until 1923. In 2019, the ground floor of this elegant Victorian building constructed in red brick with white stone facings was converted to become the RBI Museum.

The aim of the museum is to give visitors an understanding of all aspects of money and banking from the beginning of time until the present. It achieves this very well using imaginatively designed displays, which render the subject of interest to visitors of all ages. Rather than being a dull museum with conventional display cabinets, the designers of this place have produced displays that are both original and artistic. The visually exciting features begin as soon as you enter the building. For example, the pillars in the entrance hall are decorated with patterns made using out-of-date Indian currency coins, and in the centre of one of the larger display rooms, there is a dramatic sculpture that depicts the circulation of money across the globe. Had we not walked past the entrance to this museum after visiting St Johns Church on a Friday morning in late December 2024, I doubt we would have got to know about it. Many of our friends in Kolkata had never heard about the place.

An artist who depicts nature only naturally

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AJIT KUMAR DAS was born in 1957, son of a laundry man (washer man). From an early age, he became fascinated with the wonderful  colours of the textiles that his father washed. He became involved with traditional fabric printing and design. Today, Das is recognised as one of India’s foremost natural dye painters.

 

Das paints on cloth using natural dyes, rather than artificially created colours. He uses dyes derived ed from sources such as, for example,  pomegranate rind, turmeric, fermented iron solution, indigo, and madder. He applies them using bamboo brushes and handmade quills. The colours are fixed using alum as mordant. With decades of experience and experimentation,  he is able to use the natural dyes to produce interesting colourful effects.

 

At his exhibition held in a  magnificent gallery in the Kolkata Centre for Creativity, we were able to view more than 20 of his paintings. All of them feature closely observed natural objects, such as foliage, birds, and fish, all arranged in patterns on the textiles. Some of these compositions are naturalistic. In others, Das has arranged the details from nature to produce lovely patterns.

 

We were fortunate to have been at the inauguration of the exhibition, during which the soft-spoken Das discussed his works with a panel of invited guests. From what I could gather, the panellists were more interested in the current state of natural dye crafts than the artist’s works on display. I am pleased that we made the journey from central Kolkata to the outlying district of Anandapur to see the exhibition and to learn a little about the use of natural dyes in traditional methods of textile making.

A truly exciting and creative experience in a suburb of Kolkata

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THE KOLKATA CENTRE for Creativity (‘KCC’) was established by the businessman Radhe Shyam Agarwal,  executive chairman of the Emami Group. He commissioned architect Pinakin Patel to build the arts centre that stands in Kolkata’s Anandapur district. Inaugurated in late 2018, it has 70,000 square feet of floor space for art, artists, and art lovers. This includes an auditorium, gallery spaces, an elegant café, shops, a dance studio, and a library.

 The building is a superb example of contemporary architectural design, both externally and internally. Inside, it is spacious and well-lit. The building, which serves its various purposes well, is in itself a work of art: a functional sculpture, one might say. We attended the inauguration of an exhibition, which was held in the auditorium,  which forms part of the gallery space. I will describe the exhibition in another piece, but suffice it to say,  the KCC, although distant from central Kolkata,  is worth visiting.

An artist who works and lives in Kolkata

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WHEN VIEWING ARTWORK or listening to music, my reaction  to, and enjoyment of it is governed by my initial visceral feelings that it evokes. If these feelings are satisfactory, my interest and enjoyment of the art increases, and I might begin to delve more deeply into understanding what the creator is trying to convey with his or her work.

 

My initial reaction to the oil paintings and ink drawings by Kolkata based artist Debajyoti Roy were very positive. Each of his works on display appealed to me. Many of the images are in black ink on white paper. A couple of larger paintings were more colourful, created with oil colours and inks.

 

 Some of the works in ink reminded me a little of Chinese or Japanese calligraphy. The works are both abstract and at the same time somewhat figurative. Yet, as I studied them, they gave me the feeling that they are abstractions of reality, often of biological phenomena.  As Roy explained in the exhibition catalogue:

“When someone engages with a piece of art, it is inevitable to interpret its visual aspects. Still, the essence lies in deeper inquiries that provoke interpretation of the perception and reality.”

I felt that this was certainly the case with what I saw of his creations.

 

Debajyoti Roy has created a set of images that are intriguing both visually and intellectually. It is a shame that his exhibition at the Jogen Choudhury Centre for Arts in south Kolkata is ending soon (on 11 January 2025). If you happen to be in Kolkata before it ends, it is well worth viewing.

An evening prayer offering by the water of the River Ganges

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THE WORD AARTI is from the Sanskrit language. It means ‘something that removes darkness’. In many pujas (Hindu ceremonies), an aarti is performed: it involves presenting a flame to appease the deity or deities. 

 

One evening, we were walking along the bank of the Hooghly (a part of the holy Ganges river that flows through Kolkata) just after sunset. We came across rows of plastic chairs facing the river at Babughat (one of the stepped landings used by people bathing in the river). Between them and the water there was a row of altars. We asked someone the reason for the chairs. We were informed that they were set up so that people could watch the daily Ganga Aarti, which was due to happen at 530 pm. Our daughter,  who had witnessed a Ganga Aarti at Varanasi, persuaded us to wait and watch the forthcoming aarti.

 

We sat down and joined the other spectators. While we waited, several hawkers walked along the rows of chairs, selling snacks of various kinds, both packaged and prepared to order (for example, jhal muri – puffed rice with flavourings). One hawker carried a tray on which a small lamp (a diya) was flickering. For a small cash offering, he blessed the ‘customer’ and placed some prasad (blessed food) into his or her right hand. Meanwhile, rotating spotlights and piped music added to the festive atmosphere. Gradually,  all the seats were occupied,  and many people were standing nearby on the sides of the ghat.

 

At 5.30 pm, priests dressed in shiny gold robes with wide sashes over their left shoulders began assembling, one in front of each of the altars. The latter were illuminated with hoops carrying brightly lit electric light bulbs. Then,  the ceremony began.

 

A pandit, dressed in white, speaking into a handheld microphone chanted prayers in Sanskrit. As he was doing this, the gold clad priests performed several visually exciting activities. These included moving containers emitting clouds of smoke. They swung them and moved them in circles, each man in synchrony with the others. After this, they did much the same thing with candelabras each carrying many small flaming oil lamps (diyas). These were then replaced by larger flaming lamps, each of which had handles shaped like cobras ready to attack.  After the balletic flame movements, the flaming lamps were carried down to the water’s edge. I could not see whether they were immersed in the river.

 

In addition to the movements with the flaming lamps, large conch shells were washed through with water, some of which was sprinkled on the crowd. The conches were also blown to produce a sound indistinguishable from the horns on the locomotives of the trains running every few minutes on the suburban railway track that was a few feet behind where the ceremony was being performed. 

 

I am very pleased we waited to watch the Ganga Aarti. Apart from being more spectacular than many theatrical performances I have seen, it was very moving. It is yet another example of how much more vibrant and fervent religious ceremonies are in India than they are in most parts of Europe.

A mosque in south Kolkata and one of the heroes of India

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THE TOLLYGUNGE CLUB in South Kolkata stands on land, which was once the home of members of the family of Tipu Sultan (1751-1799). He fought first the Marathas, and then the British valiantly until his death at Srirangapatnam. Had Tipu not been defeated,  the British might have had great difficulty maintai g a foot in India.

 

Four years before Tipu’s death, his youngest son Ghulam Muhammad Sultan Sahib (1795-1872) was born in Srirangapatnam. In 1806, he and the rest of his family were deported to Calcutta by the British, and were settled in Tollygunge, south of the city. Where they lived is now occupied by the Tollygunge Club (founded 1895).

 

About 900 yards north of the Tollygunge Club’s clubhouse and across a very busy road, there is a mosque (on the corner of Deshparan Sasmal Road and Prince Anwar Shah Road). It stands within its own peaceful compound.

 

One of the first details I noticed when visiting the mosque and its grounds was that all of its outdoor lighting stands use old cannons for their bases. Maybe this is not surprising because this mosque is one of two  in Kolkata named after Tipu Sultan. The Tollygunge Tipu mosque was constructed in 1860 by Tipu’s youngest son, Ghulam Muhammad Sultan Sahib. It is designed in the Indo-Islamic style. Its exterior is attractive,  but its interior has very few visual attractions.

 

In the garden of the mosque, there is a raised rectangular platform. Upon this, there are five or six unmarked graves, each one looking dilapidated. One of these marks the burial place of Tipu’s youngest son. The walls of the platform have a few plaques engraved with words in a script resembling Urdu or Arabic. I  was told that these words are of religious significance,  rather than the names of the deceased.

 

At the east end of the compound, there are a few steps leading to a deep depression that was once a pond or small lake. An elderly caretaker told us that never in his long life had he ever seen water in it.

 

A review of the mosque on the TripAdvisor website described the place as not being somewhere in Kolkata that “must be seen”. This is correct, but as we often stay at the Tollygunge Club and have visited Srirangapatnam several times, I was keen to view the place with such an interesting link to Tipu Sultan.

Portraying the appearance and politics of Kolkata

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ARTS ACRE IS an artists’ village on the Eastern edge of the city of Kolkata. When there is little traffic, it takes one hour of driving to reach it from the heart of old Kolkata.  The Acre (aka International Centre for Creativity and Cultural vision)  was founded in 1984 by the artist and cultural activist Shuvaprasanna Bhattacharjee (born 1947). The beautiful modernistic campus was designed by Partha Ranjan Das.

 

Today, the fifth of January 2025, we visited Arts Acre where several excellent exhibitions,  part of the 2024/25 Bengal Biennale, were being held.  One of these was a large show of paintings and other artworks by Shuvaprasanna. His wonderfully executed paintings reflect his interest in, and connection with, the politics of Bengal: he has been closely associated with the current Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee. One of the paintings depict her as being like the pied piper of Hamelin. The artist wrote of this painting that just as the pied piper attracted his followers with the music of his pipe, Mamata attracts her followers by “… the mesmerising music of her leadership.” This painting was placed next to two others that seemed to be critical of the Communist regime that ruled Bengal for many years before Mamata and her Tfollowers Congress party were voted into power.

 

Günter Grass by Shuvaprasanna

Another picture relates to the visit to Arts Acre by the German author Günter Grass. Called “In search of Oscar”, the artist depicts Grass as Oscar in the novel “The Tin Drum”. The painting is supposed to evoke solidarity with the marginalised people in Kolkata.

 

Shuvaprasanna paints beautifully in ways that capture the ideas he is trying to convey in a highly accessible way, but without compromising artistic and aesthetic qualities.

 

It was worth spending an hour in a taxi to see Shuvaprasanna’s works and the art complex he established so many years ago.