Reflections

The Statesman Building Revisiting Calcutta is like meeting an old girlfriend with whom you have kept up an indifferent friendship. If you suddenly run into her somewhere you feel relieved that you got your self out of the relationship in time when you notice the circles around her eyes and the ill cut clothes. As I landed in Dum Dum, the shabbiness of the International Arrival terminal was in stark contrast to Singapore where I transited. The Immigration was comparatively fast this time, unexpectedly so, because I know that even when I used to regularly fly in from Nepal, the officers used to scrutinize my passport and spend an interminable amount of time to key in my details (one finger) onto the computers. But the welcome ended there. The luggage took ages coming. I was beginning to wonder whether my modest suitcase had been carried on to Dhaka or something when it finally appeared. But the best was the prepaid Taxi station where they would not book me in as there were no taxis!!! Af...

Musical Bandbox used to be our window to Western Popular music in the Calcutta of the sixties and seventies. At one o clock every Sunday thousands of youngsters used to tune in to this “request” session where we were introduced to many of the then hit songs of Britain and the United States, albeit perhaps six months after the songs were first released in the West. Three times a week we used to get Lunch Time Variety which was also western music usually crafted around a theme by the presenter. But this was possible only in the school holidays because at other times we were safely ensconced in our classrooms on these days. One song that was all the rage in the late sixties was the “The Ladies of Calcutta”. It suddenly turned up in You Tube the other day when I was browsing the net and for a few minutes I was young again, thirteen years old and madly in love with at least three girls at the same time. The song was apparently sung by Bill Forbes also known as Kal Khan. He was born in Colom...

There is often a hue and cry in the newspapers regarding the standards of the private medical colleges that are springing up like mushrooms after a monsoon rainfall in India , Nepal and Bangladesh. Some of the concern is no doubt justified, but to my knowledge the ones that really lack standards never have problems getting recognition from the Medical Councils. But that is by the by. However such concerns are not really new. As long as a 100 years ago, on the 30th of June 1908, the Calcutta “Statesman” carried a report about a “Dome “ named Poltu no less, who walked about the shops on Bowbazar Steet carrying a human arm and a skull, soliciting arms. Several shopkeepers quickly obliged him out of superstitious wonder, but he was soon picked up by the Police and jailed. It was suspected that he had obtained these specimens from the Anatomy Dissection Hall of the Calcutta Medical College, but this was proved false by the Senior Demonstrator of Anatomy who showed that the parts were so in...

The Pujas are just a few weeks away. The Bengali month of Bhadra is drawing to a close and Aswin will start next week, formally inaugurating the autumn season. When we lived in Calcutta the Bengali seasons went by almost unnoticed, but in Siliguri it is still possible to discern the procession of the seasons. I am now far away from Bengal, but I can imagine the hot sun and sharp showers that must be plaguing those working out of doors. The forests of North Bengal, are, I am sure , green with new growth and the undergrowth has grown, concealing the forest floor. The Teesta will be flowing at its highest and the paddy fields are green, the breeze causing waves to flow over them. The Jute crop is being harvested and the fibre is being separated in all the ponds of Bengal. The Saluk flowers are just showing themselves, the white flowers raising their heads from the waterbodies where they have lain dormant or the past eight months. The pink ones are particularly common near the Teesta and w...