Reflections

Why does one become a fan of a particular club and not another? When I was a kid, I was most influenced by my maternal uncles. My two youngest uncles, who influenced me the most were fanatical East Bengal supporters. It would have been natural for me to support that team. However I was ever since I can remember a Mohun Bagan fan. I first saw a Mohun Bagan team play in Krishnanagar where I had gone for our Easter holidays. It was a game of hockey, I do not remember who the opponents were, but I do remember that I saw Gurbux Singh play for the first time. He was then at her peak of his powers; he would captain India in the next Olympics. The first time I saw Mohun Bagan play football was in 1968. I was then all of ten years old and it was a tournament that the Amrita Bazar Patrika newspaper (now deceased) had organized as part of its centenary celebrations. Mohun Bagan played Mohammadean Sporting, a formidable power in those days and drew 2-2, a dark genius called Kannan saved the day fo...

I had blogged some time ago about the Uttar Banga Anath Ashram. The blog is here. http://akdcts.blogspot.com/2009/07/uttar-banga-anath-ashram-north-bengal.html Nipon had offered to construct a website for this sop that we could collect donations for the Ashram which lives from hand to mouth. I am glad to say that the blog and Nipon’s website has had a number of hits and we have several prospective donors who are eager to help.See it here: http://uttarbangaanathashram.org/ I am really happy that this could happen. All credit goes to Nipon who spared the time to set up the website. He is a medical student and as all past and present medical students know, time is something that is really difficult to find. However he is shrugging off all credit, though I know how important his role has been. I also talked to some people today and many are willing to help. It looks like there a a lot of people around with large hearts!

Singapore is widely regarded as one of the great cities of the world. This nation on an island is widely regarded as an example to underdeveloped nations. An island that has no natural resources (even water is imported from Malaysia) has, by the dint of hard work and an innovative approach to development become Asia’s second country that belongs firmly to the first world. This happened over a period of about twenty years when a city that was no different from Calcutta or Mumbai suddenly rocketed into a developed status, leaving their rivals far behind. It has become a magnet now for professionals from all over the world and is now one of the world’s biggest tourist attractions. Susmita and I visited Singapore in the third week of August. Changi airport is said to be the world’s best airport and that is what we found it to be. While KLIA seems to be jazzier and is probably bigger, what stood out in Changi was the efficiency. Everything worked perfectly. There was not a single hitch or...

When in India, I saw (via You Tube) Jean Renoir’s The River. Jean was the son of the famous Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir and wrote a marvelous memoir about his father. He was a well known film maker and though I do not agree with some overenthusiastic fans who feel he is one of the greatest ever, he did make some lovely films. His career started in the thirties of the last century when he directed several silent movies before he moved into the world of sound as many others did. He fled to the USA at the outbreak of the Second World War and the first movie that he made after the war was “The River” which he shot in and around Calcutta in the late forties. This movie is important for another reason. One of his assistant directors was a certain Satyajit Ray who was influenced by him to take up a career in cinema. Several others who became famous in their own right such as Bansi Chandragupta and Subrata Mitra also worked in this film. The movie is based on a novel by Rumer G...