Reflections

Debashsis Ray is another friend introduced to me by Mr Swapan Sen ( see the posts here , here and here .I have not yet met him, but I plan to repair this omission the next time I am in Calcutta. He will also contribute to this blog and I am very glad to welcome him and I hope that we will have a long association. Mr Sen has written a short introduction about Mr Ray which speaks volumes about the sort of person he is, my sort of person, I would say! Here it is: One of my friends, a retired Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Railways, Mr. Debashis Ray, also sends various write-ups based on his own experience to his close friends. For quite some time I have been wondering if I may introduce him to you. He is an interesting character and a good writer of real life stories. He has a touch of subtle humor in his stories and the technical articles that he writes and sends to his friends. I met Debashis in 1969 when, as a Railway probationary officer, I went...

Lessons of a long History of Dissent: Early Twentieth Century to Occupy Wall Street by Fred Magdoff Fred Magdoff is professor emeritus of plant and soil science at the University of Vermont and adjunct professor of crop and soil science at Cornell University. He writes frequently on political economy. His most recent books are The Great Financial Crisis (written with John Bellamy Foster, Monthly Review Press, 2009) and Agriculture and Food in Crisis (edited with Brian Tokar, Monthly Review Press, 2010) and What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism: A Citizen's Guide to Capitalism and the Environment (with John Bellamy Foster, Monthly Review Press, 2011). We are at what social theorists call a "historic moment," in which real change suddenly seems possible. It is therefore all the more important to learn from past struggles. One of the first lessens of a long history of dissent from the early twentieth century to the current Occupy Wall Street movemen...

When I was a schoolboy, I, like all schoolboys dreamt of adventure. During the sixties when we were in primary school, the world did look very adventurous indeed. The space race was on, and while we did not understand the political nuances very well, the space walks, the first circumnavigation of the moon and finally the moonwalk ( of Armstrong and Aldrin, not Michel Jackson) left us with a state of wonder and a feeling that everything was possible. Three books stand out in my memory that embodied for me, the true spirit of adventure and I could and to some extent still feel a cold feeling crawling up my spine as I shared the adventures of the heroes of these books. One of them was a real person, and I refer to Jim Corbett and his “ Maneaters of Kumaon”. I was presented one copy on my birthday by one of my friends and the thrill of the forests had me in its thrall in an instant and I am glad to report, it has never left me since. The other two were fictional. One was Robert Louis St...

Raj Basu ( read his interview here ) had written a wonderful obituary cum tribute to Shibjee who was the founder of the Chilapata Jungle camp. I had a link to this article from my own post on Chilapata. I was recently informed by a reader that this link doesn't work anymore. The original post has probably been deleted. Consequently I have obtained Raj's permission to reproduce the article here in Reflections. I personally think it is one of the best tributes to a grassroots worker that I have ever read. This valuable article also gives an overview of the Chilapta Sanctuary and the development of the Chilapata Jungle Camp. Shibjee, the end of an era at Chilapata Chilapata Sanctuary, 08th April 2010: Last night when Buada rang me up from Chilapata sometimes past 10 at night, I had just returned from the Northeast Council Tourism Meet at Gangtok where one of the major points of discussion was ‘how can tourism stop climate change’. This was the second discussion this week, a...

Chess was much more popular in our schooldays that it is now. At that time it was common to have chessboards at home and impromptu chess tournaments in the para between the local chess “masters” were extremely common. We were all familiar with the notations used for chess and the Sunday newspapers used to invariably carry a column on chess. The better chess players were admired as the brainy types and it was a a sport approved of by the elders who frowned on many games as a waste of time. Today, despite the fact that we have a homegrown world champion and many very competent grandmasters, the sport appears to have declined in popularity. This, despite the ease with which aspiring chess champions can access libraries of chess games and the availability of professional guidance. Or perhaps it is still popular; I simply am cut off from the milieu that plays chess. Anyway, during the middle of the year 1972, the game reached the peak of its popularity. This was of course, because of the f...

Author Shamini Flint We are familiar with the fictional detectives of the West. Sherlock Holmes remains the all time favourite, followed closely by Agatha Christie’s finicky Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot. There are several others. For some reason, women writers in the UK seem to have particular affinity towards detective fiction; the names of Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and P D James come readily to mind. Bengalis also have their own homegrown pantheon of detectives, chief among whom are, of course, Byomkesh Bakshi and the beloved Feluda. However among Asian writers writing in English, there appeared to be a singular dearth of fictional detectives, at least I cannot recall anyone offhand. This appears to have been remedied now by the advent of Inspector Singh. This typical, yet atypical, sardar does not live in his native Punjab, or even in Delhi. He lives in Singapore where he is not the favourite of his senior officers, However they are forced to put up with him and his idios...

( picture from http://sauvik.wordpress.com/2010/07/23/train-spotting-with-mamata-banerjee/) The new dispensation in Bengal is panning out exactly how I had expected it to. But even I could not imagine that the Chief Minister herself (she is also the Home Minister) would rush to the local thana to force the hapless policemen to free some hooligans that they had detained. According to the newspapers, one of Madam’s brother’s cronies was celebrating Jagadhatri Puja and the best part of all pujos in Bengal is the bhasan, when all organizers can get drunk and create as much nuisance as possible on the streets with little possibility of retribution. And that was exactly what they were doing, bursting crackers outside hospitals and holding up the traffic with their dancing and revelry. The poor policemen of the Bhowanipore Thana who had probably taken Madam’s words to work without fear or favour too literally put a couple of them behind bars which was probably where they belonged. However, wh...

Henry Ives Hurry Goodeve was one of the doyens of the early years of the Calcutta Medical College. His work in educating Indian doctors in the early phase of the Medical College and his efforts to take a group of them to London for higher studies are fairly well known and documented. What is not so well known is his romantic nature and how, on his return to England he sought out and bought a residence that he had first eyed many years ago as an impecunious young man. Near Bristol, on the Durdham Downs is an old structure named Cooke’s Folly. This house was built in 1672 By John Cooke, who was the Civic Chamberlain of Bristol as well as the Master of the Merchant Venturers in 1691/2. This body, which still exists, was set up in 1467 and received a Royal charter in 1552 by Edward VI and this was subsequently confirmed by all succeeding monarchs including the present Elizabeth II. The society controlled the Bristol harbor in the 17th till the 19th centuries and as Bristol was a centre w...

Travelling by train, especially between major cities, has become little passe for us middle class in today's era of cheap flights. However the Indian Railways still carries 17 million passengers every day, more than the population on an average sized country. The people who keep the wheels running are not acknowledged, and often ignored by the passengers who benefit from their work. Swapan Sen writes about the unsung heroes of the Indian Railways. I met Nageshwar Rao at a railway level crossing in Araku valley, where my car was held up as a passenger train was passing by. Nageshwar was the gatekeeper at that crossing and was busy showing his green flag to the driver of the train. A cheerful man in his early thirties, Nageshwar had been doing this day-in day-out for the last five years. He had made his little cabin his home with the loving care of a house-owner, converting the little space in-front into a picturesque little garden. A flowering Bougainvillea creeper, Marigo...