NOTABLE NON-BENGALI RESIDENTS OF KOLKATA AND THEIR CONTRIBUTION

Dacca University from 1928 to 1933.

By Partha Sircar (California)

Author’s Note: For this article, I have defined a non-Bengali as one who did not inherit the Bengali language as mother tongue from his/her parents. I tacitly assume that a non-Bengali did not grow up on Bengali culture and did not eat Bengali food as a child. Additionally, a ‘Non-Bengali’ is assumed to have his/her origins within the Indian subcontinent. I had envisioned the article to reflect a nostalgic trip down the memory trail, particularly highlighting the multiple facets of Kolkata’s cultural milieu. It was not meant to be an exhaustive list of names. Inclusion and exclusion of names in an article like this is somewhat subjective and even tricky. Besides, too many names could make it overly unwieldy and possibly boring.

While enjoying browsing through Purono Kolkatar Golpo on Facebook, sitting in my home in California, I was suddenly reminded of several nonBengali luminaries who resided in the city while making their significant contributions. I wanted to talk about them, hoping Purono Kolkatar Golpo will find it fit to publish on its pages. Most of these luminaries spent significant portions of their lives. Some were born there or came as children while some came later in life. But they all left their mark and made our city proud.

I start with Maulana Abul Kalaam Azad. He was undoubtedly one of the tallest leaders of the Indian independence movement. He was a seven-time President of the Indian National Congress and the country’s first Education Minister. Maulana Azad, who was of North Indian origin and born in Saudi Arabia, where his father was then stationed, came to Calcutta as a child and grew up in the city (This was a big surprise to me!). And it should not be missed that he was against Partition and stayed on in India.

I found it interesting to find that Azad was not exposed to secular education, which was quite prevalent at the time but was brought up in traditional Islamic environment. This probably reflects the presence of a pervasive high Muslim culture in the city at the time.

There was the eminent jurist Syed Amir Ali and the members of the Ispahani family. And of course, there were the descendants of the families of Tipu Sultan of Mysore and Wajed Ali Shah of Oudh. They landed up in the city as prisoners of the British and made notable contributions in the city, particularly in the areas of music and dance, such as Kathak dance and also cuisine. Their Calcutta style Biriyani, I am told, enjoys the same stature as the Lucknowi Biriyani and the Hyderabadi Biriyani. It is distinguished by the fact that the Biriyani, unlike the others, includes potatoes.

As the capital of the British Raj, Calcutta always held a pride place for the men of high education and intellect, with the Asiatic Society, Calcutta University established in 1857 and other notable institutions. With it came many learned men from various parts of India. Prominent among them was CV Raman, the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930 for his pioneering work on the scattering of light rays. Raman originally came to Calcutta to work for the Indian Audit and Accounts Service. A chance encounter with the Indian Association for the Advancement of the Cultivation of Science (IAACS), the first institute in India dedicated to scientific research led him to his scientific research there. in 1907. He was appointed the Palit Professor in Physics to teach in Calcutta University by the then Vice Chancellor the eminent Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee. Raman stayed in Calcutta University till 1933 before moving to Bangalore to establish the Indian Academy of Science in Bangalore. Another eminent scientist, KS Krishnan, collaborated with Raman with much of his research in IAACS. He was associated with IAACS from 1923 to 1942, with a brief stint at

Another famous Indian associated with the city of Calcutta was Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, the famous philosopher and a former President of India. Dr. Radhakrishnan was also enticed by Sir Asutosh Mukherjee to join the Calcutta University as the George V Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy. He taught there from 1921 to 1929. In 1936 Radhakrishnan was named Spalding Professor of Eastern Religion and Ethics at the University of Oxford.

Names of several luminaries in the field of music readily come to mind. I start with Usha Utthup, the doyen of vocalists in the city with her captivating husky voice. She started years back as a crooner in Trinca’s and is still a formidable presence at an advanced age. There is also the younger Alka Yagnik, who had a successful career in Bollywood.

Most of us have heard the name of the late Pandit V.G. Jog, the violin maestro and a disciple of Baba Alauddin Khan. Pandit Jog made Calcutta his home from the middle years of his life till his passing away. Eminent musicians A T Kanan and Rashid Khan also moved to Calcutta and made it their home. There was also the musician V. Balsara, who was a presence in the musical circles in the city for several decades.

Anyone who is familiar with classical Indian dance is familiar with the name of Thankamani Kutty and he husband Govinda Kutty. Thankamani joined her husband in Calcutta in 1958 from Kerala, following her marriage. They together built up the practice of Bharatnatyam in the city. The school they set up, Kalamandalam, is an institution.

Calcutta’s love affair with the movies started from the earliest days when movies were first introduced in the country. Perhaps it was a direct successor to the Bengali theater which ruled the cultural life of the city in the nineteenth century. The establishment of the New Theaters Studio in 1931 was a signature event. Both Hindi and Bengali movies were made from the studio. Eminent personalities like the actor Prithviraj Kapoor (father of Raj, Shammi and Shashi) and the famous actor/singer K.L. Saigal were closely associated with the studio and had made Calcutta their home. Saigal had acted in both Bengali and Hindi movies and had sung in both Hindi and Bengali.

Mala Sinha, the wellknown Bollywood heroine was born in the city of Nepalese parents and went to school there. She started her movie career in Bengali movies before moving to Bombay. Jeet, a contemporary heartthrob in Bengali movies was born in a Sindhi family. Bansi Chandragupta, the set designer for all the Satyajit Ray movies originally hailed from Punjab.

There have been several sports heroes who lived and thrived in the city and made it proud. The names of hockey players Yaswant Singh Rajput, Leslie Claudius, Kehhav Datt and Gurbux Singh come readily to mind. They all won multiple medals in the Olympics and had long fruitful careers in the then flourishing Calcutta Hockey League. Leslie Claudius won three gold and one silver medal and was captain of the Indian team in 1960. A Tube station in London was temporarily named after him during the 2012 Olympics along with stations named after Dhyan Chand and Roop Singh, both legends.

In football, we are used to mentioning the name of Balaram in the same breath as PK Banerjee and Chuni Goswami as the immortal trio. We also remember Thangaraj, Ram Bahadur, Kempiah and Habib. And from an earlier era, we remember Dhanraj, Venkatesh, Saleh and Ahmed Khan – all non-Bengalees, who were highly regarded in the Calcutta Football League in the 1950s and 1960s. Sorry, having left the country for US in 1967, I am not familiar with the later names, who may have been no less well known.

There was also the tennis stars Naresh Kumar, Akhtar Ali, Premjit Lall and Leander Paes (all Davis Cuppers). They were all products of Calcutta’s South Club, whose grass courts had the reputation of being comparable to the best in the world. Kalyan Jayant, one time India’s top table tennis player also lived in the city as well as the accomplished Badminton player Gajanan

Hemmady

Then there was Dilip Doshi, who grew up in the city. The left arm spinner had a late debut and yet ended up playing 33 Tests for India.

Calcutta has been well known throughout India is its sweets. Rosogolla and Sandesh have become intimately attached to Bengali identity. And anyone in the know is fully aware of Ganguram and Sons, particularly their famous Rabri. Ganguram Chaurasia, a halwai, came from Varanasi and set vup his fisrst shop in 1885. Ganguram and Sons holds the same position of prestige as some of the other iconic sweetmeat shops: Dwarik Ghosh, Bhim Nag and KC Das, which have all become institutions in the city. Others have followed over the years. Lately Haldiram’s has become a particular favorite.

I would be remiss if I failed to mention the immense contributions made by the non-Bengali businessmen, particularly the Marwaris. Names like Goenka, Birla, Dalmia and Khaitan are strewn all over the city beginning with hospitals, schools and colleges, art galleries and even a Planetarium proudly bear their names.

And finally, here is a name I could not miss mentioning, P. Thankappan Nair. Nair came to Calcutta as a 22-year-old from Kerala, looking for a job. The city totally engrossed him. He stayed on for over six decades, before heading back to his native village in Kerala. In between, he published over 60 books on Calcutta. It would perhaps be no exaggeration to say: Thankappan Nair belonged to Calcutta as Calcutta belonged to him.

(This is a significantly updated version of an article I published earlier on Purono Kolkatar Golpo on Facebook)