http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KM_Nanavati_v_State_of_Maharashtra
This was the most sensastional case of my childhood in India. 1959. The English-language tabloid "Blitz" took a stand on the case and sent circulation through the ceiling. EVERYONE talked about it. Years later, Salman Rushdie fictionalized the case in an episode in "Midnight's Children."
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Saturday, July 18, 2009
A soccer match in 1911
Brief background of 1911 in India
Till 1911, the capital of the British Empire in India was Calcutta. The province was Bengal. Not east or west; simply Bengal. The boundaries stretched east from Calcutta to what is now all of Bangladesh. It was a massive amount of territory for the British to govern, especially at a time when communications were limited. The civil service officers such as district magistrates, chief of postal services, et al, would go from Calcutta a few times a year on “tour” of the far-flung administrative territory. These tours would last for months. Since hotels or inns were nonexistent, the public works department ran “resthouses” in the hinterland. When officers of the realm visited, they’d have a retinue of servants looking after them in these spacious houses. By the time I was born, in post-independent India, these PWD resthouses were still in use and only slightly more democratic. Instead of just being being for government officials, they were open for a small fee to nongovernmental well-to-do. I loved these places and have great memories of them. My grandfather (my mother’s dad) was the head of postal services in the undivided Bengal province and would go on these months-long trips and his family would hear from him through cables once in a while.
By 1911, the sprawling Bengal province was somewhat analogous to modern-day Sadr City and Baghdad. The Gandhian political movement for independence hadn’t taken firm root. This was pre-Gandhi and working with the British to get home rule and other concessions was one strategy of the Indian National Congress. The moderates as they were called. The other group was on the other extreme --- terrorism against the British and full bore. That was Bengal by and large. The local sympathies were deep-rooted in Bengali families regardless of class or economics and gave the terrorists/revolutionaries a base and made governing almost impossible. It has become the stuff of myth and legend for most of us whose parents and grandparents were from that period. In 1911, the British under Lord Curzon decided to physically cut the “terrorist serpent” off at the neck and divided Bengal into smaller administrative territories and move the official seat of government north to Delhi. The immediate result was to try and thwart the political and governing disruption on the government and to try and isolate Bengal from the moderate politics of the national opposition.
Of course, one of the primary reasons that the violent politics in Bengal had such support was that after almost 154 years of British rule in India, this was first time that the British were feeling uncomfortable. Bengalis were particularly wrapped up in the history that the British consolidated ports, communication lines, enormous tax base, and the most fertile rice-producing areas of the world + access to tea, jute, and indigo by defeating the Nawab of these provinces at the Battle of Plassey (anglicized from the Bengali, Palashi) in north Bengal. The British did it in historic colonial style: they were outnumbered by the Nawab’s troops, so they cut a deal with one of the chief lieutenants of the Nawab, who didn’t let his troops fight and Plassey was a disaster for the Nawab. The battle was the most pivotal in the history of the British in India.
That was the rallying cry during those days for the revolutionaries---to settle the score for Plassey.
But the score for Bengal was settled (for most of us) not on any political front but on the Maidan (the central green swath of parkland that exists to this day) where a local football (soccer) club played the British for the Indian Football Association (IFA) shield and won! The first non-British team to beat the British in soccer. It has all the elements of great drama, which now we might see in a movie (see below). One of the players on that original team was my neighbor and we knew him and his family very well. It’s fantastically gratifying to me that this team is being celebrated in today’s Calcutta. It’s a real-life story unlike the accessible but stupid/rotten “Langaan”, the Bollywood film that went up for the Oscars a few years ago.
Amit
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Reuters cable/ 1911
Calcutta, “ For the first time in the history of Indian football, an Indian team, the Mohun Bagan consisting purely of Bengalis, has won the Indian Football Association Shield crack teams of English Regiments.”“ At the final today there was a scene of extraordinary enthusiasm and it is estimated that 80,000 Bengalees were gathered on the Calcutta maidan. The vast majority saw nothing of the game….They were informed of its progress by flying kites.”“ When it was known that the East Yorkshire Regiment had been beaten the scene beggared description. The Bengalis tearing off their shirts and waving them.”
[ PHOTO TO BE INSERTED LATER]
__________________ Sudhir K. Chatterjee (played left back/defensive position). He was our neighbor in Calcutta. He was the principal of a local school and on the governing board of the Calcutta Blind School.
[PHOTO TO BE INSERTED LATER]
An Indian clay artist works on a mural at a workshop in the Kumartoli district of Kolkata. The clay sculpture was made to commemorate the 1911, 2-1 victory by the 11 barefoot members of Mohun Bagan against the British East Yorkshire Regiment tea
Remembering that soccer match
Tribute to barefoot Bagan boys
RITH BASU (Telegraph/Kolkata. Sept. 2008)
The team that won the 1911 IFA Shield; (below) Mintu Pal works on the sculptures. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta
A fibreglass tribute is being sculpted for the boys in maroon and green who played barefoot against a host of booted and brawny English teams to lift the IFA Shield in 1911, an event that is said to have inspired the Indian freedom struggle.
The “Immortal XI” sculpture will be installed on September 20 at the intersection of Kirti Mitra Lane and Mohun Bagan Lane near Phariapukur in north Calcutta. This is where Maharaja Kirti Mitra’s Mohun Villa, the birthplace of India’s national club, once stood. It is also believed that the team played its first match here, against Eden Hindu Hostel.
During the 1911 Shield, Shibdas Bhaduri’s team had routed top sides of the day, including St Xavier’s (3-0), Rangers (2-1), Rifle Brigade (1-0), Middlesex Regiment (1-1, 3-0) and East Yorkshire Regiment (2-1). The feat inspired Achintya Kumar Sengupta to write in Kallol Jug: “Mohun Bagan is not a football team. It is a tortured country, rolling in the dust, which has just started to raise its head.”
Atin Ghosh, a member of the club and councillor of ward 11, said: “Kirti Mitra’s baganbari was called Mohun Villa. The boys used to practise there from 1886. On August 15, 1889, when the club was established, it was named Mohun Bagan Athletic Club after the villa and the garden.” Ghosh has spent Rs 1 lakh from his area development fund for the sculpture.
The 12x9 ft sculpture is being created by Mintu Pal, who is dividing his time between 40 Durga idols and the life-size fibreglass replicas of the players, which will then be placed within a golden frame. A diehard Bagan fan, Pal is thrilled at bagging the job. “The 1911 team had achieved the unimaginable. I have read about them and remember names like Shibdas Bhaduri,” said Pal.
Bhaduri, the skipper, had scored the equaliser in the July 29 IFA Shield final, 20 minutes into the second half, before sending a perfect pass to Abhilash Ghosh to fashion a memorable win against East Yorkshire Regiment with just three minutes to go for full time. Extra trains and special steamers had to be pressed into service for the massive crowd on the day of the final match.
Legend has it that during a victory march around town, a fan pointed to the Union Jack fluttering atop Fort William and asked: “When will that come down?” Someone from the crowd is rumoured to have replied: “It will come down when Mohun Bagan wins another Shield.”
The club next bagged the Shield in 1947. (FROM AMIT: the year of Indian independence)
#################################################################################################
Brit players for film on barefoot triumph
(from Telegraph/Kolkata)
Seven British footballers, who play for clubs like Harrow, Middleton and Middlesex, are flying down to Calcutta for a face-off with Mohun Bagan.
No, Ashley Bailey, Joseph Bennett, Davey Lee Mitchell, Simon Cristol, Christopher Robert Kelly, Patrick Boyle and Andrew Comber will not take on Bhaichung Bhutia’s men, but the one that beat East Yorkshire Regiment 2-1 in the IFA Shield final in 1911.
Mohan Bagan’s historic football triumph is the subject of the Bengali film Suchona, to be steered by first-time director Arun Roy.
To lend authenticity to the nail-biting match, the makers of Suchona have signed British footballers to show off their ball skills.
“I didn’t want foreign tourists to pose as footballers. I wanted to keep it real and that’s why we have hired players from the UK. The best part is that the footballers have agreed to do the film for free. We are only taking care of their food and stay. Their only demand is to catch a Mohun Bagan match,” said Roy.
The UK wing of city-based PR agency Candid Communications has inked the deal.
The Mohun Bagan team in the film, however, won’t have any professional footballer; it will star Chirodini… Tumi Je Aamar hero Rahul.
In real life, skipper Shibdas Bhaduri had led a team of barefoot players to victory against a series of booted and brawny English clubs to lift the shield. The victory is said to have inspired the Indian freedom struggle.
The action replay of Mohun Bagan’s victory will be shot March 23 onwards on a set in Chagulia village in Kalyani.
“We will shoot the match sequence with three cameras. We will get 50 bullock carts as back in 1911 people travelled in bullock carts. The seats would be made of bamboo, as there was no gallery then. A few tents will be put up for the British players, like in those days. We also need a huge crowd. So, we have asked the local people to drop by to catch the shooting,” added Roy.
Co-produced by Alok Roy, Rahul and Arijit Dutta of Piyali Films, Suchona has a Rs 1 crore budget.
“I agreed to do the project as I liked the script. The ending is superb and football is very close to the hearts of Bengalis. The expenses will not mount as none of the British footballers play in the Premier League,” said Dutta, whose Piyali Films is producing a film 30 years after Tapan Sinha’s Hatey Bajare and Arundhati Devi’s Chhuti.
Till 1911, the capital of the British Empire in India was Calcutta. The province was Bengal. Not east or west; simply Bengal. The boundaries stretched east from Calcutta to what is now all of Bangladesh. It was a massive amount of territory for the British to govern, especially at a time when communications were limited. The civil service officers such as district magistrates, chief of postal services, et al, would go from Calcutta a few times a year on “tour” of the far-flung administrative territory. These tours would last for months. Since hotels or inns were nonexistent, the public works department ran “resthouses” in the hinterland. When officers of the realm visited, they’d have a retinue of servants looking after them in these spacious houses. By the time I was born, in post-independent India, these PWD resthouses were still in use and only slightly more democratic. Instead of just being being for government officials, they were open for a small fee to nongovernmental well-to-do. I loved these places and have great memories of them. My grandfather (my mother’s dad) was the head of postal services in the undivided Bengal province and would go on these months-long trips and his family would hear from him through cables once in a while.
By 1911, the sprawling Bengal province was somewhat analogous to modern-day Sadr City and Baghdad. The Gandhian political movement for independence hadn’t taken firm root. This was pre-Gandhi and working with the British to get home rule and other concessions was one strategy of the Indian National Congress. The moderates as they were called. The other group was on the other extreme --- terrorism against the British and full bore. That was Bengal by and large. The local sympathies were deep-rooted in Bengali families regardless of class or economics and gave the terrorists/revolutionaries a base and made governing almost impossible. It has become the stuff of myth and legend for most of us whose parents and grandparents were from that period. In 1911, the British under Lord Curzon decided to physically cut the “terrorist serpent” off at the neck and divided Bengal into smaller administrative territories and move the official seat of government north to Delhi. The immediate result was to try and thwart the political and governing disruption on the government and to try and isolate Bengal from the moderate politics of the national opposition.
Of course, one of the primary reasons that the violent politics in Bengal had such support was that after almost 154 years of British rule in India, this was first time that the British were feeling uncomfortable. Bengalis were particularly wrapped up in the history that the British consolidated ports, communication lines, enormous tax base, and the most fertile rice-producing areas of the world + access to tea, jute, and indigo by defeating the Nawab of these provinces at the Battle of Plassey (anglicized from the Bengali, Palashi) in north Bengal. The British did it in historic colonial style: they were outnumbered by the Nawab’s troops, so they cut a deal with one of the chief lieutenants of the Nawab, who didn’t let his troops fight and Plassey was a disaster for the Nawab. The battle was the most pivotal in the history of the British in India.
That was the rallying cry during those days for the revolutionaries---to settle the score for Plassey.
But the score for Bengal was settled (for most of us) not on any political front but on the Maidan (the central green swath of parkland that exists to this day) where a local football (soccer) club played the British for the Indian Football Association (IFA) shield and won! The first non-British team to beat the British in soccer. It has all the elements of great drama, which now we might see in a movie (see below). One of the players on that original team was my neighbor and we knew him and his family very well. It’s fantastically gratifying to me that this team is being celebrated in today’s Calcutta. It’s a real-life story unlike the accessible but stupid/rotten “Langaan”, the Bollywood film that went up for the Oscars a few years ago.
Amit
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Reuters cable/ 1911
Calcutta, “ For the first time in the history of Indian football, an Indian team, the Mohun Bagan consisting purely of Bengalis, has won the Indian Football Association Shield crack teams of English Regiments.”“ At the final today there was a scene of extraordinary enthusiasm and it is estimated that 80,000 Bengalees were gathered on the Calcutta maidan. The vast majority saw nothing of the game….They were informed of its progress by flying kites.”“ When it was known that the East Yorkshire Regiment had been beaten the scene beggared description. The Bengalis tearing off their shirts and waving them.”
[ PHOTO TO BE INSERTED LATER]
__________________ Sudhir K. Chatterjee (played left back/defensive position). He was our neighbor in Calcutta. He was the principal of a local school and on the governing board of the Calcutta Blind School.
[PHOTO TO BE INSERTED LATER]
An Indian clay artist works on a mural at a workshop in the Kumartoli district of Kolkata. The clay sculpture was made to commemorate the 1911, 2-1 victory by the 11 barefoot members of Mohun Bagan against the British East Yorkshire Regiment tea
Remembering that soccer match
Tribute to barefoot Bagan boys
RITH BASU (Telegraph/Kolkata. Sept. 2008)
The team that won the 1911 IFA Shield; (below) Mintu Pal works on the sculptures. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta
A fibreglass tribute is being sculpted for the boys in maroon and green who played barefoot against a host of booted and brawny English teams to lift the IFA Shield in 1911, an event that is said to have inspired the Indian freedom struggle.
The “Immortal XI” sculpture will be installed on September 20 at the intersection of Kirti Mitra Lane and Mohun Bagan Lane near Phariapukur in north Calcutta. This is where Maharaja Kirti Mitra’s Mohun Villa, the birthplace of India’s national club, once stood. It is also believed that the team played its first match here, against Eden Hindu Hostel.
During the 1911 Shield, Shibdas Bhaduri’s team had routed top sides of the day, including St Xavier’s (3-0), Rangers (2-1), Rifle Brigade (1-0), Middlesex Regiment (1-1, 3-0) and East Yorkshire Regiment (2-1). The feat inspired Achintya Kumar Sengupta to write in Kallol Jug: “Mohun Bagan is not a football team. It is a tortured country, rolling in the dust, which has just started to raise its head.”
Atin Ghosh, a member of the club and councillor of ward 11, said: “Kirti Mitra’s baganbari was called Mohun Villa. The boys used to practise there from 1886. On August 15, 1889, when the club was established, it was named Mohun Bagan Athletic Club after the villa and the garden.” Ghosh has spent Rs 1 lakh from his area development fund for the sculpture.
The 12x9 ft sculpture is being created by Mintu Pal, who is dividing his time between 40 Durga idols and the life-size fibreglass replicas of the players, which will then be placed within a golden frame. A diehard Bagan fan, Pal is thrilled at bagging the job. “The 1911 team had achieved the unimaginable. I have read about them and remember names like Shibdas Bhaduri,” said Pal.
Bhaduri, the skipper, had scored the equaliser in the July 29 IFA Shield final, 20 minutes into the second half, before sending a perfect pass to Abhilash Ghosh to fashion a memorable win against East Yorkshire Regiment with just three minutes to go for full time. Extra trains and special steamers had to be pressed into service for the massive crowd on the day of the final match.
Legend has it that during a victory march around town, a fan pointed to the Union Jack fluttering atop Fort William and asked: “When will that come down?” Someone from the crowd is rumoured to have replied: “It will come down when Mohun Bagan wins another Shield.”
The club next bagged the Shield in 1947. (FROM AMIT: the year of Indian independence)
#################################################################################################
Brit players for film on barefoot triumph
(from Telegraph/Kolkata)
Seven British footballers, who play for clubs like Harrow, Middleton and Middlesex, are flying down to Calcutta for a face-off with Mohun Bagan.
No, Ashley Bailey, Joseph Bennett, Davey Lee Mitchell, Simon Cristol, Christopher Robert Kelly, Patrick Boyle and Andrew Comber will not take on Bhaichung Bhutia’s men, but the one that beat East Yorkshire Regiment 2-1 in the IFA Shield final in 1911.
Mohan Bagan’s historic football triumph is the subject of the Bengali film Suchona, to be steered by first-time director Arun Roy.
To lend authenticity to the nail-biting match, the makers of Suchona have signed British footballers to show off their ball skills.
“I didn’t want foreign tourists to pose as footballers. I wanted to keep it real and that’s why we have hired players from the UK. The best part is that the footballers have agreed to do the film for free. We are only taking care of their food and stay. Their only demand is to catch a Mohun Bagan match,” said Roy.
The UK wing of city-based PR agency Candid Communications has inked the deal.
The Mohun Bagan team in the film, however, won’t have any professional footballer; it will star Chirodini… Tumi Je Aamar hero Rahul.
In real life, skipper Shibdas Bhaduri had led a team of barefoot players to victory against a series of booted and brawny English clubs to lift the shield. The victory is said to have inspired the Indian freedom struggle.
The action replay of Mohun Bagan’s victory will be shot March 23 onwards on a set in Chagulia village in Kalyani.
“We will shoot the match sequence with three cameras. We will get 50 bullock carts as back in 1911 people travelled in bullock carts. The seats would be made of bamboo, as there was no gallery then. A few tents will be put up for the British players, like in those days. We also need a huge crowd. So, we have asked the local people to drop by to catch the shooting,” added Roy.
Co-produced by Alok Roy, Rahul and Arijit Dutta of Piyali Films, Suchona has a Rs 1 crore budget.
“I agreed to do the project as I liked the script. The ending is superb and football is very close to the hearts of Bengalis. The expenses will not mount as none of the British footballers play in the Premier League,” said Dutta, whose Piyali Films is producing a film 30 years after Tapan Sinha’s Hatey Bajare and Arundhati Devi’s Chhuti.
A journey back
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padma_Shri
See “1961” entry for my father’s name. I have no idea why he’s listed as being from Bihar! Maybe, because part of the work being cited was for the scout camps in Bihar.
See “1961” entry for my father’s name. I have no idea why he’s listed as being from Bihar! Maybe, because part of the work being cited was for the scout camps in Bihar.
Friday, July 17, 2009
War stories
- Soon after Britain declared war on Germany on September 1939, my father , who was then 22, boarded the USS President Harding at Southampton to make the Atlantic crossing to New York. The battle of the U-boats and merchant shipping was in full glory in the North Atlantic and passenger liners often fell into the middle of the skirmishes. There's a record of that in these listings below.
- http://www.mareud.com/Timelines/1939-1945.htm
The ship that my dad took from England to the US for his first trip.
- PRESIDENT HARDING The "President Harding" of 1927 was built by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation, Camden, NJ as the "Lone Star State" in 1920 for the United States Lines. She was a 13,869 gross ton ship, length 516.5ft x beam 72.2ft, one funnel, two masts, twin screw and a speed of 18 knots. There was accommodation for 320-1st and 324-3rd class passengers. Launched on 23/12/1920, she sailed from New York on her maiden voyage to Plymouth, Cherbourg, Bremen, Southampton, Cherbourg and New York on 25/3/1922. After this voyage, she was renamed "President Taft" and started the first of two similar voyages under this name on 29/4/1922. She was then renamed "President Harding" and resumed the same service on 8/7/1922. On 7/4/1926 she was refitted to carry cabin and 3rd class passengers, and in April 1931 altered to carry cabin, tourist and 3rd class. In February 1932 she went back to Cabin and 3rd class and on 16/8/1939 commenced her last crossing from Hamburg to Havre, Southampton, Cobh and New York. On 22/9/1939 she started a single round voyage from New York to Cobh and Pauillac(Bordeaux), and on 25/10/1939 started a single New York - Southampton round voyage. She was sold to the Belgian owned Societe Maritime Anversoise in 1940, renamed "Ville de Bruges" and commenced her first New York - Havre crossing on 15/3/1940. On 14/5/1940 she was bombed by German aircraft in the River Scheldte; beached and burnt out. In 1952 she was demolished. [North Atlantic Seaway by N.R.P.Bonsor, vol.4, p.1546] She may have been renamed "President Harding" because there was a "President Taft" owned by Pacific Mail Line. This is the ship that later became a government owned US army transport in 1941 and was renamed "General Willard A.Holbrook" - [Posted to The ShipsList by Ted Finch - 7 April 1998}
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