Front page of Samachar Darpan, January 7, 1837 The ongoing fanfare surrounding the centenary of leading Bengali daily Anandabazar Patrika, while no doubt justified, makes it easy to forget the pioneers who paved the way for Suresh Chandra Majumdar and Prafulla Kumar Sarkar to launch their
July 1952, Helsinki, exactly 70 years ago. The capital of Finland was playing host to the 15th Summer Olympics, and the Indian contingent included only four women - swimmer Dolly Nazir, athletes Nilima Ghose and Mary D’Souza Sequiera, and a second swimmer who should more
Which was the first Tarun Majumdar film you ever watched? For Bengalis of my generation, growing up in the 1980s, the answer is most likely to be Dadar Kirti (1980), which remains one of the defining romantic comedies of Bengali cinema. Just two years earlier,
There’s a reason why Jagannath Ghat in Kolkata is called what it is. Practically at the base of Howrah Bridge, the ghat, built by millionaire Bengali businessman Sobharam Basak (or Bysack as the British spelled it) in the latter half of the 18th century, took
After a two-year gap enforced by Covid-19, the 45th International Kolkata Book Fair or Boimela was held at Salt Lake’s Central Park from February 28 to March 13. In a unique initiative this year, the Book Fair was broadcast via a continuous live stream for
Some would say this was long overdue. On June 12, the Lalit Great Eastern Hotel received a Culinary Heritage Award from the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH). These awards have been instituted to “create and enhance awareness of heritage in general,
The year was 2001, the setting a slum in Tikiapara, Howrah. Mamoon Akhtar sat in a 300-sq ft house, surrounded by a small group of six children. This was his ‘school’, which he had been driven to set up as a result of the passionate
Born in Bombay in the year of India’s independence, died by suicide in a small Los Angeles jail cell in 1994. In sum, this was the life and death of Somen ‘Steve’ Banerjee who remains, till date, the most infamous Bengali immigrant to have landed
On April 1, 1868, a pretty young Anglo-Indian woman named Rose Brown was murdered in Calcutta, her throat slit almost ear to ear. Her body, discovered late at night by a beat constable on patrol duty, lay where she had died, mere minutes away from
Small, neat, cosy, colourful. Single screen, great sound. All of it for a ticket price of only Rs 30 per head. In a nutshell, that is Radha Studio inside and out. The city’s newest movie viewing destination was opened to the public on May 6