THE ANGLO KIDS

Kenn Duncan. Oh! Calcutta!
Photographs, January 12, 1980. Billy Rose Theatre Collection 

This is about a generation of kids who eventually grew up tough and learned to make it on their our own with no government subsidies, no unemployment benefits, no medical plans, no job openings to apply for even if you had an education, no savings and for the most part no inheritance from our parents. Most families lived from day to day and had no savings.
How true and so well articulated!    To the wonderful kids who were born in Calcutta and survived the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's...
First, we survived being born to mothers, some whose husbands smoked and/or drank while they carried us. They took aspirin, ate whatever food was put on the table, and didn't get tested for diabetes or any other disease! They were mothers who did not check their blood pressure every few minutes.
 Then after that trauma, our baby cribs and bassinets were covered with bright colored lead-based paints. We were put in prams and sent out with 'Ayahs' to meet other children with their ayahs whilst our parents were busy.
 We had no child proof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes we had no helmets, not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking or going out on our own.
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or airbags. We sat on each others laps for God's sake. Riding in the back of a Station Wagon on a warm day was always a special treat.  We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this!  We would share a bhuta or dosa; dip a chapatti into someone else's plate of curry without batting an eyelid.  We ate jam sandwiches or pickle on bread and butter, raw mangoes with salt and chillies that set our teeth on edge, and drank orange squash with sugar and water in it.   We ate at roadside stalls, drank water from tender coconuts, ate everything that was bad for us from putchkas (fried peanuts) to bhel puri (fried bread with chick peas) to bhajias (battered and fried vegetables) and samosas (fried egg rolls), but we weren't overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day during the holidays, we were never ever bored, and we were allowed freedom all day as long as we were back when the streetlights came on, or when our parents told us to do so. No one was able to reach us all day by mobile phone or phone.
BUT we were OKAY! We would spend hours making paper kites, building things out of scraps with old pram wheels or cycle rims, inventing our own games, having pound parties, playing traditional games called hide and seek, kick the can, 'guli danda', 'seven tiles' and rounders, ride old cycles and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes.   After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem. 
Our parents earned less; never travelled abroad, except, on their vacations back home to Digha, Gopalpur, Puri, and Bandel.  Religion was never an issue, everyone trusted and loved each other, and came to each others aid when needed.  We never heard or claimed our inheritance, whilst our parents were alive.
We did not look for inheritance after they died too. They made sure we were alright.   Never heard of pocket money!  We swam with an inflated tube which we got from somebody who was replacing their car tires. We ran barefoot without thinking about it, if we got cut we used Iodine on it which made us jump.   Our parents ran after us, to give us castor oil, once a month!!   We did not wash our hands ten times a day.  And we were OK.  We did not have Play stations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no I-Pods, no Internet or Internet chat rooms, no TV,..... Full stop! Listening to music was a gather around!
We did not have parents who said things like 'what would you like for breakfast, lunch or dinner'.   We ate what was put in front of us and best of all, there was never any leftovers.  We polished the lot!!!
WE HAD FRIENDS, great friends, whose parents we called Uncle and Aunty, and we went outside and found them!  They too took care of us, when our parents were away, and without any charge! 
 We fell out of trees numerous times, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no compensation claims from these accidents.  We never visited the Dentist!  We ate fruit lying on the ground that we shook down from the tree above.   And we never washed the fruit.
 We had a bath using a bucket and mug and used Lifebuoy soap. We did not know what Shampoos & Conditioners meant.   We made up games with sticks and tennis balls.  We played goli danda and seven tiles; We rode cycles everywhere and someone sat on the carrier or across the bar to school or the pictures, not cinema, or you walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them, and their parents, never let us go without a meal or something....
 Not everyone made it into the teams we wanted to...........Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.  Imagine that!!
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of....... They actually sided with the law!  This generation of ours has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever...
The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!
Please pass this on to others who have had the luck and good fortune to grow up as kids in Calcutta, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives, ostensibly for our own good, that changed what was good into bad and what was bad into worse.......
Those were the GOLDEN DAYS my friends of our yester years. !!!

A ROOM OF HOTEL MARIA

HOTEL MARIA ( WHITE HALL BOARDING HOUSE}

NO 5 sUDDER STREET, OPPOSITE NO 7 SUDDER STREET

MAMA BERRY'S BOARDING HOUSE NOW MARIA HOTEL,

MAMA BERRY AS SHE WAS KNOW HER NAME IS MARIE BERRY, SISTR TO MY DAD PATRICK WILLIAM DORAN

AIRHOSTESS

WHEN I GOT CALLED FOR THE INTERVIEW I WAS SO EXCITED, ME AN AIR HOSTESS
I COULD NOT BELIEVE THAT INDIAN AIRLINES HAD CALLED FOR AN INTERVIEW.
I HASTILY MADE A NEW OUT FIT, A RED FITTING DRESS WITH A WHITE COAT AND WHITE HEELS, WHEN I REACHED AIRLINE HOUSE, THERE WERE SO MANY GIRLS FOR THE SAME  JOB,
THERE WERE THREE PEOPLE SITTING IN THE ROOM WHEN I ENTERED THE CHIEF HOSTESSS  CHIEF PILOT T AND THE OPERATIONAL MANAGER , HE ASKED ME THREE GENERAL KNOWLEDGE QUESTIONS, HE ASKED ME TO TAKE OF MY SHOES AND WALK, THEY WERE CHECKING HIGHT.
 AFTER A MONTH I GOT A SELECTION LETTER AND HAD TO GO THROUGH MANY MEDICAL CHECK UPS BEFORE I BECAME A TRAINEE, AT DUM DUM AIRPORT.
MY TRAINING DAYS WERE FUN DAYS CHEIF AIRHOSTESS LIALA  ROBERTS WAS A WONDERFUL WOMAN AND ENCOURAGED ME., THERE WERE THREE OTHER GIRLS , CHOSEN WITH ME CLOVER GILSON COLEEN HUGHES AND ARUNA SINGH

MY FIRST FLIGHT WAS WITH LIALA . SHE MADE ME  WATCH AND LEARN,
MY FLYING DAYS WAS VERY EVENTFUL. MET A LOT OF CELEBRITYS CRICKET PLAYERS, WRESTLERS BUSINESS MEN AND EVEN PILGRIMS WHO USED TO GO TO MECCA, .ONCE  A FLIGHT WAS GROUNDED IN ASSAM, AS THE UNDERCARRIAGE HAD A PROBLEM. I FLEW BACK ON A DACOTA CARGO FLIGHT, SLEPT ALL THROUGH, ON THE FLOOR ON A BLANKET, I WAS NOT REALLY ALLOWED TO DO THAT AS I WAS NOT INSURED FOR A CARGO PLANE, BUT I TOOK THE RISK AND GOT HOME SAFE.
I  HAD AN EXPERIENCE OF A THUNDER STORM , IT WAS VERY BAD, AIR POCKETS ARE SOMETHING THAT MAKE YOU SICK AND SCARED, AND THAT DAY THERE WAS ONLY TWO PEOPLE FLYING BACK ME AND A PRIEST, THAT I THOUGHT WAS MY LAST DAY,
MY EXPERIENCE AS AN AIR HOSTESS  WAS A PART OF MY YOUNG DAYS A
FUN FILLED  TIME I WILL NEVER REGRET 
NANETTE

TRINCAS OF CALCUTTA

August 6, 2008

Vanished Worlds – SUNANDA K. DATTA-RAY

Filed under: Uncategorized — Sean Auckland @ 11:28 am

The Absolute Anglo-Indian By K.C. Sen, New Millennium, £9.95

This book’s interest lies in the era and society it evokes. K.C. Sen, Bhaiya or Kacy to intimates, was Brahmananda Keshub Chunder Sen’s great grandson on one side and the great-great-grandson of General Sir Edward Barnes, governor of Ceylon and India’s commander-in-chief, on the other. But he is out of joint in concluding that today’s “Absolute Anglo-Indian” will become tomorrow’s “Obsolete Anglo-Indian”. Tomorrow was yesterday, not just for Anglo-Indians but for the fast, fun-loving Anglo-Bengali world of which he writes.

Sen was not Anglo-Indian in the sense of being “of European descent in the male line”, which is the legal definition. As he says, with his extended family spread out in India, Britain, Australia, France, Canada, Myanmar, Switzerland and Pakistan, he could truly have been called a man of the world. But it’s clear that two distinct identities overlapped in his consciousness. His roots were in the archaic Ingabanga society of 19th-century Bengal. Anybody who was anybody in the Calcutta of the Thirties, Forties and Fifties was a relative. Overlaid on that was the Anglo-Indian culture of the Rangers Club, the Grail Club and the club of which he says that “if ever there was a place that separated the men from the boys, and no angels feared to tread, it was the good old Golden Slipper.” Sen managed it for a while, but the links went deeper. Older members of that milieu still remember his unorthodox wedding invitation, “Bridgette and I are going to be married at the Golden Slipper Club.”

His world straddled Calcutta, Darjeeling and London — or rather, small gilded niches in all three, venturing regularly to Colombo and Simla. Rakish Cooch Behar royals, male and female, also descendants of Keshub Sen, loomed large in this fin de siècle society to which World War II and the 300 Club lent zest.

Sen played many parts. He was oarsman, poet, war reporter behind the Burma front, songwriter, composer, guitarist, public relations officer, box-wallah, radio broadcaster and, above all, impressario. His Cavaliers was a popular band. He was frequently MC at the open-air Scherezade nightclub at the Oberoi Grand. It is no surprise that showbiz characters pop in and out of these pages — Duke Ellington, Ross Parker, Alfred Hitchcock and, perhaps in the same genre, Lord Mountbatten. It “was over a cup of tea on the verandah” of his flat that he provided Satyajit Ray with Devika Halder a.k.a. Vicky Redwood for Mahanagar. She was part of Bandwagon, Sen’s group. He says that the voice off-screen in Mahanagar was that of Devika, but the song was a ballad, Time Gave Me No Chance, that he had composed in his rowing days. Major Sharat Kumar Roy of the US army was an unusual wartime buddy and surely the only NRI to be commemorated by a mountain in Greenland: he discovered Mount Sharat.

The book is a treasure trove of such nuggets, though, sadly, many of the illustrations are almost illegible. But though Sen provides enjoyable glimpses, laced with humour, into a vanished world, it would be idle to pretend he does full justice either to his august lineage or to the opportunities that were his. Indeed, one might apply to him Max Beerbohm’s immortal epitaph on George IV’s ill-used and ill-fated queen, “Fate wrote her a most tremendous tragedy, and she played it in tights.”

Paradoxically, Sen is least enjoyable when he pontificates. The constant jumping back and forth from Barnes and Keshub Sen to the contemporary scene is disconcerting. But for all its contrary title, The Absolute Anglo-Indian opens a window of nostalgia into the vanished phenomenon of Anglicized Bengali society.
 Patrick Doran was the lead singer of the pop group called the Cavaliers,  that played at Trincas and other restaurants in Calcutta. They were one of the first pop groups to cut a record Called love is a mango.Patrick is now settled in Denmark.

CALCUTTA TRAMS

 

Kolkata, the city of joy is famous for its Tram Service. The Calcutta Tramways Company Limited happens to be a West Bengal state government undertaken company that is responsible for ensuring the smooth running of trams in Kolkata and also buses in and around Kolkata .It is a noteworthy fact that in India currently only Kolkata (Calcutta) has a tram service. Previously other cities like Mumbai (Bombay), Kanpur, Nasik and Chennai also had trams service which was later discontinued. Kolkata Trams Service (Calcutta Tramways Company) provides a cheap mode of transportation.History of Kolkata Trams Service (Calcutta Tramways Company)-Responsible for managing tramways in Kolkata, Kolkata Trams Service (Calcutta Tramways Company) started the first horse driven tram carriage service in the year 1873 between Sealdah and Armenian Ghat Street. Due to lack of decent patronization the Kolkata Trams Service (Calcutta Tramways Company) was put on hold. In the year 1880, the British started The Calcutta Tramways Company Limited as a registered joint stock company at London. The concept of electricfication of Tram Service also came into vogue in the late 1990s

YOU CAN TRAVEL ALMOST EVERY WHERE BY TRAM,
. I THINK IT IS THE CHEAPEST FORM OF TRANSPORTATION,.
THERE ARE SPECIAL SEATS FOR LADIES 
BOTH IN THE TRAMS AND BUS,

THE VICTORIA MEMORIAL MESUEM

.The Victoria Memorial Hall was opened in 1921. It is also a museum where people could see before them pictures and statues of men who played a prominent part in the history of India and develop a pride in their past especially in relation to the history of Calcutta . Lord Curzon conceived it. Presently it is the finest and most prominent building and art museum of Calcutta, India, under the Department of Culture, Government of India. 

A beautiful monument,, a place which is full in the evening, as a kid i  walked along the maidan  and walked back,after eating the famous bhel puri and puchikas , a small puri with potatoe filling and tamrind water, wow god bless the chat walas of cal 

VIEW FROM NO 7 SUDDER STREET GATES,

 

There is always a calmness before the storm The clouds are all darkened as they form Thundering skies echo across the land Untold signs are washed from the sand It becomes all quiet and not a sound is heard You can listen for voices but you hear not a word Then like some magical wonder from above The rain god keep pouring down their love The rain drops keep  falling for you and for me To touch us all and to set us all free The drops come down t with such beauty and grace I lift up my head and let them  touch my face Washing our souls from the hurt that we feel Washing our souls from the pain that is real And when the rain  drops have  finished   Those clouded skies depart to bring out the sun And if you watch closely and look way up high You will see a rainbow of colors appear in the sky Colors of joy that are warm and not cold God's given promise for us to hold CLUELESS NANETTE I LOVE THE RAIN, IT BEAUTIFYS MOTHER EARTH

THE INDIAN BOTANIC GARDENS CALCUTTA

The Botanical Gardens, situated on the west bank of the Hoogly river, is spread over an area of 109 hectares and is home to a wide range of plants. The Botanical Gardens is home to over 12,000 specimens of plants some of which are extremely rare.

The garden was founded in 1786 by Robert Kyd, an army officer in the East India Company with the aim of identifying new plants of commercial value. The tea now grown in the hills of Assam and Darjeeling was originally developed here. Over the years and after several changes in policy the garden became home to several ornamental plants as well. Today the Garden is famous for enormous collections of orchids, bamboos, palms, and plants of the screw pine genus The biggest attraction of the garden is the 200 year old Banyan Tree also claimed to have the second largest canopy in the world with a 330m circumference.

look at the smiling kids, they are smiling because they are in front of a camera, they are not smiling because they are joyful and content.
The city of joy has a long way to go before it  can live up to its name.
they are rag pickers they salvage what is our refuse,what is discarded is their necessity, when I look back at my childhood I am grateful for which family I was born into, but the plight of these kids are no fault of theirs, the promised equality is yet to be seen, I  pray that that some miracle happens and that kids never have to go through what these have gone through, give generously till it hurt's, if not in money go out and feed a few kids, give them  clothes and toys.toys that are stored and  are of no use to you now,your small gifts will bring plenty of smiles and gratitude. Do not just stand and take pictures, although a picture tells a story, make sure it reaches viewers
clueless Nanette 

 

The Hogg Market better known as New Market, is arguably one of Calcutta's best shopping centres. Designed by an East Indian Railway Company architect, it was opened in 1874 and named after the commissioner, Sir Stuart Hogg. Earlier it had a garden with a beautiful fountain & benches for tired shoppers. Today, it continues to be a premier shopping area despite a part of it being incinerated in late 1985. Its red-brick Gothic clock-tower bears testimony to the past grandeur. Linen to cakes, fruits to fish everything is available here at a reasonable price. There are 2000 stalls which are arranged in an order of merchandize. There are rows of stalls dealing with one particular line of goods. Opposite the Tower was Keventers' Milk Dairy on Lindsey Street. As kids we loved their milk drink.

I remember a few like the line of Flower Stalls, Jewellery, shoe shops, Magnolia's Ice Cream Parlour, Nahoom's Cake Shop, D'Gama's Confectionery. Then there were shops selling bread, biscuits, cheese, butter etc. I loved the bandel cheese and the guava cheese, not forgetting the barley sugar sweets and the mazipan sweets, during a shopping break it was puffs and American Ice cream cold drinks at a little shop at the back.
 the midnight ride  to the new market to have kati rolls at  the side of the new market Karco's  road side foodie shop.
most of the cinema halls were around, the Globe the Light house the New Empire and the Elite. New  Market had every thing shopping entertainment and all within walking space.
Christmas the middle of the market was full of chinese shops fill with christmas trees and decorations that was a time of joy and happiness when toy shops and clothe shops must have had good sales

To day there are a lot of changes,  lot of the old shops are no more, D'gsmas is no more, but change is certain, but who want to forget yesteryears, no  not I for sure
clueless nanette
 NAN

FORT WILLIAMS

The Fort William stands solemnly on the Western bank of The Ganga. It stretches from the Western flank of the Red Road. The Battle of Plassey ended in June, 1757. Robert Clive was deeply worried about the British destiny and what lay in store for Calcutta because the erstwhile fragile fort was easily captured by Siraj-ud-daula. Consequently, Clive decided to build a formidable fort to resist enemy onslaughts effectively. On account of their victory in the Battle of Plassey, the British received a whopping 75,00,000 silver coins. After a few days, they received another 4000,000 coins. With this money, started the mammoth task of building the fort. Previously this place was a hamlet named Gobindapur. The local people were evicted from this place after paying a nominal compensation money. The 'Thakur' family had meanwhile abandoned Gobindapur and came to stay at Sutanuti. The construction of the fort was rounded off in 1781. This was renamed Fort William after the erstwhile fort of the same name. The fort was octagonal with three sides facing the river Ganga. Five other sides were towards the Maidan. Ditches surrounded the fort which covered 2½ square miles. They could be filled with river water as and when required. Inside the Fort is the St. Peter's Church which was constructed in 1928. Swimming pool, Boxing stadium, Firing Range and other necessary arrangements are present within the Fort. There is also a provision for ten thousand interns of the Fort. The Fort has huge archways, one of which is known as 'Plassey Gate'. It is said that this is the only Fort in the world from where not a single bullet or cannon-ball has ever been shot.  MY MOM, EVELYN PHYLLIS RYAN USED TO WORK AT FORT WILLIAMS Women's Auxiliary Corps Established 1942. Non-combatant corps providing support services for the Indian Army and Burma Army in World War II. The equivalent of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (A.T.S.) in the UK.

THE RICKSHAW WALLA

The rick Walla
As a kid i loved to travel in a rick, and enjoyed the ride till one day, by brother who had come from abroad paid the rick walla a large some of money ,and I told him he was spoiling the fare structure for us in the future, when he looked at me and said, "he is not a beast of burden he is a human and he deserves to be treated kindly" , I felt a pinch and realized, the truth of it all.  I could not change a system that was there, but I should not put a spoke into his earnings as well. I learned a very small lesson in the dignity of labour and its  value

 

THE HOWRAH BRIDGE

I stood on the Bridge at midnight,

And gazed at the waters below,
And thought of the fanciful dreams that
From the brains of our Councilors flow.

Then I thought of the quick intuition,
Which these schemes had engendered and said,
“Will these schemes ever come to fruition?”
Then I quietly stood on my head.

For I’d looked at the question sideways,
And from both sides of the town,
Taking careful account of the tideways,
But never from upside down.

So I‘ve got a new angle of vision,
As bright and as fresh as wet paint,
Which will take off the general attention?
Away from the New Market Saint

Up my sleeve I’ve another red herring,
“The Scare of the Bidyadhari Silt”,
Which will merrily keep the ball rolling?
Ere The Bridge on the Hooghly is built.

-Diogenes, in the “Englishman”
(Appeared in The Calcutta Municipal Gazette dated 11 th July 1925)

the street of my child home

top picture  is sudder street
below is no 7 sudder street,
During the great famine of Burma, the Dorans along with many others treked into calcutta and made it their home, this is where my ancestral home usd to be.
The building is no more , the building at the back was once  Standard, wire rope factory owned by my uncle Dick Dignum.
the residence was at the side, now a shoping complex, this was where the Dorans and the Dignums lived
opposite was no 5 sudder street where Marie Berry(nee Doran)had her boarding lodge called white hall, now hotel Maria. next building was the residence of Kathlene Berry and family stayed .this was a very large family, and there was plenty of fun song dance and laughter etched in these walls, if they could talk they have plenty of sad , and happy time bad times( ike the war times) and the good times, Marie started the blue fox club as a small place for the soldiers of the war, and many Anglo Indian girls worked there.

Sudder street was once clean and not so croweded, now it is no longer the same,shops and more shops an eating places and tourist attractions, looks like the foreign tourist love this street, 
it is a very famous place for visitors
NANETTE

HOWRAH RAILWAY STATION

 

THE HOWRAH STATION

The Howrah Bridge is a bridge that spans the Hooghly River in West Bengal, India. It was originally named the New Howrah Bridge because it links the city of Howrah to its twin city, Kolkata (Calcutta). On 14 June 1965 it was renamed Rabindra Setu, after Rabindranath Tagore a great poet and the first Indian Nobel laureate. However it is still popularly known as the Howrah Bridge.
The bridge is one of the four on the Hooghly River and is a famous symbol of Kolkata and West Bengal. The other bridges are the Vidyasagar Setu (popularly called the Second Hooghly Bridge), the Vivekananda Setu and the newly built engineering marvel Nivedita Setu. Apart from bearing the stormy weather of the Bay of Bengal region, it successfully bears the weight of a daily traffic of approximately 80,000 vehicles ^[1] and, possibly, more than 1,000,000 pedestrians. It is the sixth longest bridge of its type in the world

Howrah Station is one of the four intercity train stations serving Howrah and Kolkata, India; the others are Sealdah Station, Shalimar Station and Kolkata railway station in Kolkata. Howrah is situated on the West bank of the Hooghly River, linked to Kolkata by the magnificent Howrah Bridge which is an icon of Kolkata. It is the second-oldest station and one of the largest railway complexes in India.

There are currently 23 platforms in Howrah Station. It is slated to get an additional 15 platform tracks north of the current station in the next decade to bring it up to a total of 37 platform tracks.