March | 2021 | Benjamuna's Blog

South Park Street Cemetery March 25, 2021

Filed under: INDIA,Travels — benjamuna @ 8:00 am
Tags: burial ground, Calcutta, cemetary, graveyard, India, kolkata, park street calcutta, park street kolkata, peaceful, South Park Street Cemetary, tombs

“You should go to the cemetery,” a photographer in Kolkata once told me. “No, you must go, he added. “You’re staying just around the corner.” So I went there.

Kolkata, or Calcutta – a name with much more history attached to it, is like any other Indian city of a certain size, a beast. Crowded, noisy, confusing, at times heavily polluted. The moment I walked through the gate of the cemetery, I found peace. And now, reminiscing about my visit, I come to think of the title of an old pop song from the 60’s, ‘Graveyard Paradise’.

Photography prohibited; a sign tells me. But most things are available at a price, I motioned my camera towards the guards and upon request paid 200 rupis for potentially using my camera. I was not able to understand the logic behind the fee, but the amount was small and the guards welcoming.

The immediate sight was overwhelming. The cemetery looked like an old, lush overgrown garden. The footpaths were flanked by weathered tombs, colonnades, mausoleums, obelisks, sarcophagi, and stone cupolas – all partly covered in moss and framed by a variety of trees, bushes and potted plants. Chirping birds made the picture complete, the traffic noise became nothing but a soft backdrop. And the whole place reeked of old history from the time of the Britishers.

This burial ground came into being in 1767, in a marshy area. To reach it, a new road had to be built – today called Park Street, and no one visits Calcutta without strolling up and down this street. But I might not have walked this far had I not known what to find …

The cemetery was in its time opened to relieve the pressure on the city’s old burial ground. It became the final resting place of the many Britishers who came to stay in India for several reasons, but many hardships had to be endured and many tombs tell stories about short lives. Tropical diseases, poor sanitation, and lack of medicines were the main reasons for all those early deaths.

Some 1600 British men, women and children are buried here, among them some notable personalities and there are quite a few military burials. The cemetery also tells stories about young women who presumably died in childbirth, as many children are buried together with their mothers.

South Park Street Cemetery covers 8 acres, and walled off from the busy streets makes it the perfect get-away for young couples. Visit any big garden or park in India, and you’ll find youngsters strolling leisurely along the footpaths, holdings hands, sitting close on benches – or they might be seen kissing and cuddling behind big tree trunks. The cemetery is no exception. I teasingly asked a young couple if I could take their picture, but they leaped up from their bench as if they had seen a … ghost!

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The newspaper men in Calcutta March 20, 2021

Filed under: INDIA,Travels — benjamuna @ 4:06 pm
Tags: Calcutta, Calcutta Capsule, Howrah Bridge, India, Indian newspapers, kolkata, newspapers, The Hicky's Bengal Gazette, The Statesman

I immediately noticed them when I first came to Calcutta, and never stopped doing so: The newspaper men. To me, they are men reading newspapers on the streets, in their stalls, sitting on stools and chairs, leaning onto railings, or whatever comes their way, at bus stops – simply everywhere. Yes, there are people hunched over cellphones like everywhere else in the world, but more noticeably are those who fold out broadsheets or the likes.

“Asia’s first newspaper started in Calcutta,” says Soham Chakrabarty, founder of Calcutta C apsule. “The Hicky’s Bengal Gazette (1780) was published for two years before The East India Company seized the newspaper’s printing press. Calcutta was once home to a lot of newspapers, and some of today’s newspapers are more than a hundred years old, like The Statesman.”

While Delhi, with its grand monuments, is the capital of India, and Mumbai the financial hub, Calcutta is often seen as the cultural capital of India marked by art, literature, science, politics and journalism. Bengal, especially Calcutta, was the cradle of journalism in India and till the 1880’s the main hub of newspaper publication.

“Newspapers acted as a medium to reach out to the common crowd,” says Soham. “The independence movement, but also other political issues, included a lot of newspapers through which freedom fighters and activists voiced their opinions.”

*Another quiet moment at Howrah Bridge.*

Till this date I haven’t seen a single woman reading a newspaper on the streets of Calcutta. Nor are there many female street vendors.
“The streets of Calcutta are a man’s world” says Soham. “Common culture be it, or whatever reason, do not make it comfortable for women to spend too much time on the streets hence you don’t see them reading newspapers. Whereas a lot of men do spend time on the streets, sometimes for no obvious reason, where they see it fit to read newspapers. Both my grandmothers had habits of reading newspapers. They were homemakers, but always found time to newspapers within the premises of their house.”

As I go through my Calcutta photos it comes as no surprise that the men reading newspapers aren’t exactly the young generation, rather middle-aged men who, like myself, finds pleasure in something that is about to become an anachronism. And the day I was about to finish this blog post, the newspapers didn’t show up in my mailbox on a Saturday morning; the prime newspaper day of the week. A tablet was put on the table, but no matter how hard I tried I wasn’t able to digest the electronic news together with bread and butter.
[END of story, more photos below]

Meet The India Dog March 16, 2021

Filed under: INDIA — benjamuna @ 7:16 am
Tags: Calcutta, Desi, Desi Dog, desidog, Dog, India, India Dog, INDog, kolkata, Mumbai, Pariah Dog, Pye Dog, Pyedog, stray dogs, straydogs, streetdog

I once came to Rishikesh for a wedding. The hotel was a disappointment, it had looked fine on the website but appeared dilapidated once I came inside. I was given a room with a window facing the corridor. I said I couldn’t accept it. I needed daylight. We looked at another room, but it was the same; the window was facing the corridor. As if I hadn’t made myself clear. The third room looked fine though, light flooded into the room which was facing a backyard, at least I wouldn’t be bothered with traffic noise. And the man promised that curtains, straight from the laundry, would be in place within two hours. He kept his promise.
I went to bed that evening in a dark, cool room and not a honking horn within earshot. Then arrived a pack of dogs on the scene; barking, howling & growling … and kept me awake for hours.

Stray dogs in India are omnipresent. I have always called them ’The All India Dog’ because they look as if they have been cast in the same mold. Light brown, short coat, skinny and light-footed. Oher distinct features are sharp nose, perked up ears and curly tails.

*My mat is my castle. As scruffy as the dog* …

I didn’t know until recently that this dog is actually a breed called The Pariah Dog. Indians with a soft spot for these dogs, and animal activists, don’t like this name – for obvious reasons – and prefer Desi (national) Dog. Other commonly used names are Pye Dog, Indi-dog or In-dog (various spellings occur).
On the other hand, it’s obvious that many stray dogs gallivanting Indian streets are of a mixed breed.

They are known to be extremely intelligent, which is required for their ability to survive with little human support. They are often used as guard dogs or police dogs, as they are both territorial and defensive.
But many people find them a nuisance and nothing but a problem. The biggest reason for growing in such numbers is open garbage, a problem which India has yet to solve. Stray dogs rely on garbage while hunting for eatables.
In India, killing of dogs has been banned since 2001. But dogs are probably intentionally (and illegally) killed anyway, and some should definitely be put to rest due to hunger, illness and injuries. Their existence can be tough.

Every sane grown-up (tourist) knows that one should avoid stray dogs in India at all cost, the buzz word being rabies. An estimated 35 million stray dogs live in India and according to World Health Organisation (WHO) India faces about 18,000 to 20,000 cases of rabies every year.

*Don’t keep me out of this conversation!*

Once, in Calcutta, I was pointing my camera towards a street vendor, and a dog probably reacted to my movement of the camera and jumped towards me while barking. People were quick to call him, the dog was probably known in the area, and everybody must have noticed how frightened I became. Since then, I have become even more wary towards stray dogs, no matter how cool I think they are. I often take photos of them, but mostly when they are lying down and I make sure to move my camera in a controlled way.

That night in Rishikesh wasn’t my first night in India accompanied by the hullaballoo of stray dogs. But somehow, they belong to the Indian ‘backdrop’. You go to sleep with the sound of honking horns, wake up in the middle of the night to howling dogs and welcome the early morning together with cawing crows. [END of text]