ISSN 2277-9426 Journal of Bengali Studies Vol. 3, No. 2 K o l k a t a Jogoddhatri Pujo, 14 Kartik 1421 Autumn Issue, 1 November 2014 Journal of Bengali Studies (ISSN 2277-9426) Vol.3, No.2 Published on the occasion of Jogoddhatri Pujo, 14 Kartik 1421, 1 November 2014 The theme of this issue is Kolkata ISSN: 2277-9426 Journal of Bengali Studies Vol. 3, No. 2 1 November 2014 Jogoddhatri Pujo, 14 Kartik 1421 Autumn Issue K o l k a t a Editor: Tamal Dasgupta Editorial Team: Subrata Nandi (Issue Editor) Joydeep Bhattacharyya Sourav Gupta Mousumi Biswas Dasgupta The commentary, article, review and workshop copyrights©individual contributors, while the Journal of Bengali Studies holds the publishing right for re-publishing the contents of the journal in future in any format, as per our terms and conditions and submission guidelines. Editorial©Tamal Dasgupta. Cover design©Tamal Dasgupta. Further, Journal of Bengali Studies is an open access, free for all e-journal and we promise to go by an Open Access Policy for readers, students, researchers and organizations as long as it remains for non-commercial purpose. However, any act of reproduction or redistribution of this journal, or any part thereof, for commercial purpose and/or paid subscription must accompany prior written permission from the Editor, Journal of Bengali Studies. For any queries, please contact: [email protected] and [email protected] For details about our Editorial Team, general policies and publication details, please see our website http://bengalistudies.blogspot.com and www.bengalistudies.com Journal of Bengali Studies (JBS) is Published by Shoptodina Media Initiative 79.1, Gouripur Road, P.O. Birati, Kolkata-700051, India Contents Editorial 7 Article CoordiNation and Deferral of Bengali Nation-Consciousness: Ishwarchandra Gupta in Nineteenth Century Kolkata Tamal Dasgupta 16 Kolkata Corporation and Subhas Chandra Bose: Death of a Dream Chandrachur Ghose 84 Echoes from the Past: Revisiting ‘Old Kolkata’ in Gorosthane Sabdhan Kallol Gangopadhyay 126 A Lesson in Living Life: The Portrayal of Kolkata in Satyajit Ray’s Short Stories Zenith Roy 147 Demographic and Behavioral Profile of Street Children in Kolkata Atanu Ghosh 164 Cottage and Small Scale Industries in the Slums of Kolkata: Growth and Constraints in Twentieth Century Subrata Nandi 176 Kolkata's Intellectual Response to Shakespeare: Academia, Stage and Little Magazines Arindam Mukherjee 191 Tracing the Historical Roots of Kolkata's North-South Divide Madhusree Chattopadhyay 229 4|Journal of Bengali Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2 Review Scanning Kolkata Stage through the Eyes of Five Doyens: A Review of Bratya Basu's Book of Interviews Sourav Gupta 247 Workshop Love and Kolkata: Six Poems Tamal Dasgupta 251 Commentary Sister Nivedita in Kolkata: A Nation Awakens Mousumi Bandyopadhyay 267 Living Heritage: Boats of Kolkata Swarup Bhattacharyya 278 Traditional Sanskrit Learning in Kolkata Somnath Sarkar 298 Disclaimer: The contents, views and opinions occurring in the contributions are solely the responsibilities of the respective contributors and the editorial board of Journal of Bengali Studies does not have any responsibility in this regard. The image/s appearing in the Journal are parts of a critical project, not for any commercial use. Image/s are either provided by the authors/designers from their personal collections and /or are copyright free to the best of knowledge & belief of the editorial board. For the previous issues of Journal of Bengali Studies, a peer-reviewed online journal please visit http://bengalistudies.blogspot.com and www.bengalistudies.com We have previously published five issues on the following themes, and all of them are available online: Ognijug (Vol.1, No.1) Bengali Cinema: Bengalis and Cinema (Vol.2, No.2) Bengali Theatre: Bengalis and Theatre (Vol.2, No.1) Science and Technology in History: Modern Bengali Perspectives (Vol.2, No.2) Literature and Movements: Bengali Crossroads (Vol.3, No.2) Editorial A sense of location is important across the entire plant and animal kingdoms. For the human animal this sense of location is even more important, because we cannot thrive in a simple state of nature, and we have to devise a culture in a collective manner; this culture is always locally rooted. Importance of location spreads from our physiology (location as a biological factor; as I write this editorial this year's Nobel prize in physiology and medicine is announced to be awarded to scientists who have worked on the biological significance of location) to our anthropology, social sciences and cultural studies (location as a social, economic and cultural construct). The significance of Kolkata for the history and culture of the modern Bengali people is nonpareil. Numerous books on the history of Kolkata exist which have proven it beyond doubt that Kolkata was most certainly not born in 1690, that it does not have any such date of birth, that it is most certainly older than 1690, that Kolkata goes back further in time, a point that was upheld by the Calcutta High Court in its verdict dated 16 May 2003 (following an expert report submitted by five renowned historians) where it directed to erase the name of Job Charnock as the founder of this city from all history books (Bhoumik iii), and yet it is customary for a host of writers to religiously repeat this myth that one Job Charnock was the father of this city of Kolkata who founded it in 1690 (completely ignoring the fact that he came to Kolkata/Sutanuti twice before – once in 1686 and then in 1687; it runs like a joke: Charnock already came to Kolkata twice, but he founds Kolkata on his third visit in 1690); we are ritually reminded that where the landmarks like Museum and Victoria Memorial stand today earlier used to be dense forest ,with wild animals roaming in the woods and brigands lurking behind every bush (Joardar 14); nevertheless, while saying these, sometimes the guilt-conscious comprador's hat is tipped to the direction of the ancient Kolkata that was the abode of meditation of Chouronginath, the saint from the Nath order, from whom modern day Chowringhee derives its name, or to the medieval Kolkata that finds a mention in the 1596 CE entry of Ain-i-Akbari of Abul Fazl as a constituent part of the administrative division (Sarkar) Satgaon (Saptagram/Shoptogram on the Hooghly), or to the Kolkata which is mentioned in Mukundaram's Chondimongol of 1445 CE (Mukhopadhyay 15). Kolkata was a halt for Guru Nanak (as all Sikh histories unequivocally attest) during his first udaasi between 1499 and 1506 covering entire eastern India (udaasis were journeys 8|Journal of Bengali Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2 Nanak undertook to different corners of subcontinent and middle east), and a Sikh shrine named Gurudwara Bari Sangat stands to this day at the place where Guru Nanak lived during his stay in Kolkata; it's at Burra Bazar, situated on Kolkata's very own arterial thoroughfare known as M G Road, as I myself once found out. Armenian Church, Kolkata The gravestone over Reza Bibi's tomb dated 1630 in the Armenian Church of Kolkata firmly establishes that a settlement of the Armenians in Kolkata existed very much before the British came here. The fact that some of our historians doubt the veracity of this gravestone and its inscription establishes less the claim of Charnock than their own comprador status. We have been told by western hegemony that only stone and metal inscriptions and coins count as historical evidences; our punthis don't. The discovery of Gupta age gold coins at Kalighat in 1783 (at display in the British Museum since then) is again somehow passed under the carpet. Ballala Sena's gift inscription (Daana Patra) that pertains to Kalikhetro (Mukhopadhyay 6), which undoubtedly relates to the region of modern day Kolkata is likewise underplayed. 9|Journal of Bengali Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2 The ruins of Bansha Bati Raj Bari, situated at Bansberia, which is a part of Adi Shoptogram This is a historical region where Kolkata stands today, and it did not appear out of a nothingness as it is sometimes made out to be (Satyajit Ray's famous sleuth's Anglophilic speech about Kolkata being a wild swamp prior to British arrival immediately coming to mind). Henry Cotton traces the origin of the busy mercantile hub of Kolkata back to the renowned port of Saptagram/Shoptogram on the west bank of Hooghly river (the Portuguese called it Porto Piqueno), that after the silting of the river Saraswati somehow transferred its potential to Kolkata. Shoptogram was the nucleus of Kolkata, Cotton observes (2). Cotton points out in the same breath that the migration of Setts and Bysacks from Shoptogram to Gobindopur village – they came to Kolkata in 1537 CE (Bhoumik 28) – can be considered to have formally inaugurated the business hub which was later to become the city of Kolkata. It is said that the region of Kolkata became a thriving mercantile hub and a centre of textile industry in next hundred years. The textile workshop of the Setts at Gobindopur employed a total of 2500 workers in 1632 (Bhoumik 8). Interestingly, the history of Gobindopur, which is normally considered to have begun with the Setts (with the village deriving its from the name of their family idol of Gobindo) can be traced back to tenth century CE (Bhoumik 32). Kolkata was an important outpost in the kingdom of Maharaja Pratapaditya (ascension 1584), whose fort stood at modern day Bagbajar on the Ganges (Bhoumik 59, 55). It survived the ravages of time and was used by British at the time of Siraj's siege of Kolkata. Preceding decades already saw a burgeoning Kolkata during the time of the Maratha expedition, when Bengalis came to live here from different parts of South Bengal, as it was safely ensconced on the eastern side of Ganges, protected by the guns and canons of the Company.