[Reader-list] posting from kolkata: another part

[debjani sengupta]

Parimal Shome was 28 years old when  Partition of Bengal and India took place. He had been living in the city from 1936 as a student at Ripon College and then went to Shantiniketan to study music.He has set to tune some of the incomplete Rabindra sangeet and have brought out a cd from here.
  He came to Bijoygarh colony in the early years of 1950 and he lives there still. After the Partition, some refugees landed in the refugee camps, some took shelter in the Sealdah station. Most of them started immediately to make an effort to be independent and fend for themselves. Bijoygarh colony was born as part of that effort to stand on one's feet.The Jadavpur Refugee Association, whose membership was rupees two only, gave three katha of land to each family and each family began by building houses made of tin, bamboo, tiles.
  When Parimalbabu was asked about thoses early days and the ghoti bangal divide (the ghotis were West Bengalis and bangals were from the East) he said, 'There was no open conflict but there was grudge. In many ways the East Bengalis were more educated, more capable of taking risks, more aggressive (danpitey was the bengali word he used, impossible to translate).The contribution of the people from East Bengal to the economic and political and cultural life of Kolkata was immense. Certainly there was a clash of interest among the professional classes but there was no genocide, no race riots when we came to live here. We were as different from each other as far as possible but we were Hindus, we were seeking shelter. The initial grudge was slowly diffused. Initially Bangal was a derigatory word, but that changed, not in one day but over the years.'
   
  'Kolkata was different then. When we came to Bijoygarh, the area was very green, wild rabbits played by the roads. The few Muslim hutments were abandoned by their owners. The refugees took up shelter there as well as the military barracks. When their hutments came up, the land sharks swung into action. They sent armed hooligans to frighten the colony inhabitants. The boys from Jadavpur Engineering college, many of them bangals, came to our rescue.Lyalka, a notable landowner's grandson was kidnapped by us to make him stop sending his goons. Those were the days. We were extremely united, highly motivated and deeply committed to the colony.That has all gone now. I dont recognize Bijoygarh any more.'
   
   
   
   
   
   

 		
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