@ My City-City of Joy"Kolkata"

SPECIALITY OF “CITY OF JOY (KOLKATA)”
Authors, scholars, and social reformers:
Kolkata was home to the Nobel Laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore, the Hindu social
reformers: Raja Ram Mohun Roy (founder of the Brahmo Samaj), Keshab Chandra Sen,
Henry Louis Vivian Derozio, David Hare (of Calcutta), Alexander Duff, Pandit Ishwar
Chandra Vidyasagar, William Carey and Moti Lal Seal.
It has produced some great social critics, commentators on culture, religion, philosophy
and scholars and writers (see Bengali language) like: Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, S.Wajid Ali, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Kali Prassanna Singha, Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay, Amritalal Basu, Shishir Kumar Maitra, Dinabandhu Mitra, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Dhan Gopal Mukerji, Syed Mujtaba Ali, Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay,Pramath Chowdhury, Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Swami Vivekananda, linguist: Suniti Kumar Chattopadhyay, historians: Jadunath Sircar and Romesh Chunder Majumdar, philosophers, presidents and religious leaders: A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, political scientist: Satyabrata Rai Chowdhuri, Souvik, more popularly known as Doodhoo, novelists: Samaresh Majumdar, Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay, Bimal Mitra, Dibyendu Palit, Mani ShankarMukhopadhyay (Popularly known as Shankar), Purnendu Pattrea, Tarashankar
Bandopadhyay, Rajashekhar Basu (popularly known as Parasuram), Premendra Mitra,
Syed Mustafa Siraj, Mahasweta Devi, Anita Desai, Sanjeev Chattopadhyay, Bimal Kar,
Samaresh Majumdar, Sunil Gangopadhyay, Amitav Ghosh, Amit Chaudhuri, Ashapoorna
Devi, and poets: Buddhadev Bose, Subhas Mukhopadhyay, Jibanananda Das, Bishnu
Dey, Nirendranath Chakraborty,Satyajit Ray, Annada Shankar Ray, Joseph Emin and
Leela Majumdar.
Calcutta was the birth place of the great English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray
and noted littérateurs such as Benjamin Walker, Amitav Ghosh, Vikram Seth, Bharati
Mukherjee, Raj Kamal Jha, Upamanyu Chatterjee, Jayabroto Chatterjee, P. Lal, Chitra
Banerjee Divakaruni, Lali Chatterjee, Suketu Mehta, Nalinaksha Bhattacharyya, Sasthi
Brata. It was also for some time, the home of German Nobel laureate Günter Grass. The
renowned genetic scientist and Marxist commentator on society, culture and biology
J.B.S. Haldane, spent his last days in his adopted homeland, in Kolkata.
Nobel laureates
Five Nobel Prize winners have been associated with Kolkata at some point of time. They are:
1. Sir Ronald Ross (1902 Medicine)
2. Rabindranath Tagore (1913 Literature, the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize)
3. C. V. Raman (1930 Physics, the first Asian scientist to win the Nobel Prize)
4. Mother Teresa (1979 Peace)
5. Amartya Sen (1998 Economics)
Business tycoons:
Many Marwari and Gujarati business tycoons hail from the city. They have contributed to
the growth of business in the city and people respect them for providing employment.
Some of the notables among them are: -
1. Basan Kumar Birla
2. Krishan Kant Birla
3. H.M. Bangur
4. K.K. Bangur
5. S.K. Bangur
6. Hira Lal Somani
7. Ashok Neotia
8. Late Aditya Vikram Biral father of Kumar Mangalam Birla
9. Poddar
10. Bitthal Das Mundhra
11. Rama Prasad Goenka (RPG Group)
12. R.K. Agarwal (Emami Group)
13. Chandra Prakash Birla
14. Lakshmi Mittal
15. Paul family
16. Kankaria Family
17. Shah Family
18. Ramesh Chandra Parekh Family
19. Chandravardhan Desai family
Freedom fighters
Khudiram Bose Subhas Chandra Bose, Rash Behari Bose, Badal Gupta, Benoy Basu,
Bipin Chandra Pal, Sri Aurobindo, Chittaranjan Das, Jatindra Nath Das, Dinesh Gupta,
Dinesh Majumdar, Jogesh Chandra Chattopadhyay, B. C. Roy, Syama Prasad Mookerjee
(FOUNDER OF BHARATIYA JANATA PARTY), Kripanath Datta, Nirmal Sen, Ashoke
Kumar Sen etc.
Ramon Magsaysay Award winners (incomplete list)
1. Satyajit Ray
2. Mahasweta Devi
3. Samaresh Majumdar
4. Shambhu Mitra
5. Gourkishore Ghosh
6. Amitabha Chowdhury
7. Mother Teresa …………….
Literary Movements
There has been only one literary movement which shook Kolkata during the 1960s. It was launched by Shakti Chattopadhyay, Malay Roy Choudhury, Samir Roychoudhury and Debi Ray. About 40 participants joined later.
Cinema, theatre and other performing arts
Cinema
The late film director Satyajit Ray, who won the Special Oscar for Lifetime Achievement
or the Academy Honorary Award in 1992 lived in Kolkata and was defined by his
capturing of the Bengali ethos on cinema. Considered by many film makers, Western and
Eastern alike, to be among the four greatest directors of film history, he was lauded by
greats like Akira Kurosawa. Indeed, the Japanese legend of film said that to have not seen
Ray's films was to have never seen the light of the moon and the sun.
In fact the tradition of non-commercial, artistic, impressionistic cinema is vogue in the
cinema of Mrinal Sen, Ritwik Ghatak, Buddhadev Dasgupta, Gautam Ghose, Aparna
Sen,Rituparno Ghosh, Nabyendu Chatterjee among others.
In the domain of commercial or mainstream cinema, actors and thespian turned actors
like Dhirendranath Ganguly, Devika Rani Roerich, Utpal Dutt, Pramathesh Barua, Pahari
Sanyal, Robi Ghosh, Kali Bandyopadyay, Kanan Devi, Ruma Guha Thakurta, Suchitra
Sen, Uttam Kumar, Victor Banerjee, Dhritiman Chaterji, and Soumitra Chatterjee have
won international acclaim. Uttam Kumar commands a special place in the hearts of all
Kolkatans. He was the recipeint of two National awards for acting. Even more than two
decades after his premature death in 1980, he is loved by young and old Kolkatans alike.
The Bollywood cinema superstar Amitabh Bachchan started his career as a clerk for an
insurance company in Kolkata. Bollywood action hero Mithun Chakraborty started his
career in a non-commercial Bengali film directed by Mrinal Sen.
Theatre
Despite its decline from the pre-eminent position of the cultural capital of India in recent
times, it still retains a strong tradition in cinema and theatre. Renowned thespians include
Bijan Bhattacharyya, Utpal Dutt, Sambhu Mitra, Badal Sircar, Tripti Mitra, Kumar Ray,
Saoli Mitra, Manoj Mitra, theatre directors Rudraprasad Sengupta, Shymanand Jalan,
Sohag Sen, Usha Ganguli, Ashok Mukhopadhyay and Vinay Sharma, actors Rudraprasad
Sengupta, Shymanand Jalan, Sohag Sen, Usha Ganguli, Ashok Mukhopadhyay,Vinay
Sharma,Kunal Padhi,Subrat Chowdhary,Shakil Khan and Sanchayita Bhattcharya among
others. Kolkata is the capital of the Hindi theatre stage in India and was home or is
currently home to the nationally renowned theatre groups IPTA, PLT, Padatik,
Rangakarmee, Nandipaat Ajantrik and Nandikar.Kolkata is host to several acclaimed
mime theatre groups and mime artists, like Jogesh Dutt who pioneered mime in India and
build up a mime academy with 5 years degree course(www.jogeshmimeacademy.org)
and The Young Indian Mime Legend Suman Mukherjee among others. The Kolkata stage
has time and again been inspired and enriched by the translated and transcreated oeuvres
of William Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, Guy de Maupassant, T. S. Eliot, Leo Tolstoy,
Thomas Mann, Alexander Pushkin, Luigi Pirandello, Maxim Gorky, Maurice
Maeterlinck, Jean Paul Sartre, Sean O'Casey, J.M. Synge, Henrik Ibsen, George Bernard
Shaw, Eugène Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, Arthur Miller, Harold Pinter, Ernest
Hemingway, Lorraine Hansberry, Girish Karnad and Chinua Achebe.
Music
Kolkata has produced talented vocal artists like Gaharjaan, Angurbala Dasi, Supriyo
Dutta, Indubala Dasi, Dwijendra Lal Roy, Acharya K. C. Dey (also known as Kana
Kesto), Kazi Nazrul Islam, Pankaj Mullick, Kanan Devi, Feroza Begum, Kanika
Bandyopadhyay, Suchitra Mitra, Hemanta Kumar Mukhopadhyay, Manna Dey, Kishore
Kumar, Geetashree Sandhya Mukhopadhyay, Debabrata Biswas, Shyama Chattopadhyay,
Krishna Chattopadhyay, Sarbani Sen, Robin Bandyopadhyay, Ramkumar Chattopadhyay
and son Shreekumar, Arati Mukhopadhyay, Anjali Mukhopadhyay, Begum Akhtar, Ajoy
Chakraborty, Usha Uthup, Ruma Guha Thakurta, Anirban Ghosh, Indrani Sen, Haimanti
Shukla, Shreekanta Acharya, Swagatalakshmi Dasgupta, Suman Chatterjee, Salil
Chowdhury, Rahul Deb Burman, Nirmalendu Chowdhury, Sachin Dev Burman, Purna
Das Baul, Pramita Mallick, Anjan Dutta, Nachiketa, Choir Groups Calcutta Youth Choir,
IPTA and Kolkata Peoples Choir, Bengali bands Mohiner Ghoraguli, Chandrabindoo,
Fossils, Cactus, Crosswindz, Insomnia and Bhoomi. The Bombay-based (or Bollywood)
film musicians Geeta Dutt, Bappi Lahiri, Kumar Sanu, Abhijeet, Babul Supriyo,
Shantanu Moitra,Chandan,Pritam started their careers in Kolkata.
Globally acclaimed instrumental virtuosos in Hindustani classical music like Jnan
Gossain, Dhruv Tara Joshi, Ali Akbar Khan, Ravi Shankar,Radhika Mohon Maitra,
Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Ananda Shankar, Enayet Khan and son Vilayat Khan, Imdaad
Khan, Imraat Khan, Wahid Khan, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Jnan Prakash Ghosh, Nasir
Aminuddin Dagar, Asifuddin Dagar, Rashid Khan, Nikhil Banerjee, Amjad Ali Khan, V.
G. Jog, Bahadur Khan, Budhaditya Mukhopadhyay, Shahid Pervez, Anjan
Chattopadhyay, Keramatullah Khan, V.Balsara, Shankar Ghosh, Anindo Chatterjee,
Swapan Choudhuri, Subhankar Banerjee, Bikram Ghosh, Tanmoy Bose, and Louis
Banks, among others, hail from Kolkata. The Dover Lane Music Conference held every
January celebrates the tradition of Indian classical music. It is also said that Kolkata has
the finest connoisseurs of Western classical music in India.
Among the styles and traditions of vocal music in vogue in Kolkata are Nidhu Babur
Toppa, Mujraah, Kheyaal, Kavi Gaan, Jatra Gaan, Rabindra Sangeet, Carnatic,
Hindustani, Atulprasadi, Shyama Sangeet, Adhunik, Nazrul Geeti, Lok Geeti, Ghazals,
Bhakti Geeti, Jibanmukhi, Pop, IndiPop, Rock and Roll, Santhal Lok Sangeet and Hindi
film music.
Dance
Some of the most beautiful dance themes are based on the eternal songs, and song and
dance based plays of Tagore like Chandalika, The Country of Cards (Tasher Desh), Red
Oleanders (Rakta Karabi) among others. Prominent dancers and dance troupes of the city
include late Uday Shankar and Amala Shankar, Indrani Rahaman, Manjushree Chaki
Sircar, Ranjabati Sircar, Ananda Shankar, Tanushree Shankar and group, Mamata
Shankar Ballet Troupe, Calcutta Youth Choir, Madhuboni Chattopadhyay, Italian born
Ileana Citaristi, American born Leela Samson, Sushmita Bandopadhyay, Gaudiya Nritya,
Odissi Kala Kendra, Mallhar, Anurekha Ghosh and Company, The Nupur Dance
Academy, Padatik Dance Centre, Durga Prasdee Sangeet Vidyalaya, Pandit Chitresh Das
among others.
The different dance schools prevalent in Kolkata are Rabindra Nritya Natya, Adhunik,
Bharatnatyam, Manipuri, Kathak, Kuchipudi, Santhal Folk Dance, among others.
More recently few Calcuttans started practicing danceforms originating from other
cultures and countries and contributed a great deal in enriching those genres. Of them
perhaps the most accomplished and talented dancer is Bhaskar Dutta, originally from
Sashtri Road, Naihati, but now popular all over the world for his great talent and
contributions in Salsa.
Another famous talented Dancer is dance guru Suman Mukherjee who dances Ballroom
& Latin American Dance in Kolkata. He is also popular for Salsa. Now he teaches in
CALCUTTA SCHOOL OF MUSIC.
Magic and astrology
Kolkata is the magic capital of India and has produced internationally famous magicians
and performers including P. C. Sorcar, P. C. Sorcar, Jr., Manick Sorcar, and P. C. Sorcar
Young. K Lal, Prince Seal and numerous nationally and internationally acclaimed
astrologers. Kolkata hosts the headquarters of the All India Magic Circle.Here also there
are magician like Magician Shamal Kumar.He is the secetary of The Society of Amateur
Magician.
Artists
Artists, painters and sculptors like those of the Tagore family (Gaganendranath,
Abanindranath, Samarendranath, Sunayani Devi, Rabindranath, Rathindranath), Nandalal
Bose, Jamini Roy, Ganesh Pyne, Bikash Bhattacharya, Paritosh Sen,Rabin Mondal,
Paresh Maity, Thankappan Kutty, Chittravanu Majumdar, Chintamoni Kar, Anil Kumar
Dutta, Rathin Mitra, Jogen Chowdhury and M.F. Husain have at some time in their
careers, been associated with Kolkata.
Among the major styles of Art that Bengal is credited for includes the Art of Bengal
School[1], and Kalighat Patachitra.
Scientists
Scientific greats of Kolkata include Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, Sir Prafulla Chandra
Roy, Sir C. V. Raman, Sir K. S. Krishnan, Dr. Megh Nad Saha, Professor Satyendra Nath
Bose, Dr. Sisir Kumar Mitra, Sir Jnan Chandra Ghosh, and Prasanta Chandra
Mahalanobis. The first in-vitro fertilization (to produce test tube baby "Durga") in India
(and second in the world) was performed by city doctor Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhyay on
October 3, 1978. Prof. Dr. Chhanda Samanta
(http://www.saha.ac.in/cs/chhanda.samanta/), a recipient of the Yamada Science
Foundation Award from Japan, is an experimental nuclear physicist who became the first
Center-Of-Excellence-Professor of the Research Center for Nuclear Physics (RCNP),
Osaka University, Japan. Her mass formula for strange and non-strange nuclei is known
as the "Samanta Formula" in literature.
Sports and Miscellaneous records
Summer Olympic medallists
· Norman Pritchard (Athletics - 1900)
· Richard James Allen (Not the same person as the Australian writer, filmmaker,
choreographer and performer of the same name.)
· Leslie Claudius (Field Hockey - 1924, 1928, 1936)
· Gurbux Singh
· Dr. Vece Paes (Field Hockey - 1980)
· Leander Adrian Paes (Olympic Bronze medallist at singles tennis in 1996
Olympics; also Wimbledon and French Open Men's Doubles champion, with
Mahesh Bhupathi; and Mixed Doubles Champion 1999 and Wimbledon Mixed
Doubles Champion 2003, with ace Martina Navratilova). He is also India's
present Davis Cup captain.
International sportspersons
· Sourav Ganguly
· Pankaj Roy
· Gobor Goho (World Amateur Wrestling Championship USA 1900-2)
· Manotosh Roy (former Mr Universe - 1950s)
· Manohar Aich (former Mr. World - 1950s)
· Chandra Hirjee (1958 winner of the inaugural World Amateur Snooker
Championship held at Kolkata. Also Indian Open Billiards Championship winner
in 1946, 47, 56 and 58, runner-up in 1952, 54, 55, 57 and Indian Snooker
Championship runner-up in 1952, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58)
· Mihir Sen (Guinness Record holder of being the first person to swim across the
English Channel in 1958 and the seven straits across all major continents)
· Jyotirmoyee Sikdar (1998 Asian Games Gold medallist in four events in racing)
· Arjun Atwal
· Dibyendu Barua and Surya Sekhar Ganguly (current FIDE Chess Grandmasters)
· Trans-continental wizards Mohammed Salahuddin Choudhury and his wife
Neena, have the acknowledgement of the Guinness Book of World Records for
the first and fastest circum-navigation of the world by car – under the rules
applicable in 1989 (in a "Contessa Classic" 1989 car) and 1991 (in a Nissan jeep),
and thereby embracing more than an equator's length of driving (40,750 km or
24,901 road miles) in 69 days, 19 hours and 5 minutes in 1989 and in 39 days and
20 hours in 1991 respectively.
· Kolkata has also produced most of the successful footballers of India. Many of the
members of the India Teams which won Gold Medal in Asian Games (1951 and
1962), hailed from Kolkata.
· Bula Chowdhury
· Manoj Tiwary
Sports administrators
· Pankaj Gupta
· Jagmohan Dalmiya