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In such a
diverse society as Calcutta, how did people of differing background interact?
How were these interactions impacted but the strains put upon the city during
the 1940s?
Many books
have been written outlining this subject as a whole but we wanted to show these
issues with individual examples.
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You see
a number of different types of Indians on the streets of the city, and curiosity
stirs in you as to who they are and what they are. The war, with the changes
that it always brings, brought some of these people to Calcutta; nevertheless,
most of them were always here, persons from many parts of the country drawn
here by Calcutta's importance as a port and business center. Let's take a look
at several of the types most prominent to the newcomer's eye.
(source:
“The Calcutta Key” Services of Supply Base Section Two Division, Information
and education Branch, United States Army Forces in India - Burma, 1945: at:
http://cbi-theater-12.home.comcast.net/~cbi-theater-12/calcuttakey/calcutta_key.html)
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial
educational research project. The copyright remains with the original
submitter/author)
RECENT
happenings in Dacca are all the more regrettable because, on the issue which
gave rise to the demonstrations, Government and demonstrators seem to be of one
mind. Both want Bengali to be recognized as a State language of Pakistan.
Possibly
it was felt by the demonstrators that the Government was not standing up to the
Centre in this matter as vigorously as it might; the Government perhaps
considered that opponents of the Administration were seeking to make capital
out of this feeling. But bloodshed in such circumstances seems not only
deplorable but wholly unnecessary.
Who was
immediately to blame may be left to be ascertained through the promised
inquiry. It is, however, likely to be felt that, among more remote causes of
the outbreak, Central lack of imagination is chief. It has long been known that
very many people in East Bengal are dissatisfied with the proposal to make Urdu
the national language of Pakistan, and have good reason to be. Comparison with
the position assigned to Hindi in India is facile, but mistaken. Hindi was
chosen, because, in one form or another, it is already most widely spoken of
the Indian tongues. But in Pakistan Bengali is-incontestably the language of
the majority, and while it seems fair that speakers of Bengali should be
encouraged or (if thought advisable) made to learn Urdu (if Urdu speakers are
.equally required to learn Bengali), it seems quite wrong that the tongue of
the majority should he given an inferior place.
(COPYRIGHT
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commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with The Statesman)
Of more
than 200 different languages and dialects spoken in India, 24 account for more
than 96 percent of her population. But only half-a-dozen are really important.
Of these Bengali has the richest modern literature, while Hindustani is
generally understood in most of India. Educated Indians, of course, know
English.
(source:
“A Guide Book to Calcutta, Agra, Delhi, Karachi and Bombay” The American Red
Cross and the China-Burma-India-Command. [1943]: at: http://cbi-theater-2.home.comcast.net/redcross/red-cross-india.html#INDIA)
(COPYRIGHT
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educational research project. The copyright remains with the original
submitter/author)
If you
are good-natured and patient in your dealings with Indians you won't have any
trouble with them even if you find some of their ways hard to understand and
even annoying at times. For instance, they feel it is only polite to tell you
what you want to hear. Very often that politeness of theirs will get you much
misinformation. If you ask: "Is this the right road to ----?", the
Indian probably will say "Yes", even if it isn't. To be on the safe
side ask: "Which road goes to our camp, etc?"
Almost
anywhere you go in India, you will find people who speak at least some English.
Although many languages are spoken, the most widespread is Hindustani. It will
pay you to learn some common words and phrases of Hindustani, which you will
find at the end of this book.
(source:
“A Pocket Guide to India” Special Service Division, Army Service Forces, United
States Army. War and Navy Departments Washington D.C [early 1940s]: at:
http://cbi-theater-2.home.comcast.net/booklet/guide-to-india.html)
(COPYRIGHT
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educational research project. The copyright remains with the original
submitter/author)
EVERY Indian
will be able to fill in the dotted space in the heading to compare his case
with mine. I shall not disclose at this stage what now stands there for me, but
until almost the other day it was Bengali.
I should add however that our problem is no longer bilingual. For the
first time in Indian history the mother tongue of a particular group of Indians
has the national status, making it necessary for the rest to use three
languages instead of two. A fellow-vernacular is claiming to be master without
that superiority in expressive and political power which was so patent in its
three predecessors Sanskrit, Persian English. This alone is unparalleled
without reckoning the need for a third language.
I have
this trilingual dilemma in mind as I tell how, quite late in life when the
external situation called for a different choice, I decided to make English the
medium of all my expression. It is egotistic to throw a personal decision at a
national problem, but I believe its attendant circumstances give it a general
interest. First, I am one of those Bengalis who as a boy had read the watchword
given by Madhusudan Dutt: "Let those who feel that they have springs of
fresh thought in them fly to their mother tongue", enjoyed his sneer at
the "gents who fancy that they are swarthy Macaulays and Carlyles and
Thackerays" but "are nothing of the sort" and absorbed the moral
of his famous sonnet on the Bengali language. As I have written in my book
:' "We imbibed Dutt's teaching
thoroughly and never thought oi trying our hand at English for
anything but livelihood".
Secondly,
I foresaw the coming role of Hindi more than twenty years ago. Pondering over
the question of Indian unity I felt that with independence only Hindi could be
its linguistic bond. Watching certain fashions and trends I was also worried
about the future of Bengali. These thoughts converged and led me to expect the
rise of Hindi at the expense of Bengali. I had my children taught Hindi before
they were taught Bengali properly. '
Thirdly,
I was a fairly successful practitioner of bilingulism. Among us very few write
in two languages. I did for twenty years. Before the publication of my book' my
output was not large, but it was evenly divided between Bengali and English.
When I
consider that in spite of all this my final decision was for English, I am
surprised myself. In regard to Bengali I had a credo, about Hindi I had a
theory, in practice I was bilingual, Yet in the end it was the language with no
presupposition behind it which won. Of course, I now know that in this too
there was an assumption—what Whitehead has called "a profound cosmological
outlook, implicitly accepted, imposing its own type upon current springs of
action". But my perception of it came late.
I became
convinced that In a world moving towards one-ness in government and culture
English was bound to be the main language, to which we should have to come back
if we wanted a place in the sun. With that future in view, was there any sense
in lapsing into mere regionalism or continuing the old bilinguality in a very
much weaker form ? The only possible answer to this question was,
"None". I had become conscious of the implicitly accepted
cosmological outlook of which Whitehead spoke and found that the alternatives
were English or Nothing.
(COPYRIGHT
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commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with The Statesman)
WRITING
in the Harijan, Mr Gandhi deplores the use with Indian names of the English
titles "Mr" and "Esquire", which he says, jar on him. He
prefers either a precedent Sri or a subsequent -ji, best of all the latter. At
the end of a name -ji is certainly mellifluous and soothing; it combines
respect with a pleasant informality. Indeed its use is capable of extension
outside India. The next time a statesman finds it advisable to pay a flying
call to Germany he might find that by addressing his Chancellor as
"Hitlerji" he would introduce a certain necessary affability into the
conversation. But "ji" also has its drawbacks, for a large number of
Indian names, particularly in Bengal, end in -ji already. Mr Gandhi is led to
understand, many Moslems regard Sri as an address which should be confined to
Hindus, themselves preferring Maulvi, Janab or Saheb.
(COPYRIGHT
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SHOULD
eminent Indian nationalists, notably members of the Congress party's front
rank, attire themselves in non-Indian garments during foreign travel? The
question, not without cause or expectation, has been pointedly put to Pandit
Jawaharial Nehru since his return from Europe this autumn.
To
sections of the public of this country, grown accustomed through the agency of
Press photographs or direct vision, to admiring an orthodoxly khaddar-clad form
and forgetful perhaps of its Harrovian schooling and Cambridge degree, the
spectacle the Pandit presented during his recent European journey proved
somewhat startling. Newspapers received and displayed picture after picture of
a lounge-suited tribal-hatted figure, accompanied too, sometimes by a daughter
wearing with elegance what were evidently the latest conventional creations of
the Paris designer. The sight, to some, however, aesthetically pleasing it
might be, raised agitating political speculations. Was not this sudden adoption
of alien garb, by a Congressman of such outstanding position, derogatory in
some manner to Indian nationalism, or at least liable to appear so in inimical
or uninstructed minds? Mahatma Gandhi during his foreign travels in 1931, wore
his usual clothing throughout; should not the Pandit have followed his example?
To these
questions and the misgivings and criticisms under-lying them, Pandit Nehru has
issued an unequivocal and cogent response. Clothing he says, in effect, is
primarily a function of environment and climate. When it was desirable for him
on public occasions, to emphasize his political beliefs by wearing khaddar he
did so. But normally Indian garb in Europe is he holds unsuitable. .It invites
chills, and by needlessly attracting popular attention may interfere with work.
To Mahatma Gandhi special considerations apply. But the idea symbolized by
khaddar garments does not logically call for their import into distant
countries for use there. "To me", the Pandit declares, "it seems
as absurd to wear dhoti and curta in Paris or London, as to appear in European
attire in Indian villages".
(COPYRIGHT
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commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with The Statesman)
If Smith
spells his name Psmith, that's his business, but it's a nuisance to telephone
companies. The Calcutta phone company decided last week to take a strong line
with variant spellings. Its trouble was not with Smiths (everybody in Calcutta
knew the billboarded Smith Bros., Dentists) but with Mukerjees. They spelled it
Mookerjee, Mookharjea, Mookarjie, Mocurgey, and a dozen other ways. The
Chatterjees and the Bannerjees also went in for whimsical variations.
Hereafter,
each name would be listed only one way in the phone book. But which way? That
was left up to Calcutta University (which already standardizes its students'
names). A faculty board found that the high-caste ancestors of present-day
Mukerjees, etc., had all been imported from Benares 600 years ago by a Bengali
king who wanted to increase the number of Brahmans in his realm. When the
British East India Company came to Calcutta, the Brahmans' descendants flocked
to work as babus (clerks). Their employers promptly shortened the babus' names
and made them more pronounceable for British tongues.*
The
university decreed a return to the pre-British forms. Mukerjees, Chatterjees
and Bannerjees would find themselves listed as Mukhopadhyaya, Chattopadhyaya
and Bandopadhyaya. Anything simpler, Calcutta nationalists swore, would be a
British imperialist corruption.
* An old
Sassenach trick. Unable to pronounce Gaelic names, Edward IV issued an order in
1465 requiring all Irishmen to take "an English surname of one towne, as
Sutton, Chester . . . or art or science ... or office, as cook, butler."
Though the law was generally ignored, the Irish did find it expedient to
Anglicize their names. In the proud name O Ceallaigh, for example, the O was
dropped, hard Irish c became k, the guttural aigh softened to y; and the result
was Kelly. Many Eire patriots are now reversing the process, with Murphy
re-emerging as O Murchadha, and Moriarty as O Muircheartaigh.
(COPYRIGHT
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commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Time Magazine)
Sometimes, too, when riding the tram from the
Esplanade out to our base in Alipore, I took the time to get off at the
Kidderpore bridge on Diamond Harbor Road. At that location, there was an area
of small shops which were always interesting to watch. People living near the
bridge were friendly, would smile back when greeted that way. We didn't do much
conversation due to language difficulties, but that didn't seem to matter to
either of us.
(source: a series of E-Mail interviews with
Glenn Hensley between 12th June 2001 and 28th August
2001)
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of
Glenn Hensley)
You asked about language. I did learn a few
words that I guess I'll never forget. Here are some of them:
"Salaam sahib, baksheesh?"
"No mama, no papa, no brother, no sister,
baksheesh, sahib"
"Tonda ponee," either cold or hot
water, I don't remember which.
"No malum, sahib." I think it means,
"I don't understand."
Actually, we didn't need to learn much of the
language, so we didn't. English seemed to get us the information we needed. And
besides, few of us thought we'd ever need the language again, for our only hope
was to get home in one piece and quickly, at that.
(source: a series of E-Mail interviews with
Glenn Hensley between 12th June 2001 and 28th August
2001)
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of
Glenn Hensley)
[…]Barney and I used to giggle over Dorothy
showing off that she could speak Hindi to the servants: she would say:
"Boy' Sahib ka shaving water bring." -
the only Hindi word being "Ka" which means belonging to.
I was a young Indian (Parsi) girl living in
Calcutta during World War II. My family consisted of my mother, father and
three daughters, I was the eldest daughter. My brother had not been born yet.
We lived in an apartment block in Mission Row, not far from Dalhousie Square —
the spot where the “Black Hole of Calcutta” was supposed to have taken place —
though Indian historians deny this episode.
My neighbours consisted of a Chinese family who
had trekked from Burma, an Anglo-Indian family - Mr and Mrs Carter, a
Portuguese family — Mr and Mrs Coelho and their 4 sons, and 2 Baghdad Jewish
families — the Nahoums and the Manassehs.
My family lived on the top floor and from our
veranda (whose doors and windows had been plastered with black and brown paper,
as protection from broken glass during the air raid), I could see the steeple
and weather cock of St Andrews Church, and in the background Howrah Bridge, the
life-line of Calcutta connecting the 2 sides of the mighty Hooghly River.
(source: A5756150
The bombing of Calcutta by the Japanese Edited at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/
Oct 2006)
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial
educational research project. The copyright remains with the original
submitter/author)
It wasn’t often that I had the chance to talk to
Indians, but I do remember that twice on railway journeys from Seldar to
Barrackpore I did get to talk to Indians who had a fair grasp of English. The
first discussion turned to religion and in particular to missionaries. I said
that they didn't seem to be making much progress. He replied that so far as
Indians were concerned it was ill mannered to claim religious superiority and
to try to change other people's beliefs to your own. Thus was the whole
business of missionaries condemned as bad mannered and unethical. The other
occasion was after an air-raid in Calcutta and the man had his bags with him
and was obviously leaving for a safer area. "Why don't you get out of
India?" he said in exasperation. "I'd be glad to go home
tomorrow" said I. Of course we had little hope of communication with the
Indians, so many languages and dialects were involved and even the universal
short-hand "Urdu" was used only at its most basic. Simple things like
Ao (come) Jao (go) pani (water), char (tea) idhar (here) achacha (O.K.) and
kitna (How Much?) were my limit and I could just about count up to five. The
Anglo-Indians (half castes) were our nearest point of communication and we even
had some on the staff at Barrackpore, but in their desire to be British, they
were really more British than the British and couldn't help us to bridge the
gulf between India and us.
(source: A6665457 TWEEDALE's WAR Part 11 Pages
85-92 at BBC WW2 People's War'
on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial
educational research project. The copyright remains with the original
submitter/author)
So we went right down
through the Indian Ocean from there, to Calcutta, to dry-dock, and
we were in dry-dock in Calcutta for about six, eight
weeks, I think. but anyway, the work was being done by Italian prisoners of
war, very clever engineers, the Italians, working on the engines. In their
spare time, I don’t know how they did it, they had got hold of blocks of
aluminium and they were making cigarette lighters out of this aluminium, and
flogging them — they did very well. Nice blokes they were, I’ve nothing against
the Ities. I had to stay there, with nothing to do, and I happened to get
friendly with a chief petty officer in the Royal Indian Navy I bumped into, we
got very friendly, unusual for me, for in those days we considered ourselves
“superior” — which is all the wrong attitude today, it wouldn’t do today we
thought we were the cat’s whisker, we were important, anybody else that didn’t
have the right stripe… you know. — very nice chap. Moslem, we use to go to all
the places he knew. Great, you see, what meals to order, great.
(source: A5079323 Service in the Chongs of Burma
in an HDML, 1944 at BBC WW2
People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial
educational research project. The copyright remains with the original
submitter/author)
The following year (1943) was the occasion of a
very special service at church and it took a lot of my time getting the music
organised and practiced. The leaflet was printed in three languages, but Mr
Brown said that the hymns would actually be sung simultaneously in five
different languages. Quite an experience.
(source: A6665457 TWEEDALE's WAR Part 11 Pages
85-92 at BBC WW2 People's War'
on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial
educational research project. The copyright remains with the original
submitter/author)
The only
language options for the Senior Cambridge examinations were Latin and Hindi.
Selection was simple, Mr. Prins decided which ones were clever enough to tackle
Latin, and then all the remaining dunderheads had to do Hindi. I was well aware
that my parents and I would be leaving India soon after my time at Victoria
ended. Not the best incentive to buckle down to serious language study. Our
Hindi - English Reader contained some twelve Hindi passages, and we knew that
one would appear in the School Certificate exam paper. So, learn to recognize a
few key words in Hindi script, know the general theme of each tale, and you
have an (almost) foolproof method of obtaining an "only just failed"
mark from the examiner. That was my theory. On the big day, I spent ten minutes
scanning the text in Hindi script, and finally found a word that told me it was
the story that concerned the hunter who puts a heavy narrow necked jar
containing sweet meats in the forest. Once a monkey gets the sweets in his
fist, it is unwilling to release the bait, so an easy capture is assured. I
came out of the examination hall, and explained my system to another candidate.
He looked at me for a minute. "The text was about Jesus Christ and the
Twelve Apostles". There must have been a very puzzled examiner in Cambridge
that year.
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational
research project. The copyright remains with John Gardiner)
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Perhaps
nowhere in the world, except in Soviet Russia, can we find such a variety of
human types as in India. Four main racial types are still in evidence: the
Aryans, as exemplified in the high-caste Hindus; the Austrics, as illustrated
in the primitive tribes like the Kols, Bhils, etc.; the Dravidians who occupy
southern India; and the Mongolians who predominate in Nepal, Bhutan and Assam.
(source: “A
Guide Book to Calcutta, Agra, Delhi, Karachi and Bombay” The American Red Cross
and the China-Burma-India-Command. [1943]:
at:
http://cbi-theater-2.home.comcast.net/redcross/red-cross-india.html#INDIA)
(COPYRIGHT
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research project. The copyright remains with the original
submitter/author)
As to myself, there as a party of Europeans dining in the Lumding refreshment room. They were the first white people I had seen for four months. I stared and stared – how odd, how knobbed and craggy they were, after the smooth Mongol faces; how pallid the woman was, like a plant left in the dark! How strange the usual seemed after the separation; I couldn’t stop looking, they must have thought I was mad. Oddly enough one only notices these things after the first spell away from one’s own kind; after that the gap seems to close, and one makes the transition without the same shock of surprise.
(source: pages 84 Ursula Graham Bower “Naga Path” Readers Union, John Murray. London 1952)
Yes they were,
they were rather stupid in that sense. They segregated and created a lot of bad
feelings. But they were not so particular with the ruling class. For instance
the Aga Khan, he went to all the white man's clubs and all that. I remember
when the British were becoming more sensible [in the 1930's], they were not
using all these things although the laws existed. They were not applied. For
instance I went to Calcutta not knowing that there were clubs where black
people like us were not admitted.
I walked into the Saturday Club and said I want to
become a member. They were shocked. When the Club people told me that I
couldn't become a member because I was black, I was shocked. What nonsense. By
then these things were kept at a very low level and you only came across them
by accidents like this. Maybe if I had gone through the proper channels I would
never have discovered this law. Maybe they would have accepted me like they
accepted many others. They were sort of slowly getting more sensible.
(COPYRIGHT
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commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Omar
Khan)
There was a
small board in front of Metro Cinema, saying: “No admission to Indians”.
(COPYRIGHT
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commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with N.S.
Mani )
Walter married
an Anglo-Indian girl who was rather dark skinned and because of this the rest
of his family (who considered themselves pure bred) did not have much to do
with him after that.
The original
meaning of the word "Anglo-Indian" was English people who settled in
India or spent large parts of their lives there. People of mixed blood were
referred to as "Eurasian" or more impolitely "Half-caste"
or even "Chi-chi" - an Indian word meaning "dirty".
[…] we used to
joke about her habit of bargaining with the shopkeepers and telling them that
they were looking at her white skin and putting their prices up. This was so
funny because she was as dark as they were! She didn't think it was funny
though.
Mrs Clarke
replaced Mrs Simpson as the English Teacher and also taught us Geography when
the geography teacher also left. Whilst I think she was a good teacher - she
terrorised us – me especially. She was - at least she seemed to me to be enormous
but I don't think she was that tall. She was just a large lady all round and
she had the most enormous buck teeth I had ever seen (Shades of my Aunty
Kathleen perhaps). She had very cold blue eyes and she would fix you with a
steely stare. She had a terrible habit of reducing me to an absolute pulp by
saying things like "Now we will have Mama's little darling."
Or"Let's have the Maharanee of Bong" and the whole class would laugh
at my blushes and it was absolutely awful and so 1 don't think my results were
as good as they would have been had I ' not had to cope with this sort of
goading - if you like - or perhaps you would call it discrimination.
My grandfather
had also been a great character […]
Although for
expedience he had married his youngest and dearest daughter to an Anglo-Indian
and a very dark skinned one at that - he was the very Pukka Sahib and I don't
think was terribly happy about the fact that his grandchildren were what he
called "niggers". However, one must not judge him. He was a product
of his era and would have been an eccentric at best and an outcast at worst had
he thought differently. My Aunt of course compounded the felony by marrying an
Indian although she never bad any children by him but she did change my name to
Shah and that caused me a great deal of hardship as I grew older.
My Aunt Dolly,
whose first marriage ended tragically with the death of her husband Jeremy
Wilkes, unfortunately married a friend of his on the rebound. She used to tell
me about her "Jerry" who was blonde and blue eyed and she said she
always had a soft spot for blue eyes after him. Oddly enough, I think she was
rather colour prejudiced because she went to great pains to ensure that I did
not get tanned, dressing me in long sleeved dresses and long stockings, even in
the summer. Despite this, I have never known anybody with such Christian
charity. She would tend the dirtiest, blackest, beggar if she felt they needed
it. Unfortunately, her second marriage did not work out. Kingsley Lewis, the
man she married was a very dark skinned man with a terribly posh accent and a
great deal of education. He was in military intelligence and had a brilliant
career ahead of him. After she left him, he left Patna and went to Delhi,
rising to the rank of Colonel in the Indian Army. Both his sons by his second
wife, Barbara - also joined the services, the older as a pilot and the younger
in the army.
Dominic and Barney were sent to a boarding school, St
Francis de Sales in Nagpur. Not long after Stephen joined them. Being of mixed
parentage, we were a rather motley bunch ranging from very dark like my father
to milk white like my mother and Dominic, being the whitest was always treated
as something special. He was sent as a parlour boarder which meant he had
special meals and special treatment whilst the other two, who were dark skinned
were sent as ordinary boarders and told me horrific stories of the treatment
they received at the hands of the Jesuit Brothers. Barney used to tell me about
one who oiled malacca canes to make them sting more when he caned the boys
I was very subdued in this school for many reasons. I had
become very introverted and shy partly because I found it very hard to cope
with life outside my family. Within my family I had been treated like a little
princess. Once outside the family circle I was I something different because of
my mixed blood and the first experiences which brought this home to me were
pretty traumatic. It was not simply that I was Anglo-Indian because there were
many Anglo-Indians. It was the peculiar nature of my circumstances because the
usual Anglo-Indians lived entirely in the style of the English. We were
something in between because of my Aunt's husband being a full-blooded Indian
and a Muslim. Whilst she did not ever change her religion and still went to
Church, she insisted that she did not want me to be known as
Anglo-Indian. Now with hindsight I realise what she meant but then, her method
of denying that I was Anglo-Indian only made the problem worse.
For example, in La Martiniere my Aunt entered me under her
surname rather than my own and her surname being Indian and my Christian name
being English and Christian this posed a problem. Therefore any name was put in a separate entry on the register.
There were the Anglo-Indian girls who all had Christian and English names at
the top of the register, then a space, then my name, then a space and then the
Indian girls. I was also treated by the girls themselves as neither fish nor
fowl. The Anglo-Indians regarded me as Indian and the Indians as Anglo-Indian
and since neither side really mixed I found myself in no man's land. To try to
explain how this affected me would be impossible in to-day's liberal world. One
must remember that we were living during the British Raj and immediately after
when the same standards were still prevalent. It is very hard for my children
who have grown up in England and do not have any such identity crisis to
appreciate what a terrible complex this gave me. I tended to try to blend into
the furniture wherever I went and hated anything which would draw attention to
me. Hence, although I was more intelligent than the majority of the girls in my
form, I never volunteered to answer anything unless it was in writing when I
did not have to speak.
It was very hard to talk to anybody because nobody else had
the sort of life that I had. My Aunt being so devoted to her husband brought me
in a sort of mixture of Victoriana and Islamic strictures - like the fact that
being female; I could not go out alone unattended. I was not even allowed to
wait at the bus stop without one of my brothers standing beside me and it was
only when they were completely unavailable that I stood there on my own and
then she stood there and watched me from the balcony so that if anybody spoke
to me it was quite obvious.
[…]
Whilst being conscious of an innate desire to please her, I
was also the victim of my dreadful shyness and the my terrible insecurity in
being different from everybody else.
In her defence perhaps it can be argued that since she had
never experienced an identity crisis, she was unaware ofwhat this did to me.
She was white - there was no doubt as to the nationality of her parents, her
upbringing had been entirely English and upper class.
Laving flouted the conventions by marrying out of her
community she
plunged herself into being his wife and learning his customs and probably had
no inkling that the world was not a very charitable place for children of such
unions.
My vindication
came when the results of the Cambridge Exams proved that, I had been penalised
throughout my career at La Martiniere for being half and half because never did
they let me come first on occasions when it appeared that I would come first,
marks used to be cut from my papers for the most ridiculous things.
I was such a
quiet girl that I never opened my mouth, being too timid to say anything to
anyone. The Cambridge papers were flown to England and so were corrected by
people who did not have a clue as to the identity of the students. In both of
these Examinations I came first in the class even though in the Senior
Cambridge my age was considerably lower than all of the other girls some of
whom were taking the examinations in their second year whereas I did them in
one year.
One could trek
from Tonglu to Sikkim or into the neighbouring mountain Kingdom of Nepal. The
local people were rosy cheeked and dressed in colourful kimono type gowns which
were worn over long shirt type undergarments. We were told that they never changed
their clothes but put new ones on over the old when they became threadbare
although perhaps this was just one of the silly stories which went around
India.
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(source: Glenn S. Hensley: American soldier photographing, T013, "American soldier photographs a man near Nimtala Ghat, 1944." seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12th June 2001 and 28th August 2001)
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)
(source: webpage http://40thbombgroup.org/indiapics2.html Monday,
03-Jun-2003 / Reproduced by courtesy of Bob Sanders)
(source: webpage http://40thbombgroup.org/indiapics2.html Monday,
03-Jun-2003 / Reproduced by courtesy of Bob Sanders)
An interesting story of a Hindu girl's refusal to go
back to her father from the custody of one Muslim gentleman was heard before
Mr. Justice Mukherjea and Mr. Justice Akram when an appeal preferred by the
appellant Bhagaban Chandra Pal against the order of the district judge of
Sylhet rejecting the application for guardianship of the appellant's minor
daughter came upage.
It appeared that the appellant's daughter.
Sachimoyee aged 15 years and, a few months, professing Hindu religion, was a
minor and was kidnapped from his lawful custody by Nur Ali and others. It was
further stated that in November 1939 the appellant submitted before a
magistrate a formal petition for the custody of his minor daughter after the
recovery of the girl by the police. The said application was however disallowed
and the girl was directed to remain in the custody of maulvi Abdul Hye,
pleader, Habigunj. Accordingly it was prayed that the appellant who was the
father of the girl might be appointed the guardian of the person of minor
daughter. The minor girl however made a petition before the additional district
judge, Sylhet, stating inter alia that she was 20 years of age and she left her
father's house voluntarily, and was unwilling to return to her father.
The learned district judge directed the girl to be
made over to the custody of Mr. Serajuddin Chowdhury, a pleader. Further. As
she had been made over to Muslim custody by him (district judge) no question of
certificated guardian could arise.
Against that order the present appeal was preferred.
Their lordships directed the case to be remanded for
proper investigation. Mr. N.C. Chatterjee. Mr. Anil Chandra Roy Chowdhury and
Mr. H. K. Paramanik appeared for the appellant, Mr. Asrafuddin Chowdhury and
Mr. Syedur Rahman for the respondents, maulvi Serajuddin Chowdhury and another.
(source
‘Star of India’, Calcutta, 23.02.1942, page 03)
My room overlooked the lawn and had only one occupant, an Indian
RAF man, I never did find out what he did. He must have been one of us and he
was very nice and a devout Hindu. His father was a high ranking Hindi priest (I
never met him). My room mate was very friendly and took me to some Indian army
entertainment. We ate in the RAF canteen and I gave him my rice on exchange for
his meat, which he would never touch.
(source:
A4144664 What did you do in the RAF, Dad? (Part 2) at BBC WW2
People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)
(COPYRIGHT
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educational research project. The copyright remains with the original
submitter/author)
A few
days after the contretemps with me - my father found a job with Uberoi's the
firm who had originally employed my Uncle as a travelling salesman and he found
some accommodation and came and took Aunty Dolly and Stephen and me away from
Mazda Mansions leaving Wahid alone with my two sisters who said they did not
want to leave.
Marquis
Sheet - the place we went to live in was something you read about but cannot
believe unless you have seen it. It was in what is known in India as a Bustee.
Here you would call it a slum and in America you would call it a Ghetto. There
were all sorts of people-there were Anglo Indians, there were South Indians -
there were mostly people who for one reason or other had fallen foul of their
families and had nowhere else to go. There was a Brahmin (the highest caste of
Hindu). I never found out why he was in that place. There was a South Indian
girl called Pippa who was married to a Sindi man and they were ostracised
because Sindis are never allowed to marry outside their own community. They are
very-sortof-in house. They had this little place and he used to make Indian
sweets and also wholesaled tea so he gave us tea for free. She was so good to
us because we were literally penniless sometimes and she used to bring us food.
They were vegetarians but it was very nice food when she did bring it. She
would sit for hours and talk to us and the great heartbreak of her life was
that she had been unable to give her husband a child and she tried everything.
This made her doubly a failure in her own eyes and in the eyes of his people
who looked on it as God's visitation on him because he had broken their law and
married a girl from outside the community.
The
Landlord was a Sindi and he openly boasted that as far as he was concerned
business came before even his mother and you paid your rent or else you were
out. That was it. It was a dreadful place. We had to share a bathroom which was
absolutely appalling.
There was
running water only a couple of hours per day and we had fill up containers with
water when it was flowing. Of course there was no hot water so cold water baths
were the thing.
It was a
dreadful place and I can remember one night waking up to find that the sheet
was absolutely a mass of cockroaches. Somebody had fumigated their house and
because this area was so open these cockroaches had flown off from there and
just invaded us en masse. Never before had I seen and I hope never again to see
anything like it. I was absolutely terrified as were we all. Can you imagine waking
up in the middle of the night and finding your sheet one mass of brown crawling
cockroaches - like something out of a horror film.
Another
family we knew were the Days. Phyllis Day was an Anglo-Indian girl married to a
Bengali man. This was very unusual, High caste Hindu families were very opposed
to mixed marriages but even more so when the girt was "Half-caste".
They had a huge house on the outskirts of Ranchi and we often visited them.
There were many children - I cannot remember all of them, I was much younger
and spent most of my time with Stephen when we went to their house. The last we
heard of this family was that Phyllis had killed her husband. The details were
never made public but this was years later when we were living in Calcutta and
of course, people did not discuss things in front of the children.
Our staff
- theBearer as head of house, a chokra as his assistant, a khansama, and a
jimadar ; apart from our khansama who was a Mohamedan, the other members were
Hindu.
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AREA AND
POPULATION: The area of Calcutta including the suburbs is a little over 30 square
miles. From the north to the south it extends over 10 miles.
Numerically,
Calcutta is, next to London, the largest and therefore the second city in the
British Empire. The population in 1941, when the last census was taken, stood
at 2,108,891 (Males 1,452,362; Females 659,529; Hindus 1,531,512; Muslims
497,535; rest 79,844.)
(source:
“A Guide Book to Calcutta, Agra, Delhi, Karachi and Bombay” The American Red
Cross and the China-Burma-India-Command. [1943]: at: http://cbi-theater-2.home.comcast.net/redcross/red-cross-india.html#INDIA)
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial
educational research project. The copyright remains with the original
submitter/author)
The
Moslems. Next to the Hindus, the largest and most important group in
India are the Moslems. They first came to India about 1,000 years ago, pouring
down through the mountain passes in the northwest. They settled in the
conquered northern regions and made converts to the religion of Islam.
Because
of their warlike background and because their religion is a more militant one
than that of the Hindus who ordinarily believe in nonviolence, the Moslems make
up a substantial part of the Indian Army. That doesn't mean that Hindus don't
make good soldiers. They have proven that they do in this war, as well as the
last.
In
contrast to the many Hindu gods, Moslems believe in one god only - ALLAH. They
have no caste system and they follow the teachings of their great prophet Mohammed.
Their religion is called Islam (is-LAHM).
Moslems
pray five times a day, kneeling and bowing to the ground, facing in the
direction of Mecca, their holy city in Arabia. They worship in congregations at
their mosques where the service consists mainly of reading from the Koran,
their holy book. Moslems eat beef but not pork. They are extremely touchy about
this, so be careful never to offer a Moslem pork or anything cooked in pork
products. They use separate drinking fountains and toilet facilities which are
provided at railroad stations and other public places. They regard it as a sin
to expose the body. Be most careful not to offend them in this respect.
It's a
good rule to keep away from both Moslem mosques and Hindu temples unless you
are in the hands of a competent guide. The presence of unbelievers is resented.
You might innocently offend their most sacred customs. For instance, you would
be desecrating a mosque or a temple if you entered wearing shoes.
Always
keep an attitude of respect and your unintentional offenses will be more
readily forgiven. Never smile or joke among yourselves at peculiarities or
strange customs that you observe. Your English may be understood. Even if not,
your mocking attitude will be sensed and fiercely resented.
You will
hear much about the enmity between Hindus and Moslems. There are religious and
political problems which sometimes result in clashes between the two groups.
Yet many Hindus and Moslems live side by side all of their lives without
trouble; in the main, you probably won't be able to tell a Moslem from a Hindu
at a glance.
(source:
“A Pocket Guide to India” Special Service Division, Army Service Forces, United
States Army. War and Navy Departments Washington D.C [early 1940s]: at: http://cbi-theater-2.home.comcast.net/booklet/guide-to-india.html)
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial
educational research project. The copyright remains with the original
submitter/author)
Muslim Chamber of Commerce—22 Canning
Street. Phe. Cal. 629.
Mohamedan Sporting Club—Maidan. Phone,
Cal. 3904.
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial
educational research project. The copyright remains with John
Barry 1940)
Among Muslims there is no caste system, but
there are religious sects, chief among which are the Shias and Sunnis,
differing in the observance of certain religious rites.
(source:
“A Guide Book to Calcutta, Agra, Delhi, Karachi and Bombay” The American Red
Cross and the China-Burma-India-Command. [1943]: at: http://cbi-theater-2.home.comcast.net/redcross/red-cross-india.html#INDIA)
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial
educational research project. The copyright remains with the original
submitter/author)
Admission:—Mahomedans
(Worshippers), 4 a.m. to midnight. Non-Mahomedans
(Visitors), 6 a.m. to 11 a.m.
Location:—1
Zakaria Street (Chitpore).
Trams
:—Esplanade-Baghbazar via Chitpore. Esplanade-Belgatchia via
Chitpore.
Buses
:—4, 4A.
Muslims
in Calcutta have every reason to be proud of the beautiful and stately Nakhoda
Mosque, a prayer house of distinctive Oriental character and design. Solemn and
dignified in its construction, this sacred edifice is modelled on Akbar's tomb
at Sikandra near Agra. A notable feature associated with its erection, is that
it is the gift of a single small community, the Cutchi Memon Jama'at, a
Mahomedan sect in Calcutta, who resolved to present their co-religionists with
a mosque that would rank among the greatest "Places of Prayer" in the
world.
The
foundation stone was laid on the 11th September 1926, and the building, constructed at a cost of Rs.
15,00,000/-, stands as a lasting monument to the generosity of the Cutchi
Memons.
The Mosque,
with its large Prayer Hall capable of accommodating 10,000 worshippers, its
majestic dome, its two lofty minarets, each 151 feet high, and 25 smaller ones
.surmounted by cupolas, whose heights range from 100 to 117 feet, should be a
great attraction to visitors.
The
entrance is through the lofty arches of two imposing gateways of red sandstone
from Dholpur, designed after the famous Buland Gate of Fatehpur-Sikri. Rich
ornamental marble, with designs similar to those of the Taj Mahal and other
celebrated Muslim edifices in the East, have been lavishly used in the
interior.
During
the month of Ramazan, beacons visible from a great distance shine from
minarets, to indicate to the Faithful the proper time of fast, which all
Muslims are called upon to observe.
The
Mosque is administered by a Board of Trustees, appointed exclusively from the
members of the Cutchi Memon Jama'at.
(COPYRIGHT
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commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John
Barry 1940)
Location :—8
Wellesley Street.
Trams :—Dalhousie
Square-Park Circus.
Buses :—8,
8A.
To meet the educational needs of the Moslem
Community, the Government of Bengal in 1881 had under consideration a scheme
for the establishment of a second grade college. It was not until 1884,
however, that the First Arts (now called the Intermediate in Arts) class was
started in the Calcutta Madrassah. In July 1888 an amalgamation was effected
with the Presidency College, for teaching purposes only, and from that date the
Madrassah students attended lectures at the Presidency College.
Efforts to establish independent Arts Classes
were not successful till 1923, when the proposal was placed before the
Legislative Council and funds sanctioned for the building of the Islamia
College. The foundation stone was laid by Lord Lytton in December 1924, and the
building completed and formally opened in July 1926.
The structure, typically Islamic, consists of
a main block facing east, with two wings at right angles to the north and south
extremities. A wrought/iron gate, railings, balconies, domes, and grilles to
the windows, serve to emphasize its Oriental design.
The College is under the control of the
Director of Public Instruction and is affiliated to the Calcutta University up
to the I.A, I. Sc. and B. A. standards.
It has accommodation for four hundred students, admission being
restricted to Muslims. The Baker Hostel, for the College students, is located
at Smith Lane (Wellesley Square) and has accommodation for two hundred
boarders.
The College has well-equipped laboratories,
and a library containing over 7000 volumes, including a collection of rare
Arabic, Persian, and Urdu manuscripts.
The College Union conducts a variety of
activities, including weekly lectures, a college magazine and an annual St.
John's Ambulance Class for First Aid certificates. Mohsin stipends have been
allotted to the College, and some private stipends are also awarded from the
Poor Students' Fund.
In addition, several scholarships are awarded
to deserving students, the chief being the Lytton Scholarship of £170 per annum
for study in the United Kingdom. The College is ably staffed with efficient
Professors and Lecturers, and the success of the students at the Calcutta
University Examinations is very satisfactory. The College figures in all
athletic sports and has a regular Physical Instructor.
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non
commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John
Barry 1940)
A short
distance from the College, at No. 21A Wellesley Square, is the CALCUTTA
MADRASSAH. This is the oldest educational institution in Calcutta. It was founded
in 1780 by the Hon'ble Warren Hastings, who purchased a plot of land on the
south side of Baitakhana Road, erected the building at his own expense, and
maintained it till 1782, when the Government took it over.
The
present Madrassah, a massive structure built on the four sides of a quadrangle,
was erected on the 15th July 1824. It consists of the following :—
The
Arabic Department, with about 600 students.
The
Anglo-Persian Department, with about 650 students.
The
Woodburn Middle English School, with approximately 150 pupils.
The
Elliot Hostel (facing the Madrassah) with accommodation for 134 boarders, and
(COPYRIGHT
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commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John
Barry 1940)
A
handsome three-storeyed building, the foundation stone of which was laid by Sir
Stanley Jackson, then Governor of Bengal, on the 26th February 1931. The
Institute is equipped with a large reading room, a wellstocked library, an
up-to-date gymnasium, and a spacious hall used for lectures and civic and
social gatherings. The primary object of the Institute is to promote friendly
relations among the Muslim Community, to encourage the study of religious,
social, literary, and scientific subjects, and to develop mental and physical
culture among its many members. Various privileges are offered to members,
including debates, games, socials and excursions.
(COPYRIGHT
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commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John
Barry 1940)
[…]
Socially,
Indian Moslems are a solid, self-conscious minority group (just less than one-fourth of India's population) ; Hindus
are a loosely-bound, sect-split,
caste-stratified majority (three-fourths).
Hindus are the
wealthier group. In general, Hindus are landowners, capitalists, shopkeepers, professionals, employers ;
Moslems are peasants, artisans, laborers.
In Bengal, where Hindus are only 43% of the
population, they pay 85% of the taxes.
One of the
main reasons for this difference is that usury, which accounts for far
more profit in India than trade, is
forbidden to Moslems by religious law.
[…]
(COPYRIGHT
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commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Time Magazine)
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The man with the turban and the well-kept
whiskers, he is a Punjabi, usually one of the Sikhs from Punjab. You will find
him seated behind the wheel of a taxi; for he has almost succeeded in
monopolizing the local taxi-cab business, a most lucrative one. Since he is
probably a Sikh, don't offer him that friendly cigarette; smoking is against
their custom, and your gesture of friendship may be taken amiss. Fierce-looking
fellow, isn't he? As a matter of fact he is quite a warrior, as more than one
Axis foe has unwillingly learned. His attitude toward you? Well, aside from the
attempts to manipulate that taxi meter, he is quite willing to meet you halfway
as one of your Allies.
(source:
“The Calcutta Key” Services of Supply Base Section Two Division, Information
and education Branch, United States Army Forces in India - Burma, 1945: at:
http://cbi-theater-12.home.comcast.net/~cbi-theater-12/calcuttakey/calcutta_key.html)
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial
educational research project. The copyright remains with the original
submitter/author)
The
Sikhs. The Sikhs, from Northern India, belonging mostly to the Punjab
region, are neither Hindu nor Moslem. They are followers of 10 teachers called
Gurus, the last of whom was Guru Govind Singh who died without naming a
successor. They have great reputations as fighting men. A Sikh to become a
"Singh," that is, a follower of the tenth Guru, goes through an
initiation ceremony which entitles him to include "Singh" (which
means lion) in his name. There are about six million Sikhs in India. They are
tall and large of frame. In peacetime they are farmers, policemen and mechanics
as well as soldiers. They operate most of the taxicabs in the larger cities and
for all of their fierce looks, they are friendly unless aroused.
The Sikhs
are not supposed to cut their hair. They braid their beards and tie them up
inside their turbans. The legend is that as warriors, they must always be ready
to fight at a moment's notice with no time to shave or cut their hair, hence
the long hair and the comb always stuck in it. The long hair is one of the five
"k's" observed by the Sikhs. They must have their hair long (kesh),
use an iron bracelet on the right wrist (Kara), wear short underpants (kachh),
use a wooden comb (kanga) and carry a full size or miniature knife with an iron
handle (kirpan).
(source:
“A Pocket Guide to India” Special Service Division, Army Service Forces, United
States Army. War and Navy Departments Washington D.C [early 1940s]: at:
http://cbi-theater-2.home.comcast.net/booklet/guide-to-india.html)
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial
educational research project. The copyright remains with the original
submitter/author)
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Marwari Rowing Club—Dhakuria Lake.
Phone, South 742.
Jodhpur Club, Ltd.—Gariahat Road
(Dhakuria P.O.). Phone, P.K.100.
All India Marwari Federation—156
Harrison Rd. Phe., B.B. 4467.
Marwari Chamber of Commerce —203/1
Harrison Rd. Phe., B.B. 2265.
(COPYRIGHT
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educational research project. The copyright remains with John
Barry 1940)
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The
Gurkhas. Special mention should be made of the Gurkhas, a warlike,
sturdy and cheerful race. They are Hindus but unlike most Hindus have a strong military
tradition. They came from the independent kingdom of Nepal, on the northeast
frontier but are permitted to join the Indian Army as volunteers. They have
maintained a spirit of close camaraderie with British soldiers and especially
enjoy playing western games, particularly football.
(source:
“A Pocket Guide to India” Special Service Division, Army Service Forces, United
States Army. War and Navy Departments Washington D.C [early 1940s]: at:
http://cbi-theater-2.home.comcast.net/booklet/guide-to-india.html)
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial
educational research project. The copyright remains with the original
submitter/author)
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Who is he, that somewhat dirty, ill-clothed
fellow, that sweating fellow, who hauls you to your destination in a rickshaw, the
amazing individual who lugs a load of you-name-it-he'll-carry-it in a basket on
his head, the one who struggles through the over-crowded streets with a heavily
loaded bamboo push cart? In the majority of case that laboring man is a Bihari
immigrant to Bengal. Sometimes he comes from Orissa or United Provinces. It is
only rarely that you will see a Bengali so employed. The work is hard and of a
drudging nature, and the pay is poor; these men eke out an existence from day
to day.
(source:
“The Calcutta Key” Services of Supply Base Section Two Division, Information
and education Branch, United States Army Forces in India - Burma, 1945: at:
http://cbi-theater-12.home.comcast.net/~cbi-theater-12/calcuttakey/calcutta_key.html)
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial
educational research project. The copyright remains with the original
submitter/author)
At some
time or other while you are here you will witness the sight of a crowd of men,
women, and children who seem to move together like a herd of sheep. They huddle
together, or they rush across the street in a mob, or they gather in a group
shouting and jabbering - they are new arrivals in the city. Driven here by the
famine, by flood, drought, or other causes, they come from Bengal itself, from
Bihar, Orissa, or Assam. Homeless, helpless, hopeless when they reach Calcutta,
they fare as men have always fared, in that the able-bodied and the strong
among them as usual survive and soon find their way into the immense labor
corps around the city - the rest, they soon vanish - some die in the epidemics,
others just disappear.
(source:
“The Calcutta Key” Services of Supply Base Section Two Division, Information
and education Branch, United States Army Forces in India - Burma, 1945: at:
http://cbi-theater-12.home.comcast.net/~cbi-theater-12/calcuttakey/calcutta_key.html)
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Anglo-Indian and Domiciled European
Association—87A Park Street. Phone, P.K. 238.
(COPYRIGHT
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educational research project. The copyright remains with John
Barry 1940)
You see, we never considered ourselves
anything but "English" - all our culture, upbringing and thinking was
English and it came as something of a shock when as the years went by and
things changed, and more people intermarried - the word Anglo- Indian became a
dirty word.
OK, you
want to know if I had ever met any Anglo-Indians. Yes, I met a few, but didn't
know any of them well enough to remember names. I do know there were many
Anglo-Indian young women who I would have liked to meet -- if I didn't have a
wife awaiting me back home. It seemed to me that there were more beautiful
Anglo-Indian gals than any kind of gal in the US. Of course,Indian women were
great, too. With their long, black hair in braids or otherwise flowing down
their sarees, I thought they were the best "lookers" in the world.
(source:
a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12th June
2001 and 28th August 2001)
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley)
I am
reminded of an occasion when we were invited to the wedding of one of the staff
whose father was a Scot and mother an Anglo-Indian, was young, attractive and
as fair as a lily. During the course of the celebrations when Harry Lauder
records were being played, the bridegroom’s mother, an amiable lady, tuned t me
with a hint of nostalgia in her voice remarked, “ Oh, but how thus reminds me
of my home in Hampstead Heath – the heather growing round the doorstep and the
pipes paying at the bottom of the garden. “
(source:page 180 of Eugenie Fraser: “A home
by the Hooghly. A jute Wallahs Wife” .Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing 1989)
(COPYRIGHT
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commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with
Eugenie Fraser)
I was born in Calcutta, India. My grandfather was
Portuguese. I joined the British Army Royal Warwickshire Regiment in Meerut
(where the Indian Mutiny too place in 1857) in India. I joined as a private but
after some training and on recommendation, I was promoted to sergent and joined
the 17th Indian division in India. After some preliminary training sailed from
Calcutta to Rangoon in 1942.
(source:
A3608697 Burma with the Warwickshire Regiment at BBC WW2
People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)
(COPYRIGHT
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educational research project. The copyright remains with the original
submitter/author)
There is
no welfare state in India and the relicts of the British Raj fare the worst. My
grandmother received an army pension for the duration of her life - of thirty
rupees a month which is about £ 1.50. My father, who had been in the
Secretariat as the Civil Service was called for over thirty years, received a
pension of One Hundred Rupees a month for the last few years of his life. He
continued working after they retired him at the age of 50 and worked until a
few weeks before he died of lung cancer, aged 74 in January 1968.
But as I
say. there was Eurasian women and there was quite a few romances amongst them.
It was easier for our fellows to make contact with them. Because usually they
spoke perfect English for a start. Most of the Indian people didn't speak
English unless they were traders and that, so there was a language barrier
there with them. And then Indian people had been treated very badly for
generations by the British.
(COPYRIGHT
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commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Ian
MacDougall)
Walter
married an Anglo-Indian girl who was rather dark skinned and because of this the
rest of his family (who considered themselves pure bred) did not have much to
do with him after that.
The
original meaning of the word "Anglo-Indian" was English people who
settled in India or spent large parts of their lives there. People of mixed blood
were referred to as "Eurasian" or more impolitely
"Half-caste" or even "Chi-chi" - an Indian word meaning
"dirty".
[…] we
used to joke about her habit of bargaining with the shopkeepers and telling
them that they were looking at her white skin and putting their prices up. This
was so funny because she was as dark as they were! She didn't think it was
funny though.
Another
family we knew were the Days. Phyllis Day was an Anglo-Indian girl married to a
Bengali man. This was very unusual, High caste Hindu families were very opposed
to mixed marriages but even more so when the girt was "Half-caste".
They had a huge house on the outskirts of Ranchi and we often visited them.
There were many children - I cannot remember all of them, I was much younger
and spent most of my time with Stephen when we went to their house. The last we
heard of this family was that Phyllis had killed her husband. The details were
never made public but this was years later when we were living in Calcutta and
of course, people did not discuss things in front of the children.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Europeans
in India. The term "European" in India generally means British.
But it also includes other European peoples and some Americans. The British
once held all the important governmental posts in the country and still hold
many of them. British business men have developed India's trade and control
much of the banking system. They manage many of India's factories.
For many
years outstanding graduates of Oxford and Cambridge went to India as young men
and served there all their lives in the Indian Civil Service, which is the
administrative branch of the government. But in recent years Indians have come
increasingly into positions of responsibility both in business and government.
You go to
India at a time when the relations between the Indians and the British are
under strong tension. It is better for you not to discuss this situation. You
can rub a Britisher or an Indian the wrong way by trying to give him advice
about Indian affairs. The statement made by your own State Department, printed
in the front of this book, should govern your actions and your talk.
When you
come into contact with Britishers in India, remember they are naturally
reserved. They respect each other's privacy. If Britons are slow to strike up
conversation with you, remember they are that way with each other. It does not
mean they are being haughty or unfriendly. They don't speak to you because they
don't want to appear intrusive or rude.
The
British dislike bragging or showing off. American wages and American soldier's
pay are the highest in the world and money goes a long way in India. When pay day
comes, it would be sound practice to learn to spend your money according to the
standards of the community where you are. The British consider you highly paid.
They won't think any better of you for throwing money around. They are more
likely to think you have not learned the common-sense virtues of thrift. The
British soldier is apt to be especially touchy about the difference between his
pay and yours. Keep this in mind. Use common sense and don't rub him the wrong
way.
Don't be
misled by the British tendency to be soft-spoken and polite. If they need to be
they can be plenty tough. The British can take it. They have proved it in the
course of this war. In India they have every reason for building solid
friendship with us - as we have with them. Remember that the British soldier
who has been out in India has learned many things about how to live and get
along in the country. He can give you many practical tips that will help you in
India. At the same time it is a good idea to form your own impressions and
learn for yourself.
(source:
“A Pocket Guide to India” Special Service Division, Army Service Forces, United
States Army. War and Navy Departments Washington D.C [early 1940s]: at:
http://cbi-theater-2.home.comcast.net/booklet/guide-to-india.html)
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial
educational research project. The copyright remains with the original
submitter/author)
In Calcutta itself there were also divisions.
Snobbery, precedence and protocol flourished. People with similar professions
and backgrounds tended to sick together. The Indians also clung to their own
kind. The Marwarris from Rajasthan , for instance, never mixed with the
Bengalis. For some reason certain Europeans in Calcutta imagined that they
resided on a higher plane that those who lived in the compounds at the mills,
which was quite ridiculous as not many came out of the top drawer.
(source:page 84 of Eugenie Fraser: “A home by the Hooghly. A jute
Wallahs Wife” .Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing 1989)
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non
commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with
Eugenie Fraser)
Indian women were very submissive to their
husbands. There was no romances or anythin' like that between Indian women and
our lads—well, not to my knowledge! The situation didn't—I mean, you weren't
liked anyway. Oh, you were lookin' for trouble if you started sniffin' around
Indian women.
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non
commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Ian MacDougall)
He was always most sturdily English. In early
days, Father Strong tried to make him appreciate the beauty in some Hindu
observances or in the Bhagavad
Gita. but, he would have none of it. “'I'm sorry, but I can't bear it. The
Apostles called all that sort of thing "abominable idolatries" and I'm
afraid I agree.” And he had an inveterate prejudice against Indian music. The
hymns in church, both at Barisal in his time and at Behala were invariably sung
to Western tunes. Part of the attraction, indeed, of Behala was that it was to
some extent English Christianity transported to India—whether that really
resulted, in the building up of an Indian Church was another matter. Douglass
might well have answered that we English had to bring to India the best we had
and that it was for Indians themselves, once grounded in the Faith, to adapt
its forms of worship. His tendency was to educate boys, as much as possible, in
English. If they could,
they always talked to the Father in English, his theory being that it would
help them later in their jobs.
What was
my reaction to the British? After arriving in Calcutta I soon received a lesson
on why the Indians had no love for the British. I was walking along Chowringee,
not far from the old Whiteaway & Laidlaw department store, when I noticed a
portly (and very British-looking) gentleman striding down the center of the
sidewalk ahead of me. He wore a white field jacket; white short, walking pants;
a pith helmet and carried a riding crop-type stick.
He kept
to the center of the sidewalk and approaching Indians got out of his way. Indians
he overtook from the rear, if they didn't volutarily step aside for him, he
would reach out with his stick and snap them on either the back of the head or
on a bare arm. They would turn, see who had hit them and quickly step aside
with only a visual glower.
That was
my indoctrination into British-Indian relations.
(source:
a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12th June
2001 and 28th August 2001)
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley)
There was an old tramp called simply "Mackey" who
used to hang around Sandell Street. He was so dirty and his hair was long and
matted and he wore a dirty mackintosh (which is why I think we called him
"Mackey"). We all thought he was dark skinned but one day it poured
with rain. When the Monsoons came, it rained solidly for days at a time and the
roads always got flooded in Calcutta. Mackey was wading through the flooded
streets and we saw that his legs and feet were white and his hair, which the
rain had washed, was light brown. The kids in the street used to make up
stories about Mackey being a kidnapper and used to run a mile when they saw
him. I often wondered about him. It turned out he was a Scot – we never knew
what made him become a tramp and live on the streets like he did.
It was
quite evident there was no love lost between any Britisher and any Indian.
Indians showed a sullen resentment of anything British. I couldn't blame them.
All the time, I felt good that Indians had the impression that Americans were
there to help them achieve their goals, even though, then, I had no idea what
the goals were.
Generally,
I'd say the Indians simply tolerated the British. Indians were, almost without
exception, quite friendly to an American. It made us feel good, we felt
accepted.
(source:
a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12th June
2001 and 28th August 2001)
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley)
Brilish society in India, over the decades,
had evolved peculiar snobberies of its, own, borrowing (no doubt
subconsciously) from the Hindu caste system, and creating distinctions
undreamed of 'at home'. Civilians, in the covenanted Government services,
especially the ICS, became in effect Brahmins, calmly conscious of superiority
over all the others. And Army officers assumed a stand-offish Kshatriya mien.
These wo constituted the topmost British castes... Oddest probably, however,
was the caste cleavage within the business community itself, You'd find it in
most of the big cities, but specially evident in Calcutta, There, to be in
'commerce', gave vastly more status than 'trade'. The latter was thought
degrading. It made a really low level Vaisya out of you … Luckily a news
papaermajn, anyway if on The Statesman's staff and a friendly
sort, could wiggle through most of the indigenous British caste-structure
without much annoying anyone. He was technically a puzzle to fit in,
hard to classify. You had to admit that his job necessitated meeting people.
Moreover, you couldn't be sure which of the Vaisya sub-castes he really
belonged to, he darted bewilderingly between the two. If he wanted, he could
say, and even prove, that he was in trade as well as commerce, for The
Statesman—it was very unusual—enjoyed membership of both the Bengal Chamber
of Commerce and the Calcutta Trades Association. Further, if on the editorial
side, especially as a leader-writer, he carried with him a faintly Brahminical
scholarly air. Added to which, in my case, was the baffling fact that I'd been
a government official previously and got decorated for it; so mightn't I
possibly, experts wondered, be no Vaisya at all but something grander? And a
war was on, and caste distinctions were anyway fading somewhat, so I found before
long that, if good-humoured about it, I could be almost as eccentric in
Calcutta—though not in Delhi—as 1 liked, and get away with nearly anything.
(COPYRIGHT
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commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with :
Ian Stephens 1966)
Had I
realised it, this enforced and rather lonely period of isolation in a first class compartment was no
bad introduction to the India of the Raj. The microcosmic, but not always so
comfortable, life of the sahibs in their small Anglo-Indian world was one from which we sometimes ventured but
inhibited by social convention, were seldom able to make any real contact with the people of the
country.
(source pages 8 of John Rowntree: “A Chota Sahib. Memoirs of a Forest Officer.”
Padstow: Tabb House, 1981.)
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair
dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The
copyright remains with the Estate of John Rowntree)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(source: personal scrapbook kept by Malcolm Moncrieff Stuart
O.B.E., I.C.S. seen on 20-Dec-2005 /
Reproduced by courtesy of Mrs. Malcolm Moncrieff Stuart)
Church of
Scotland—76 Wellesley
Street.
Sunday :—Morning Service and Sermon at 9-30;
Evening Service
and Sermon at 6-30.
Church of Scotland
(Missions)—76 Wellesley
Street.
Sunday :—In Tamil and Telugu—Morning Service at 8-30;
Evening Service and Sermon at 6-30.
In Hindi—Service and Sermon at 12-30 p.m.
Duff Church—127 Maniktala Street. In Bengali.
Sunday :—Morning Service at 9; Evening Service and Sermon at 6.
St. Andrew's
Church—Dalhousie Square. Built 1815. Page 72.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overseas Chinese Labour Association—33
Blackburn Lane.
(COPYRIGHT
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educational research project. The copyright remains with John
Barry 1940)
And
Chinatown? It was not well known as a place to visit among American personnel.
In fact, it may have been in the vast area of Calcutta that was declared, for
some reason, "off limits" to Americans. I never questioned who set
those limits, always feeling that they were established to keep us from going
into "dangerous" sections. So, I missed that great opportunity to see
what I now know was a very unique part of the old town.
Glenn
Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944
(source:
a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12th June
2001 and 28th August 2001)
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley)
I met many Chinese who contrived to look exquisitely cool
and unperturbed. During the last five years they had become inured to disaster
and war was accepted as, a normal course of life. One Chinese pilot said he could
not understand my mama for Chungking. 'There is such a nice Chinatown here in
Calcutta,' he said, 'and the Chung Wah' restaurant is better and cheaper than any we have in
Chungking. I am always glad to return here; it is like peacetime.' But I was in
no mood to appreciate these advantages. He invited me to the Chinese South
Physical Culture Club on Chandney Chowk Street and introduced me to some of his
compatriots who played and sang the melodies I had not heard since leaving
Peking. On the other hand I also saw refugees from Hong Kong and Burma, who lad
barely survived their escape.
(COPYRIGHT
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commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with
Harold Acton)
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Bethel Synagogue—26/1 Pollock
Street.
Saturday :—Morning Prayers at 6-15; Evening at 3-30 and 5-45.
Other Days :—Morning Prayers at 5-30; Evening at 5.
Maghen David Synagogue—109 Canning
Street.
Saturday :—Morning Prayers at 6-30; Evening at 4-30 and 5-45.
Other Days :—Morning Prayers at 6; Evening at 4-45.
Neveh Shalome Synagogue—9 Synagogue
Street.
Saturday :—Morning Prayers ar 6; Evening at 4 and 6.
Other Days :—Morning Prayers, at 5-45; Evening at 4-45.
The Brahmo Samaj Church of the New
Dispensation—
(Bharatavarshiya Brahma Mandir)—95 Keshab Chunder Sen Street.
Sunday :—Children's School, 7 a.m. Service and Sermon, 6 p.m.
(COPYRIGHT
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educational research project. The copyright remains with John
Barry 1940)
Eliat
Meyer Free School and Talmud Torah—50 Bow Baiar Street. Phone, B.B. 539.
Jewish
Girls' and Boys' Secondary School—8A & 8B Pollock Street
(COPYRIGHT
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educational research project. The copyright remains with John
Barry 1940)
Yes,
there were Jewish soldiers in our unit. In fact, the Milton Links about whom
you query, was Jewish. He was one of my best friends. We started out in the military
together, but he came from California and me from Missouri. We met in basic
training. He was a photo enthusiast and so was I. In civilian life he owned and
operated a successful luggage store in San Francisco. He was a great guy and I
visited in his home after the war several times. But, like a lot of our guys,
he is no longer with us. I miss him a lot.
I don't
think our Jewish fellows had much contact with the Jewish community in
Calcutta. I doubt they even knew about it. Milt sure never mentioned it. Of
course, he was married at the time, so wasn't much interested in Calcutta
Jewish gals.
None of
our crew married Calcutta girls of any nationalty or religion.
(source:
a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12th June
2001 and 28th August 2001)
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley)
“My own
introduction to religion starts at home with celebrating the Sabbath, looking
up at daddy while he prayed at the head of the table before the Friday evening
dinner. I saw him in an awesome new role, one that raised him above us ordinary
mortals. It was only three decades later, standing together wih my own family
around the table during Friday evening prayers that I heard my own childhood
feeling put into words; it was when, during a moment's silence, my youngest son
looked up at his father and said:
'Daddy,
are you G-d?'”
(COPYRIGHT
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commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Sally
Solomon)
“As a
child, my first experience of going to the synagogue in walking with the rest
of the family out of 81/8 Bentinck Street to a building not far from home. We
are all dressed nicely, particularly my father who is wearing a suit and felt
hat. He holds a small black book in his hand and remains silent and preoccupied
until we reach the gates of Neveh Shalome Synagogue, the Abode of Peace. We
separate here. Daddy and my brother go into a downstairs hall while mummy and
my sisters climb to an upper floor, looking down on the assembled men from a
gallery. A hum of prayers rises upwards as we open our own books and cover our
heads to join in the service.
Neveh
Shalome, the smallest and oldest of the three synagogues, had echoed with the
voices of my great-great-great grandfather and the early Jewish settlers since
the year 1826. A century later found the new Neveh Shalome risen from the ashes
of the old after years of legal wrangling and jostling for survival with its
grand rival next door - the Magen David Synagogue, as large and resplendent as
ours was small and unassuming. I remember its quiet atmosphere and felt a sense
of belonging within its walls from that very first day.”
(COPYRIGHT
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commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Sally
Solomon)
“Today, no
matter where I am, I recall little details of observance, or some aspects of
family life during the festivals and Holy Days which still have the power to
evoke tears, or laughter, or both. Like, for instance, the memory of a distant
Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, when Jews ask the Almighty to forgive their
sins.
It was in
the mid-thirties, and I had just joined the ranks of those fasting full day,
basking in the importance of my thirteen years; but there were also
disadvantages, as I was about to learn. The four of us had walked back home
with daddy after the service on Yom Kippur Eve. It was a distance of almost two
miles to Tottee Lane and we arrived hungry and thirsty, the thought of food and
drink very vivid in our minds. In preparation for the long fast ahead we
retired straight away and were lying down quietly, when an agonized, whispered
cry from my sister Rahmoo's bed made us all sit up.
'I drank
water! I drank water!,' she repeated over and over again, all the while
wringing her hands. We choked with suppressed laughter, realizing what had
happened. The nightly drink of water, an ingrained habit, had been repeated by
mistake. 'Shh....shhhh... it does not matter,' we assured her, fearful lest my
father should hear. But on Yom Kippur there was always that awesome feeling
that not only daddy, but Heaven itself would frown on any infringement of
penitential practice.
In our
community, fasting on Yom Kippur was something every Jewish adult did, or tried
to do. Not keeping a kosher home, or observing the Sabbath, did not seem quite
as sinful as not fasting on Yom Kippur. Was this true? I agonized. Was not the
Sabbath the most sacred festival in the history of our people? Eventually I
came to the conclusion that Yom Kippur is very important because on that day
each person communicates directly with his Maker. The Sabbath is for us all;
Yom Kippur is more individual and, if observed, brings a sense of deliverance
to the suppliant.
On
looking back over the years, it is very easy to remember the sequence of events
ushering in that Holy Day. It started with the night before the Eve when white
hens were whirled over the heads of all female family members and white
cockerels over the heads of my father and brother Sam. The shohet who performed
kapparah prayed that the birds took on our identity, and therefore our sins,
before they were sacrificed.
On the
morning of Yom Kippur Eve we had a brunch of grilled lamb kebabs and a cup of
early afternoon tea. In this way, we were able to eat an enormous meal of rice,
chicken and vegetables followed by fruit, and the final drink of water before
the trip to the synagogue at about 3.30 p.m. For this journey, the gharry had
been ordered well in advance because arrival at the synagogue was essential
before sunset. Heaven forbid that we ride after, because the horses' hooves,
making contact with the tarred roads and producing sparks, was tantamount to
breaking the Sabbath. By this same line of thinking, light switches could not
be operated once the fast was under way, so the Muslim servant was asked to
wait for us to return from the syangogue and do the needful until we retired.
The
service on Yom Kippur Eve was one of the most well-attended throughout the
year. As the wailing lilt of Lekha Eli set the mood of sorrow and repentance, I
remember being dazzled by the heraldic appearance of the great hall. Velvet
curtains in rich, dark hues and embroidered in gold and silver, some with
Hebrew lettering, hung in rows from the ladies' gallery. Glittering chandeliers
shone down on the men, wearing different colored kippas and swathed in prayer
shawls, chanting and responding in unison to the rabbi, a veritable king on the
central dias. The atmosphere was charged with excitement, and, after hearing
the Kol Nidre I went home happy to be a Jew.
In
contrast, attendance on the following morning was perceptibly lower and the
mood more grave. The color white was predominant, from the canvas shoes worn by
the men, to the shroud-like gowns and head scarves worn by some of the traditionally
dressed women.
I
remember looking down from the gallery during the most poignant sections of the
service when some men went up to the platform at the far end and held out their
shawls in front of them, arms extended.
'They
look like ghosts, who are they, mummy?' I whispered, feeling afraid.
'The
Cohanim, descendants of the Biblical priests.'
I
watched, fascinated, as the tzitzis, fringes, of thier shawls, swung as they
turned from side to side in incantation. The hall reverberated with wailing,
and most of the congregation were in tears.”
(COPYRIGHT
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Solomon)
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The
Parsees. Almost everywhere in India, but especially around Bombay
you will see the Parsee merchant, distinguished often by his shiny black hat.
The Parsees are a relatively small group numbering only about 100,000. They
came from Persia originally and follow Zoroaster as their prophet. Usually
Parsees are well-to-do, mostly business and professional men. Some of them are
among the greatest industrialists in India. The Tata family, which built the
huge steel works at Jamshedpur, the largest in the British Empire, are Parsees.
(source:
“A Pocket Guide to India” Special Service Division, Army Service Forces, United
States Army. War and Navy Departments Washington D.C [early 1940s]: at: http://cbi-theater-2.home.comcast.net/booklet/guide-to-india.html)
(COPYRIGHT
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educational research project. The copyright remains with the original
submitter/author)
Parsee
Dental Hall—8 Esplanade East. Phone, Cal. 2702.
(COPYRIGHT
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educational research project. The copyright remains with John
Barry 1940)
I was a
young Indian (Parsi) girl living in Calcutta during World War II. My family
consisted of my mother, father and three daughters, I was the eldest daughter.
My brother had not been born yet. We lived in an apartment block in Mission
Row, not far from Dalhousie Square — the spot where the “Black Hole of
Calcutta” was supposed to have taken place — though Indian historians deny this
episode.
My
neighbours consisted of a Chinese family who had trekked from Burma, an
Anglo-Indian family - Mr and Mrs Carter, a Portuguese family — Mr and Mrs
Coelho and their 4 sons, and 2 Baghdad Jewish families — the Nahoums and the
Manassehs.
My family
lived on the top floor and from our veranda (whose doors and windows had been
plastered with black and brown paper, as protection from broken glass during
the air raid), I could see the steeple and weather cock of St Andrews Church,
and in the background Howrah Bridge, the life-line of Calcutta connecting the 2
sides of the mighty Hooghly River.
(source: A5756150
The bombing of Calcutta by the Japanese Edited at BBC WW2
People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)
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Armenian Club—21 Galstaun Mansions.
Phone, Cal. 2504.
(COPYRIGHT
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educational research project. The copyright remains with John
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Davidian
Girls' School—1A Ashutosh Mukerjee Road. Phone, P.K, 1531. Page 163.
(COPYRIGHT
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Armenian
College—4 Kyd Street- Phone, Cal. 1511. Page 133.
(COPYRIGHT
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educational research project. The copyright remains with John
Barry 1940)
Armenian
College—Free School Street.
Armenian
Holy Church of Nazareth—2 Armenian Street. Page 129.
St.
Gregory The llluminator's Chapel—11/6 North Range, Park Circus. Page 90.
The Holy
Trinity Chapel—No. 2 Tangra Rd. South. Erected in 1867.
(COPYRIGHT
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educational research project. The copyright remains with John
Barry 1940)
Admission
:—Open daily from 5-30 a.m. to 6-30 p.m.
Services:—Sundays—Matins 7 a.m. High Mass,
Sermon and Holy Communion 8-30 a.m.
Evensong (at St. Gregory's Chapel, Park
Circus) 5-30 p.m.
Saturdays—Matins
6 a.m. High Mass and Holy Communion 7 a.m. Evensong 5-30 p.m.
Other Weekdays—Matins 5-30 a.m. Evensong
5-30 p.m.
Having the distinction of being the oldest
church in Calcutta, this sacred edifice was erected in 1724 by public
subscription, through the praiseworthy efforts of Agha Nazar, on the site of an
old Armenian cemetery, after the design of Leon Govond, an Armenian architect
from Persia.
The church is centrally situated in the business
quarter of the city, and is reached from Lower Chitpore Road by way of Armenian
Street, from Clive Row by way of Old China Bazar Street, and from Clive Street
by way of Bonfield Lane. The last-named route leads right to the centre gate.
There are three gates to the church, one at
No. 2 Armenian Street, another at No. 119 Old China Bazar Street and the third
at the Kangrapatty end of Old China Bazar Street. Entering by the last-named
gate, we step on to a boarded footpath.
A covered passage leads the way to the vestibule, directly upon which is
reared the steeple, accommodating the clock tower and the belfry. A copper
plate, high above the entrance to the vestibule, records that the steeple,
which was presented by Agha Manuel Hazarmull, was erected in 1734, but it was
not until 1792 that it was adorned with a handsome, three-dialled clock,
through the generosity of Agha Catchick Arrakiel.
The floor of the vestibule, as well as that
of the churchyard, is closely paved with tombstones, most of which are
inscribed in Armenian, many in English and Armenian and a few in English only.
To the left of the vestibule, detached from the church, is the
Parochial-building, on the ground floor of which is located the Vestry Office,
where the Committee members hold their meetings and the Wardens of the church
attend to their responsible duties.
From the vestibule we enter the church, paved
with marble. On the left is a circular staircase leading to the gallery
overhead, generally used by the College boys, and let into the walls are
tablets commemorating benefactors. The two tablets, similiar in design, on
either side of the altar, are erected, one to the memory of Thaddeus Mesrope
Thaddeus (1856-1927) and the other as a tribute to Sir Paul Catchick Chater, in
appreciation of their munificent donations.
The main aisle leads between massive fluted
pillars and polished pews to the Chancel, on the right of which is the organ
and in the middle the choir. On the east, from the centre of the Sanctuary,
rises the Holy Altar, impressive in the majestic simplicity of its design, and
adorned with a Cross, Gospels and Twelve Candlesticks, symbolic of the Divine
Lord and His Apostles. The Altarpiece, consisting of three oil paintings by A.
E. Harris, representing "The Holy Trinity", "The Lord's
Supper" and "The Enshrouding of Our Lord", was presented in
1901, in loving memory of Carapiet and Hossanah Balthazar by their children.
The side altars over the sacristies were erected in 1763 and dedicated, one to
St. Gregory the Illuminator, and the other to the Apostles Peter and Paul, in
memory of their namesakes the brothers Agha Kerikore and Agha Petrus, the sons
of Aratoon of old Eravan.
A door from the sacristy beneath the altar of
the Apostles Peter and Paul, leads to the Baptistery, to which access can also
be gained from the churchyard.
A brief history of the origin of the
Armenians and their religion will be of interest here.
THE ORIGIN:—The founder of the Armenian
nation was Haik, fourth in direct descent from Noah. The genealogical tree is
as follows—Noah, Japhet, Gomer, Togarmah (Genesis X. 1,2,3.). Haik was the son
of Togarmah; he founded the Haikaznian dynasty in 2111 B. C. and to this day
the people in their language are called Hai and the country Hayastan after him.
After Aram, the greatest warrior of the dynasty, who by his conquests became a
terror to the neighbouring states these ancient people came to be called
Aramians—Armenians, and their country Armenia, names surviving to the present
day. This dynasty was overthrown by Alexander
the Great in 332 B.C., and it was not until 15C B.C. that Arshack I founded the
Arshakoonian dynasty The year 428 A.D., marked the fall of this dynasty, when
the country was handed over to Bahram, the Persian King
In 859 A. D. Ashot I founded the Pacratoonian
dynasty, which held sway till 1079, when it came to an end through treachery,
and the country passed under Grecian rule. The following year, 1080 A.D., Ruben
1. founded the Rubenian dynasty, which was overthrown in 1373 by the Ameer of
Egypt, who made the then reigning king, Leon VI, a prisoner.
After seven years captivity, King Leon was
released through the mediation of King John of Spain. He then travelled through
Europe, visiting Pope Urban VI, King John of Spain, Charles VI of France,
Richard II of England and others, with the view to regaining his throne. His
efforts met with no success, and he died broken-hearted in France, and was
buried in the cemetery of St. Dennis near Paris. A tombstone covering his
remains bears the following inscription in French :—
"Here lies the most noble and excellent
Prince Leon of Lusignan, Sixth Latin King of the Kingdom of Armenia, who
rendered his soul to God in Paris on the 29th of November, in the year of Grace
1393."
After the fall of the Rubenian dynasty, the
history of die Armenians is one long record of appalling horrors. The
Egyptians, the Tartars, the Persians and the Turks in turn massacred the people
and devastated their country. In 1914, on the outbreak of the Great War, the
Armenians rallied together, fought on the side of the Allies and in May 1918,
once again set up the self-governing state of Armenia.
THEIR RELIGION:—The Armenians claim to be the
first nation to have embraced Christianity. In the Gospel of St. John, Chapter
XII, Verses 20, 21, we read:—
" And
there were certain Greeks among them
that came up to worship at the
feast; The same came therefore to Philip which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying,
Sir, we would see Jesus."
According to history, these were messengers
from King Apcar of Armenia. During a visit to Persia, King Apcar had contracted
leprosy, which disease physicians were unable to cure. Hearing of the wonderful
miracles performed by Jesus, he sent messengers with a letter, expressing his
belief in Jesus' Divinity and inviting Him to Armenia. One of these messengers
was an artist who had instructions to draw Jesus portrait, but as, after
repeated attempts, he failed to outline the Divine features, Jesus called for a
napkin* which He held against His face and miraculously impressed His likeness
on it, and this He made over to the messengers together with a letter
beginning—
"Blessed is he who
believes in Me without seeing Me, for it is written of Me that they that see
Me shall not believe and they that have not seen Me shall believe and be
saved,"
In 34 A. D. the Apostles Thaddeus and
Bartholomew arrived in Armenia, preached the Gospel and converted the people.
After the death of King Apcar, however, his descendants reverted to idolatry and persecuted the
Christians.
At the close of the 3rd century A. D., when
Constantine the Great embraced and introduced Christianity into his Empire,
afterwards the Eastern Empire, St. Gregory the Illuminator, with King Terdat of
Armenia, revived Christianity throughout the country, and the people have ever
since clung to their faith, despite the horrors of massacres and persecutions.
* Records show that this priceless relic was
kept in Edessa, then the capital of Armenia, till 944, when it was removed to
Constantinople by the Emperor Romanus of Greece, and in the 14th century
transferred to Genoa, Italy,
where it is said to be preserved to this day
The Armenian Church is known as the Apostolic
Holy Church of Armenia. The Catholicos
of All Armenians has his Holy See in Edgmiatzin—about several miles from
Eravan, the capital of Armenia — built in
about 300 A.D.
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non
commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John
Barry 1940)
This Institution
was founded in 1821, under the name of the Armenian Philanthropic Academy, by
Messrs Astwasatoor Mooradkhan and Manatsakan Varden, who are appropriately
commemorated by marble tablets in the College portico.
In 1825,
the Aratoon Koloos School, which was established in 1798 was incorporated with
the College and in 1871
the College was affliated to the Calcutta University for the Entrance
Examination, and recently to the Cambridge University for the Senior Cambridge
Examination. In 1883 the College was removed from Old China
Bazar
Street to No. 56 Free
School Street, and in 1889, in order to meet the educational requirements of
the period College Classes were started for preparing boys for this First Arts
and the higher Examinations of the Calcutta University. It was then that the
Institution came to be known as the Armenian College: these Classes were
however, discontinued in 1891.
The
College boys participate in all athletic game and pursuits, including boxing,
and have earned a good reputation for themselves in the field of sport.
A marble
tablet at the College main gate in 56 Free School Street, records that the
famous novelist, William Makepeace Thackeray, was born
in this building on the 18th July 1811.
At the
south-east corner of the compound stands the College swimming bath. A marble
tablet inside bear the inscription :—
"Erected
and Presented to his Alma Mater by P. H. Crete, esq. For the use of the
students of the Armenian College, 1930.
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non
commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John
Barry 1940)
Entering
Ashutosh Mukerjee Road, we
note odd numbers on the left, even numbers on the right. At No. 1A is the
Davidian Girls' Day School.
This
Institution was founded in 1922, by the late Mr. David Aviet David, an Armenian
philanthropist, where for some time children of all denominations were admitted
and educated free of charge. Recently, however, the name was changed to the
Davidian Girls' Day School and its pupils restricted to those of the Armenian
community. At present a large number of Armenian girls and young boys are being
educated, in English and Armenian, entirely free of charge. It is understood
that the Institution will be made into the Davidian Girls' Boarding School from
1940.
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non
commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John
Barry 1940)
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Ralli
Brothers. Ltd. Jute and Gunny and Seed Merchants, etc.— 16 Hare Street.
Phone, Cal. 5420.
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial
educational research project. The copyright remains with John
Barry 1940)
Greek Church—At the corner of Russa
Road and Library Road.
Sundays :—Service at 9 a.m.
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial
educational research project. The copyright remains with John
Barry 1940)
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Nippon
Dental Surgery (Dr. T. Watanabe, D.D.S.)—20 Park Street. Phone Cal, 3518.
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial
educational research project. The copyright remains with John
Barry 1940)
Japanese
Primary School—8A Lansdowne Road. Phone, P.K. 497.
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial
educational research project. The copyright remains with John
Barry 1940)
Japan—5
& 6 Esplanade Mansions. Phone, Cal. 4041.
25/'l
Ballygunge Circular Road. Phone, P.K. 582.
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial
educational research project. The copyright remains with John
Barry 1940)
Yokohama
Specie Bank, Ltd.—102/1 Clive Street. Phe., Cal. 5211.
Japan
Cotton Trading Co., Ltd. Importers of cotton piece goods and silk yarn—15 Clive
Street. Phone, Cal. 7000.
Mitsubishi
Shoji Kaisha, Ltd. Agents, for Steamship Companies— 135
Canning Street. Phone, Cal. 1860.
Mitsui
Bussan Kaisha, Ltd. Merchants and Agents for Gunny Jute Presses,
etc.—100 Clive Street. Phone, Cal, 5000.
Nippon
Yusen Kaisha. Merchants and Agents for Japanese Steamship Companies—2/3
Clive Row. Phone, Cal. 2036.
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial
educational research project. The copyright remains with John
Barry 1940)
Nippon Club—1 Harrington Street.
Phone, P.K. 461.
Nippon Yusen Kaisha Seaman's Club—28 Circular
Garden Reach Road. Phone, South 1341.
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial
educational research project. The copyright remains with John
Barry 1940)
In 1942,
the war came to us in Calcutta. I was seven years old and for us it was both
our exciting and a worrying time. I used to have my hair cut regularly at a
Japanese hair dressing salon until it was quite suddenly closed down. There
were other Japanese shops and offices that became transformed into Indian or
Anglo-Indian businesses over night.
(source:
A2780534 My Wartime Childhood in Calcutta, India at BBC WW2
People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial
educational research project. The copyright remains with the original
submitter/author)
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Consulate
General of Germany – 34 Park Street
Phone Cal. ???? (closed sept 1939)
Consul
General: Count von Podewils-Duernitz
Vice
Consuls: Baron O. von Richthofen, Dr. W. Tausch
Commercial
attaché C.R. Rasmuss
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial
educational research project. The copyright remains with John
Barry 1940)
Allianz und Stuttgarter Life Insurance Bank, Ltd.—
4 Esplanade East, Phone, Cal, 3337.
A. E.
G. India Electric Co., Ltd. Electrical Engineers and Contractors for electrical
goods and appliances—Avenue House, Chowringhee Square. Phone, Cal, 5763.
Krupp
Indian Trading Co., Ltd. Railway equipment and locomotives—22 Canning
Street. Phone, Cal. 3430.
Siemens
(India) Ltd. Manufacturers of electrical goods—26 Central Avenue.
Phons.Cal.4891.
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial
educational research project. The copyright remains with John
Barry 1940)
Doctor,
Dr. P.M., D.M.D.—1B Little Russell Street, Phe., P.K. 10.
(COPYRIGHT
NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial
educational research project. The copyright remains with John
Barry 1940)
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