In love until their last days

In love until their last days
My maternal grandparents, Kali Pada & Sukriti Chakrabertti with their daughters, son and several nephews & nieces. Calcutta, West Bengal. 1970

My maternal grandparents, Kali Pada & Sukriti Chakrabertti with their daughters, son and several nephews & nieces. Calcutta, West Bengal. 1970 Image and Narrative contributed by Anupam Mukerji, Mumbai This picture was photographed on March 9, 1970 on the occasion of my maternal grandparents Kali Pada and Sukriti Chakrabertti's 25th marriage anniversary (seated middle), at their home, 63, PG Hossain Shah Road, Jadavpur, Calcutta (now Kolkata). Here, they are with their daughters Sarbari, Bansari and Kajori, their son Sovan, and several nephews and nieces. After graduating from school with a gold medal in East Bengal's Dhaka Bickrampore Bhagyakul district, the young teenager, Kali Pada Chakraberti moved to Calcutta. He began working while continuing his education in an evening college. The office he worked at was also his shelter for the night. Desperate for money to pay his college examination fees, he went to a pawn-shop in Calcutta's Bow Bazaar to sell his gold medal. The pawn broker at the shop however was a gentle and generous elderly man. He lent my grandfather the money without mortgaging the gold medal. Years later when my grandfather went back to the shop to return the money, he found that his benefactor had passed away and his son refused to accept the money stating he couldn't, because his father had left no records of that loan. My grandfather then established  a Trust with that money to help underprivileged students with their education. Bhai, as all his grandchildren fondly called him, graduated from college with distinction and built a successful career in the field of Insurance. He rose to a senior position in a public sector insurance company. He also bought a plot of land in Jadavpur and built the…

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The Wild Parties of JJ School of Art & Architecture

The Wild Parties of JJ School of Art & Architecture
Dance Party. 'Saawan' Architecture festival-C.J. Hall, Colaba, Bombay, Maharashtra. September 25, 1980

Dance Party. 'Saawan' Architecture festival - C.J. Hall, Colaba, Bombay, Maharashtra. September 25, 1980 Image and Narrative contributed by Charu Walikhanna, New Delhi This was a hot day with a baking hot floor. I was in 4th yr of Sir JJ School of Applied Art. And the same campus housed disciplines of Fine Arts, Textiles and Interior Designing. This dance party was an event organised by JJ School of Architecture during their annual festival SAAWAN. The dance party in the image was not in our campus but in a hall in Colaba. I wonder if it still exists. We used to then dance like mad, to songs of ABBA and other such English bands. There was no Punjabi rock or rap in those days and there were definitely no intoxicants or alcohol. Nor did anyone have bottles stashed away in their car like today in Delhi. Some people were into soft drugs though no one ever experimented openly and definitely not at college functions. We lived, ate and dreamed of Art & Design. Our heroes were Picasso, Salvador Dali and Charles Correa. We were so absorbed in our passions, that failure or success was not the ultimate goal. A well known joke was that if one failed at JJ and was yet successful, it may be better because Charles Correa, one of India's most famous architect was JJ drop-out too. In those days, film stars like Parveen Babi flocked to our college to hear J Krishnamurti's lectures on Philosophy, on campus under the huge banyan tree while the sun set and the crows cawed. I was a boarder in Bombay. JJ did not have a girls hostel so we girls…

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