After 30 years endangered Gangetic Dolphins return to Hooghly amidst Lockdown!

Can you imagine endangered Dolphins playing along Baboo Ghat! Well, this is not a story of fiction, but a true picture of the critically endangered Dolphins coming back to the River Hooghly thanks to the lack of pollution and silence of the Lockdown.

The South Asian River Dolphins are critically endangered and for almost three decades they had vanished from the waters of Hooghly. Now they are being regularly spotted near the ghats, thanks to the reduced water pollution, due to the lockdown. The water quality in Hooghly river has improved significantly due to reduced pollution and industrial activity. In a recent interview to the media, Biswajit Roy Chowdhury, a senior environmental activist stated he spotted a couple of dolphins at Babooghat. Gangetic Dolphins are the only freshwater dolphins in the world and hence are a nature’s delight.

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Also read : Homecoming for Kolkata’s birds during Corona Lockdown

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However, 30 years ago, these rare Gangetic dolphins were regular visitors along the shores of Kolkata but were forced to leave their habitat (Hooghly river) due to increased water pollution and human activity. In a study conducted in 2017 by the Worldwide Fund for Nature-India, it was found that the population of Gangetic dolphins was barely 1,200 to 1,800. And, apart from pollution, one of the biggest threat to their existence in the Hooghly river was human activity and big water transport. Now thanks to the Lockdown, they are playing in large numbers along the ghats of Kolkata!

‘Bengali women are Special’ : Actor Irrfan Khan is no more!

What was perfection for one of the best actors of Bollywood, Irrfan Khan? Learning Bengali for Mostofa Sarwar Farooki’s movie, where the director wanted none other than Irrfan as he knew the movie could be pulled out in a mix of English and Bengali dialect by none other than Irrfan! He had many dialogues that had to be spoken in Bengali. Irrfan’s international movie ventures were phenomenal by then, from Hollywood to Canadian movies and then mixed dialogue movies from Bangladesh. Having a Bengali wife, Sutapa Sikdar, at home, Irrfan could always speak fluent Bengali and often spoke words in Bangla during his interviews. But for this particular movie the actor had to brush up his Bengali skills and pronunciation, as in Bangladesh the Bengali dialect is different. In 2016, when Irrfan started the movie, he was so perfect in his picking up the Bengali diction of the way Bangaals speak, that even the director was stunned.

A still from the movie DOOB (No Bed of Roses)

Way back in 2013, at an ‘India Today Mind Rocks Youth Summit,’ he even tried singing a Bengali song when asked to sing on stage. He chose the Bengali song ‘Ami Chini Go Chini Tomare Ogo Bideshini’ pulling it off as a chorus with someone from the audience. At an interview in 2017 while in Kolkata, Irrfan said that famous line: ‘Bengali Women Are Special.’ No wonder that love was seen in the famous movie Piku, where the actor pulled off in the role of a man helping a Bengali woman in handling her father travel and the journey depicted in the process was phenomenal. Even in real life Irrfan was married to his National School of Drama classmate Sutapa Sikdar, from where they graduated and they have two sons. Irrfan Khan’s death will leave a deep void in the world of meaningful movies and we are deeply saddened at his untimely demise.

Eminent singer Santidev Ghosh called some voices ‘uncultured!’ Why?

Mohan Singh always believed Rabindrasangeet should have the inner soul expressed in its rendition. For him the tune and the feeling with which the words are sung was of prime importance. In his lifetime, the singer had primarily chosen the lesser known songs of Tagore. He gave a lot of emphasis to Riwaz and while doing so he always held that singing cannot be learnt like a parrot’s talk. It has to be felt. Songs like Bhalobashi Bhalobashi and Jaagey Nath Jochna Raate cannot be sung with the same nuances, they need to be delivered understanding the meaning of their words that would bring out the imagery before the listener’s eyes.

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Also read : Singer Mohan Singh’s beloved son Bikram, a talented musician died young

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Mohan Singh feels these days many songs are sung as if one would fall asleep. This kind of rendition is what Santidev Ghosh used to call as ‘uncultured’ delivery of songs/tune. Ghosh used to say tune and rhythm are the fundamental pillars of music. Without them, the audience can never be attracted towards a song. Rabindranath Tagore himself believed in this and hence always emphasized the need to learn classical music first. That is also a reason why many classical musicians and ustads were brought to Santiniketan to take classes in Sangeet Bhavan.

Transcribed from an original interview of Mohan Singh Khangura taken by Arpita Chatterjee

NIT Durgapur students build ‘Pranesh,’ an economic ventilator for COVID-19 patients

National Institute of Technology (NIT) Durgapur has developed an affordable, plug-and-use and easily maintainable semi-automatic Ambu Bag ventilator system in close collaboration and supervision of clinical physicians. A bag valve mask (BVM) has been in use for more than fifty years and is usually named as Ambu Bag. It is a manual resuscitator and self-inflating bag and a hand-held medical apparatus, which is commonly used to provide positive pressure ventilation to the patients, who suffer from inadequate breathing. A face mask is plugged over the patient’s airway and the required amount of oxygen is pumped by squeezing the Ambu bag at a rate of 12 to 16 breaths per minute for adults. The bag can be repeatedly squeezed out and re-inflated rapidly to resuscitate the patients by providing adequate oxygen. The same Ambu bag can be used to provide assisted ventilation through endotracheal tube to Covid-19 patients.

At a time when an increase in number of COVID-19 patients can lead to a shortage of ventilators in India, this Ambu Bag ventilator can come to the rescue. Generally, this medical apparatus is hand operated by highly skilled health-staff and getting so many staff engaged for each patient can be a problem in the current situation where the number of patients is quite high. Therefore, the present situation demands automatic pressurization of the Ambu bag and an affordable but reliable mechanism for the same. The mechanized Ambu Bag ventilator invented by NIT Durgapur students is economic, simple and amenable to easy production. The required clinical parameters of Ambu bag pressurization, such as strokes per minute, volume per stroke, etc can be controlled mechanically. A wonderful name has been given to these ventilators — PRANESH. Indeed, they will act as a messiah of life, or praan. The systems have been clinically tested and till now have been found satisfactory enough for crisis situations meeting the clinical requirements.

In case a large number of COVID 19 cases are reported, these ventilators can supplement a regular ventilator. The model can also be attached to each ICU bed and ambulances with slight modification. The key developers of this project were Dr. Nirmal Baran Hui, Dr. Nilanjan Chattaraj and Dr. Hardik Rajyaguru and the team under Prof. Anupam Basu are ready to help in the commercial production of this ventilator if need be.

‘Yes, I heal, Yes I breathe’ – Mother Nature’s open letter to Humans

Dear Humans,

I am breathing at last, yes my wounds are healing too, my sky looks crystal clear, not a tinge of soot and smoke and my birds sing in glee. All my creatures have found their homes on the silent and abandoned city streets as you went back to your confinement, within the four walls of your homes. Yes, COVID-19 virus has probably made you realize at last how a caged bird or a zoo animal feels as you enjoy their lack of freedom, as you force them behind bars.

Yes, I am breathing at last, my own pool of oxygen that has risen above the loads of carbon emission that your vehicles and factories produce daily, scripting my slow poisoning tale, pushing me to eminent death. I shed tears as my clouds pour down acid rains, heavy with sulphur and nitrogen-di-oxide, choking my every breath, every joy and every free alveolus. My heart skips a rhythm as you chop off one tree after the other, clearing forests to set up industries and mines and what not! From the deadly forest fires of Australia to that of the Amazon, from the bush fires of Susunia Hills of Bankura to the jungles of Kenya, I burn and you hold seminars talking of zero-carbon emission and global warming. A lot of discussions, but no actions on ground ever. Across the globe, every government makes tall talks about climate change, but refuses to sign an agreement to cut down carbon emissions.

You breed, you take away the natural habitat of my animals and birds. I watch helplessly, as the arctic snows melt, as a starved mother Polar Bear walks around trying to feed its cub that would probably die in hunger, I shed tears watching the Amazon rainforest burn, killing exotic macaws, I watch in shame as you chain the Orangutans of Indonesia’s largest rainforests to make them work as slaves! Now you have no control. They are roaming free, they are happy. Peacocks are spreading their hue on the roads of Rajasthan, deer and even leopards are roaming city streets, monitor lizards walking past busy thoroughfares in Bengal and all my birds enjoying the silence of the urbanscape. For them and for me, it’s a new found love, that you robbed us off, decades ago in the name of modern urbanization.

Yes, I heal at last, a reboot button, pressed by none other than me. You killed even my wildlife, cooked them into meals, you did not even spare the flying mammals – the bats, or even a rare pangolin, you ate them too, bringing in a deadly virus that invades you and today you stand helpless. As you die, I heal. But believe me, humans and Mother Nature should have lived in harmony, only if you could have controlled your greed. You could not, I silently bled. Till now, when I smile again, and enjoy my freedom. Yet, I shall still keep giving you flowers, to be put on your graves and hold the hands of your new generation and let them play again on my green fields. Let them learn what harmony and love is all about. I promise, once you rise from these embers, you too will heal. Best of Luck. May you win over a tiny virus and learn to conserve me to avoid such a pandemic again in future.

Sending you a whiff of my rain-soaked breeze to heal you too.

Mother Nature

Tribute to Abhay Mitra, the master juggler of Joy Baba Felunath

Remember that scene from Satyajit Ray’s famous Feluda movie, Joy Baba Felunath, where Jatayu puts up a brave face as Magan Laal Meghraj’s juggler Arjun hits one dagger after the other showing a dangerous jugglery game? Though on-screen all saw Kamu Mukherjee in the role of the dagger thrower, the real hero who acted as his dummy was famous juggler Abhay Mitra. We find Mitra again cast in Phatikchand — playing the dummy, again, for a flame-catching Kamu Mukherjee — and Goopi Bagha Phire Elo, where he played himself on screen, balancing on rollers while juggling two hammers and a ball.

Abhay Mitra is often known as Ray’s juggler and he passed away last week, leaving behind a dying art whose reins he had one day taken up to keep the art of jugglery alive. He was so passionate about jugglery that he even set up an institute, his long-cherished dream and the first of its kind in the country. The institute that will train budding jugglers in an art that is inching towards extinction. Academy of Juggling at the Boy Scouts of Bengal tent on Maidan ran for free almost as Mitra had a wish that the younger generation would take up this art form and keep it alive.

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Also read : Meeting Manohar Aich, the man who hit the gym even at 100!

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Mitra himself had inherited the skill from his father, Kalosona Mitra, who died when he was just seven, has now passed it on to his children. His institute takes in any kid between six and 16 years of age and even admits physically-challenged and mentally-retarded children for Mitra always believed juggling in step with the rhythm of music, work wonders for such children.

Despite being a low profile person, Mitra had travelled the globe showcasing his skills. The past took him to Paris, saw him work with the legendary Satyajit Ray, meeting Mother Teresa, magician P.C. Sorcar (Jr) and so many more. From dagger-throwing act, to juggling balls and pins, to ball-and-stick-and-hammer-juggling, ribbon-dancing, sword-balancing, hat-throwing act,  and many more, Mitra was always happy to bring a smile to all.

After having staged more than 5,000 shows in the past 50 years, Mitra’s death will leave a deep void and his intent to spread the magic of juggling far and wide might take a back seat. Still his students would probably keep the show going. Hope Bengal’s jugglery would survive.

Dr Niladri Konar of London not just won over Corona, but dedicated his life treating patients

Like many Corona warriors across the world, Dr Niladri Konar, a doctor treating COVID-19 patients in a London Hospital, himself got infected by this deadly virus. However, the virus has failed to put him down. He not just won over the virus, his dedication to his work made him return to the hospital within days after testing negative and recovery.

As Dr Konar put in: “There is a huge dearth of doctors in hospitals in UK treating Corona patients as most hospitals are working beyond capacity and many medical practitioners are also infected or quarantined. So, I felt the need to join as soon as possible.” An alumnus of SSKM and Ramkrishna Mission Narendrapur, 32-year-old Dr Konar is a specialist in treating COVID patients and is a frontline medical worker in this hour of crisis. He moved to UK in 2017 and was on a night-shift in his hospital treating Corona patients when he started feeling fatigued and gradually over the next few days he developed all symptoms of COVID-19 and developed fever, cough, lack of smell etc.

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Also read : Bengali scientists develop a coating to contain infectivity of Corona virus

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As Konar said the situation in UK is very grim and almost 100 patients are getting admitted daily in his hospital and many more are dying all over the country. Also as he pointed out there is lack of protective PPE suits as a result of which doctors and nurses are easily getting infected while treating patients. However, Dr Konar felt his first need was to serve the patients and the minute he tested negative, he decided to join back work. Kudos to such doctors and medical professionals who are fighting the disease without thinking about their own lives.

Cab driver Md Saidul hands over Baruipur hospital he built to treat Corona patients

He had saved every penny of his income and built a hospital a couple of years ago in Baruipur for the poor and needy of the locality. Cab driver Md Saidul Lashkar has again come forward during these difficult times of crisis and has handed over his hospital to the state government to be used as a Corona quarantine centre.

Saidul had built this 55-bed two-storied hospital in memory of his sister Marufa Khatun who died due to lack of treatment and absence of a proper medical facility in the locality. Saidul knew what was the need of the society then and even now. A hospital to treat the poor. The Corona crisis again reminds us all that what we need again are hospitals, more and more of them to keep in quarantine or isolation positive COVID-19 patients and treat them.

The BDO and administrative officials will now look into the hospital and have already sent the report to the State Health Ministry as to how to use it as a quarantine facility. Other than donating the hospital, Saidul has also donated cash to the CM fund. Hope Bengal gets more such brave-hearts and silent Corona warriors like Saidul.

Did you know famous actor Balraj Sahani taught in Santiniketan?

Mohan Singh Khangura’s journey to Santiniketan is intrinsically linked to his association with renowned cine and theatre actor, Balraj Sahni. Sahni spent a brief period of time at Visva Bharati teaching English at Patha Bhavana. Mohan’s cousin, Harwant Singh Sekhu was Sahni’s friend. Both were born in the same village and went abroad together for higher studies. Thus the Sahni and Khangura families were on friendly terms and knew each other very well. Mohan had heard about Santiniketan from Balraj Sahni.

But Mohan’s elder brother, who was in the police force, took the main initiative to contact Visva Bharati for Mohan’s admission. He had known an NCC Subedar who was at that time posted in Santiniketan. He called up his contact and told him about his polio-afflicted younger brother who wanted to pursue music, but it was not possible for him to stay in any Ustad’s home for training (Taalim) because of his physical disability. So, he specified his requirement: his family was scouting for a well-known University, where Mohan could study and learn music. The Subedar praised the University at Santiniketan and assured him it was one of the very best in the country where the best musicians from all over the country came to teach. The Subedar’s recommendation impressed young Mohan who then wrote a letter to the then Vice Chancellor of Visva Bharati, Santidev Ghosh, seeking admission.

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Also read : Eminent singer Mohan Singh shares his love story and how he picked up Bengali

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Ranadhir Roy aka Tuku was Mohan’s bosom pal. With Tuku’s help, Mohan began to discover Santiniketan, its flora and fauna and the distinguished guests and lecturers who flocked here from all corners of the world. Their friendship was not restricted to the physical world, but it transcended physical boundaries and soared towards a spiritual quest. Their bonding was very strong. Tuku never ever made Mohan feel that he had a disability that restricted his movements. Tuku always encouraged Mohan and inspired him to break free and move on despite his handicap. He would motivate Mohan to set high goals and strive to reach the sky. After all, what is there in this transient life except soaring high up in the sky. And ofcourse there is music, melody, love, Bengali language and Rabindranath, Tuku would say.

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Also read : Mohan Singh Khangura recalls lessons with his teacher Nemai Chand Boral

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Once Mohan Singh was sitting with Tuku on the banks of the canal on a moonlit night.  Suddenly they noticed two men emerging from the Sal forest of Sonajhuri. They could not identify them, but they were approaching the canal. Who were they? As they came closer, both Mohan and Tuku recognized them. They were artist Ramkinkar Baij and filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak. Ramkinkar pointed a finger at Mohan and told Ritwik, “You know, this boy sings very well. I visit Sangeet Bhavana daily to listen to him doing Riyaz (practice).” Ritwik Ghatak smiled briefly and both nature and Rabindranath seemed to corroborate this gesture. Perhaps one particular Rabindrasangeet was playing in the minds of both Ritwik Ghatak and Mohan Singh and the song must have been, Aaj jotsna rate shobai gyachhe bonay/ Bosonter ei matal sameeronay….

Ramkinkar Baij was a wonderful human being. Once, he decided to plant a sapling but before that he wanted Mohan to sing a Guru Nanak’s Bhajan (Shabad). He summoned for Mohan who was at the canteen then. Mohan rushed to meet his Kinkar-Da.

Transcribed from an original interview of Mohan Singh Khangura taken by Arpita Chatterjee

Mungpoo in Darjeeling might play a role to fight Corona

If you have ever travelled the picturesque road to Mungpoo cutting across the dense forests on the foothills of the Himalayas, you probably would catch up with your tour guide’s proposed destination of Tagore Museum. The place where Rabindranath Tagore spent his time often and even wrote some of his famous poems. But little would you realize that hundreds of acres of plantation that you traversed through, can one day come to the rescue of mankind.

The world scrambles to increase the production of Hydroxychloroquinine, a derivative of quinine and chloroquinine, originally extracted from the bark of Cinchona plants. Dr Samuel Rai, Director of Cinchona Plantation in Darjeeling, sees a ray of hope to revive the plantations of Mungpoo. He said: “We are hopeful that the government will increase the capacity of Cinchona production that can be tested as a natural medicine to fight the Corona menace and any future shortage of anti-malarial drug Hydroxychloroquinine.” In the past Dr Rai made great efforts to trace the Scottish doctor’s family who had set up the rare medicinal plantation in Bengal during British rule.

As Dr Rai points out: “Right now due to Lockdown our factories are closed but we shall start operations immediately after it is lifted and will look into it if the Cinchona barks can be a natural substitute to the anti-malarial drugs being used to treat Corona patients.”

The British authorities in India started Cinchona cultivation in late1850s. Initially at Ootacamund (present Ooty) followed by Darjeeling and Sikkim, Ceylon (present Sri Lanka), and few other hilly areas. It was very difficult then but with the passage of time, the cultivation practices improved and changed. During both World War I & II, Cinchona played a vital role because during those days, out of ten soldiers, eight used to get hospitalized due to malaria and not for any war related injuries. So, Cinchona plants from which the malarial drug quinine was extracted played a vital role in saving lives of soldiers.

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Also read : Mungpoo’s Cinchona Plantation now grows coffee!

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Later, all other plantations were closed down, except the one in Mungpoo. Experimentation is going on with this unique medicinal plant and efforts are being made to revive its lost glory. A Scottish doctor named Dr Thomas Anderson, had harvested this medicinal plant and saved malaria patients in Bengal and India. Darjeeling’s famous Coronation Bridge also known as Bag Pool was named after him as Anderson Bridge.

Cinchona is harvested in a traditional method during November-February, for which the entire plant is cut and the bark is removed right from main trunk to smallest branches by beating with a wooden hammer. People like Subroto Manna of Darjeeling KVK and his team are working on the project to remove the Cinchona barks mechanically and not by hand that will increase the capacity of the plantation.

As Dr Rai points out: “Right now due to Lockdown our factories are closed but we shall start operations immediately after it is lifted and will look into it if the Cinchona barks can be a natural substitute to the anti-malarial drugs being used to treat Corona patients.”