Calcutta Rescue, a city-based NGO, recently held the Donna Todd Exhibition at Weavers Studio at 94 Ballygunge Place. The organisation operates clinics, some of them mobile, in rural and urban areas, providing free healthcare and medication to the disadvantaged for diseases, including cancer, tuberculosis and leprosy. Todd, an Australian photographer, has tried to capture the lives of Calcutta Rescue patients. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta

Faced possibly with Mamata Banerjee and her verbal vollies, the Left Front has turned to a new Muse. Ahead of the civic polls, many cellphone users have got a text message sent by TD-CPI(M), with a rhyme that neither really rhymes nor sticks to the metre or grammar, but gets the message across loud and clear. It goes: “Live without fear/ Drink water clear/Everyone to cheer/ Tell ur near & dear/ We are always here/ to meet ur needs with care. Vote for Left Front”. It is up to the Trinamul chief, also a poet, to counter this. Even if she doesn’t object to the style, she may to the content.

Family ties

Not often does one get to meet a family in Calcutta whose ancestors, arguably, date back to the time before Christ.

A website linked to www.ancestry.com was launched by the Nahar family members at a beautifully preserved mansion on Indian Mirror Street recently.

The Nahars are one of India’s oldest families. Belonging to the Oswal sect of Jains, the family traces its roots to Parmar Singh, a Kshatriya by birth. His descendant Ashdharji, who renounced Hinduism to become a Jain, assumed the title Nahar.

Kharag Singh, a later descendant, migrated from Rajasthan to Azimganj, Murshidabad, in 1776. On Jagat Seth’s request, he established trading posts in Calcutta and East Dinajpur, which now falls in Bangladesh. A small town in Dinajpur was renamed Setabganj by the government in recognition of the charitable work done by Setab Chan Nahar. The Sonamoyee Fateh Singh Nahar Higher Secondary School still stands in Hooghly district. Bengal had a deputy chief minister in Bijoy Singh Nahar.

Nahar family members launch the website. Picture by Aranya Sen

Family lore has it that as an infant, Ashdharji Nahar was stolen by a deity in the guise of a tigress and brought up in a forest.

The Nahars decided against seeking help from state institutions. The family learnt its lessons from experience. Manilal Nahar had donated valuable items to a room named after him in the Indian Museum. Most of these commodities, which included Mughal paintings, komarbandhaks and intricately woven saris from Murshidabad, are lost. Nirmal Singh Nahar, a senior trustee, said the family’s habit of recording events, along with Babu Abinash Chandra Das’s Nahar Vansa Brittanta (1896), proved invaluable to the research.

The poll candidates have promised to make Calcutta clean, green and comfortable. A band of youngsters showed them how. Students of Birla High School (Boys and Girls), La Martiniere for Boys and Girls and Modern High School joined a campaign by Calcutta police, PUBLIC, Response and Vodafone to create silence zones around nursing homes and hospitals. For over two weeks, the kids stood in the sun waving “no honking” placards and trying to raise awareness about noise pollution. (Anindya Shankar Ray)

Same to same

To come back to where we began: the municipal elections. The Trinamul and the Congress may have a problem with sharing votes, but not with sharing the mike. After the Congress held two high-decibel meetings on consecutive days in Salt Lake’s AE Block, despite objections from some residents, the Trinamul used the same public address system to hold a meeting on the third day. Result was the same: shattered ear drums.

(Contributed by Sudeshna Banerjee, Uddalak Mukherjee and Ahana Chaudhuri)