The Calcutta Scottish Heritage Trust is here primarily to work on the restoration of the Scottish Cemetery in Karaya. Lord Charles Bruce (in picture by Bishwarup Dutta), chairman of the trust, who thinks “Calcutta is as important as Venice”, said he has already identified other old links that his country has with this city, which he would like to bring under the purview of restoration projects.

One wonders if he has seen Duff College attached to Jorabagan police station that plays host to a jungle of parasites. He, however, made specific references to the jute mills and the engineers who were trained in Dundee.

Lord Bruce was speaking on Friday after his lecture titled “The Great Morning which is for all”, inspired by a line from Tagore at a British Council programme. He touched briefly on the cemetery project and “explored” “why the Scots ended up in India”. The Scots felt marginalised in many ways, although it was in India that they prospered.

Scottish institutions had left their mark on Calcutta. Derozio was a student of Drummond Academy. Raja Rammohun had backed David Hare’s endeavour to introduce Hindus to European teaching. William Hastie, the principal of Presidency College, suggested that his students visit Ramakrishna to experience Wordsworth’s state of mind in The Excursion. This led to the encounter between the mystic and the wandering monk Vivekananda.