Sifra Lentin, Mumbai History Fellow, Gateway House, moderated a panel discussion on ‘Tea and Tangra: tracing Calcutta’s multi-ethnicities’ at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival on 12 February.
The panelists included Amit Chaudhuri, Kamalika Bose and Rafeeq Ellias.
Rafeeq Ellias began his career in 1969 with the Bombay office of McCann Ericsson where he worked for 5 years. After moving to Japan and returning to India to start his own photography firm, Rafeeq turned to film making. In 2003, Rafeeq made his landmark film “The Legend of Fat Mama” for BBC World on the Chinese community in Kolkata. The opening film of BBC’s China Week, it was broadcast in over 200 countries, besides winning two National Awards, the best film at MIFF 2006 and runner-up at the Asian Broadcast Awards in Singapore. The film has been screened at festivals in New York, Seattle, Toronto, Manchester, Barcelona and Oslo.
Kamalika Bose a Fulbright scholar from Cornell University, has done extensive research on Kolkata’s architectural heritage which informs her conservation approach for the city’s historic areas. She has assisted in several conservation projects in New York, Kolkata and Rajasthan, and conducted heritage education, research, and conservation. She is an assistant professor at the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT) in Ahmedabad. Kamalika works on better documenting the rich-built heritage of the Chinese is for the Cha Project, an initiative to preserve Kolkata’s rich history, not glassed up in a museum but tangible, living heritage.
Amit Chaudhuri was born in Calcutta in 1962 and grew up in Bombay. He was a student at the Cathedral and John Connon School, Bombay, took his first degree, in English, from University College London, and wrote his doctoral dissertation on D H Lawrence’s poetry at Balliol College, Oxford. He is married to Rosinka Chaudhuri, and they have one daughter, Aruna.He is the author of six novels, the latest of which is Odysseus Abroad. His first major work of non-fiction, Calcutta: Two Years in the City, was published in the UK and India in 2013. It was published by Knopf in the US in September 2013. His second book of essays, Telling Tales, was published in the UK in August 2013.
Sifra (Samuel) Lentin is a Mumbai-based writer and historian, and the Mumbai History Fellow at Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. She graduated in English from Elphinstone College, Mumbai, and went on to complete her Bachelor’s in General Law (BGL) from the Government Law College, Mumbai. She has written for a wide spectrum of Bombay-based newspapers and magazines – most notably Mid-Day, The Times of India, The Sunday Observer, Hindustan Times, Taj Magazine, JetWings and One India One People. She has also been published in two books: MARG’s ‘Indian Jewish Heritage – Ritual, Life-Cycle & Art’(2002), and One India One People’s book on Communities of India (2006). She is also on the Board of Trustees of the Sir Jacob Sassoon School (Byculla, Mumbai).