For the next few days, the world will be focused on Cop-26 in Glasgow. Security will be tight so I would be surprised if protesters on issues like the farmers’ dispute or Kashmir get anywhere near Narendra Modi. Incidentally, Glasgow is a city I know well since my first big paper job was with the Glasgow Herald — I was based at 56, Fleet Street, London. I found the Scots to be the most generous people in the world.
The Cop-26 president, Alok Sharma, is also someone I have known for a long time. I first got to know his father, Prem Sharma, a real pioneer who supported the Conservatives in Reading, which his son now represents in Parliament. Boris Johnson has given Alok quite a job in trying to get some 200 countries to agree to restrict the global temperature rise to below 1.5 degree Celsius. Looking at it narrowly, I feel something has to be done to tackle the worsening flooding in Calcutta. My brother-in-law tells me water entered properties in Belgachia. London has upgraded its storm drains and yet I am witnessing frequent flash flooding in many parts of the city.
What is happening to the world’s climate is told very simply in a 24-minute animated film, Songs of the Earth, made by Soumik Datta, a young sarod player in London. The film, commissioned by the British Council, is due to be premiered at Cop-26 in Glasgow, with delegates being given a preview at 10, Downing Street. The film follows a little girl, Asha, a “climate refugee from Bengal, as she searches for her missing father through the flood banks of the Sundarban delta, burning forests and melting polar ice caps”. I have seen the film — it reminds me a little of the magical “Walking in the Air” from The Snowman and also Kipling’s The Jungle Book.
Leading role
Subhas Chandra Bose. File photo
In Abir Mukherjee’s new novel, The Shadows of Men, his fifth featuring Captain Sam Wyndham and Sergeant Surendranath Banerjee, the year is 1923 and Calcutta is engulfed in communal flames over the murder of a Hindu theologian. I am a third of the way through and intrigued by the appearance of “Subhasda”. He finds it ironic when Wyndham urges Britain’s nemesis to use his influence to stem the violence.
This is Wyndham’s assessment of the future Netaji: “Like Suren, Bose was a Cambridge man and, by all accounts, just as full of himself.”
I notice that Abir has got Suren to speak a lot more Bengali, with saheb readers left to work out the meaning from the context.
Abir says that it is “a nice surprise the new book has been chosen by The Sunday Times as its book of the month for November. The FT has also featured it in their books of the month. The Times is also going to feature it among its historical fiction books of the month.”
Old ties
Apurv Bagri, the president and CEO of the metals group, Metdist, has been giving some thought to how he might mark his father’s Calcutta connection. Lord Raj Kumar Bagri, who died in 2017, aged 86, was born in Calcutta in 1930. He began at 15 as a filing clerk with the Binani Metals group, arriving in London in 1959 and rising to be chairman of the London Metal Exchange from 1993 to 2002. Apurv assures me that his father’s “affection for Calcutta never changed till the day he died. He regarded it almost as his spiritual home.” Apurv and his daughters, Aditi and Amisha, have a financial services company with deep roots in rural India. During the pandemic, it “bought oxygenators and paid for the vaccination of tens of thousands of people in the communities we serve. We have a very, very strong network across West Bengal.”
Tough questions
The BBC’s University Challenge posed “three questions on Hindu festivals” when four students from Emmanuel College, Cambridge, battled their counterparts from the Royal Northern College of Music. These were: “Which North Indian spring festival celebrates the story of Vishnu in his lion-man avatar, saving his devotee Prahlad? Celebrations can involve a bonfire, followed by the throwing of colours...
“Commemorating Vishnu’s dwarf avatar and the subsequent homecoming of the mythical King Mahabali, the harvest festival of Onam is celebrated in which southern Indian state? Festivities include a boat race and a tiger dance.
“The festival of Janmashtami celebrates the birth of which avatar of Vishnu born in... Mathura? He plays a major role in the Mahabharata.” Emmanuel correctly said, “Holi”, “Kerala” and “Krishna”.
Meanwhile, on BBC Radio 4’s Brain of Britain, four contestants could not collectively answer questions sent in by a listener, Gurmit Singh: “In the fictional world, the character Sancho Panza, the companion of Don Quixote in Cervantes’s famous novel, is awarded a territory to govern as part of a prank. Can you name this territory?” The answer is: “Barataria Island.” Gurmit’s second question was: “In the real world, where can one find a genuine place called Barataria Bay?” The answer is: “The Gulf of Mexico on the coast of Louisiana, south of New Orleans.” Gurmit received (canned) applause — and a book token.
Footnote
Rishi Sunak with his dog, Nova. Twitter
There is no vacancy in 10, Downing Street, with prime minister, Boris Johnson, firmly in charge. But political journalists accuse the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, and the foreign secretary, Liz Truss (who was in India last week), of being on “manoeuvres” ahead of a possible future contest for the top job. This impression gained strength when ahead of the budget this week, “Dishy Rishi” released informal pictures of himself with his cute dog, Nova.
