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Project Calcutta
Calcutta: City of Palaces. City guidebook by yours truly.
The Calcutta Chronicle. An amateur Internet monthly compilation of news items regarding development activities in Calcutta and its environs from various sources.
The Calcutta Cuisine. Dedicated to the gastronomic delights of, for and by Calcutta.
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From Granny's Cookbook
My grandmother, the late Renuka Devi Chatterji, or Thamma, as we called her, was a great cook. She cooked for special occasions only, or rather, it always became a special occasion when she cooked, but I can still remember her aloor dam, kochuri, dahi bada, chaat, pithey and pooli to this day. Thankfully for us, she was a very meticulous person and she documented every single recipe that she collected as she traveled first with her civil servant father around various towns in what used to be the United Provinces of Agra & Oudh in the erstwhile Indian Empire, and later with her husband to Lahore, Rawalpindi and Delhi.
The original cookbook today lies in the possession of her eldest grandson and my cousin Anandamoy, in Lucknow, India, while I convinced my father into giving me a photocopy of the same during my recent visit to India.
I am in the process of translating these recipes and posting them right here.
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Literary Mishaps
History records the fact that I wrote a lot during days of past glory. I wrote in The Marian Lookout, which was our school magazine, and one of my poems was actually put to music and sung by the school choir on Independence Day 1986, India's Independence Day, that is to say, on the fifteenth of August. And, yes, I did win a creative writing contest at a youth festival during my college days. My readers heaved a sigh of relief when the writer bug's alkaloid finally began to wear off after I gave up the pen for the keyboard. However, fate does not seem to be on their side. My mother wants me to resume writing as does one of my friends and mentors, Sumit Sinha of Calcutta and Baton Rouge fame, and my wife, Meenakshi's voice sounded almost cynical today, when she asked me for the umpteenth time since our wedding, "I am told that you used to write."
Well, so what does a poor man do? I guess I am going to take to writing soon and you would find them right here.
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My Family & Friends
The Chatterji family in the living room of their home in Meerut.Seated left to right, Professor Paresh N. Chatterji, Arpita Chatterji and Mrs. Ashima Chatterji. Standing left to right, Ashutosh Chatterji, Dr. Nupur Chatterji and Meenakshi Chatterji
My Father. If you went to college in India and studied mathematics there is a good chance that you know him already as an author. A great teacher and a social worker. I plan to have links to the pages of the many charitable organizations he is associated with, right here, some day.
My Mother. A former lecturer of English and a veteran amateur radio singer [All India Radio, New Delhi and Lucknow/Radio Kashmir, Jammu and Srinagar 1947-72], she is a lady of many qualities. She is a natural stage performer. She can sing a song that she has not rehearsed in years amidst a hall full of strangers and walk away with applause, and she can give an inspirational speech at less than a minute's notice. I plan to have recordings of her last radio broadcast from All India Radio, New Delhi as well as a few other recordings as soon as I can.
My Sister. A doctorate in biochemistry, she is a lecturer in a post-graduate college in India, and needless to say, continues with her research in biochemistry. I wish I had a tenth of her organizational skills, for which she has been known since she was a child. I plan to have links to her resume, doctoral thesis and other publications here.
My Wife. Meenakshi works two jobs during the week, as full-time keeper of our daughter and myself. Needless to say the second one is a lot more difficult than the first. She works part-time on weekends, too, either as the picture perfect hostess or as a navigator aboard the Chatterji One, our Honda Accord sedan, across twenty-four of the fifty US of A, so far.
My Daughter. Arpita is the most important person in the family and that is all the more evident from her credentials. At age one month, she began escorting her grandmother and parents to the various tourist attractions of her country by birth. She has slept through the Shamu whale show at Sea World Ohio when she was a month old. She has gazed with apparent boredom at Minnie Mouse doting over her at Disney World when she was two months old. She got her passport when she was fourteen days old and has already visited four countries in three continents, in the one year of her existence so far. As one of my co-workers put it, she has more frequent flier mileage than the average American does. Click here to see her pictures.
Debasish Datta. My senior in college, was practically my local guardian until he graduated a year before me. Works for Siemens as an Instrumentation Engineer and lives in Calcutta with his wife Patrali. Click here to see his resume.
Shantanu Som. My junior in college, was my co-author on two of my three technical publications. We mentored each other through college and continue to do so to this day. Shantanu works as an engineering consultant in Bombay, India. Shantanu was the first of my friends to tie the knot, almost three years ago. He and his wife Tanusree have just been blessed with a bonny baby boy, Pratip a few weeks ago. The pictures are in the mail, but shall be available here shortly.
Khurshid Usmani. My maverick, philanthropic ex-co-worker friend, who is as unpredictable and uninsurable as I am. Between the two of us, we can convince each other and ourselves, about anything that we darned well please. I would really not risk recommending a visit to his web page. However, his page is really interesting and has some useful links, so you might venture a visit, at your risk of course. Incidentally, Khurshid is presently on a state visit to India to marry Miss Saba Rizvi of Bokaro, who had answered positively to his slightly off-note rendition of "Hello, is it me you are looking for…" on the streets of various towns in Eastern India, last December.
Engagement picture of Khurshid and Saba.
Nirmalendu Patra. Another of my ex-coworker-roommate friends, had dreamt he would work in Silicon Valley when he was two, and has made it right there. When he is not working past seven ante meridian on C++, and is not hurtling down the slopes of the mountains around Lake Tahoe, Nirmalendu acts as a catalyst for better understanding between the American, Indian and Japanese peoples. I was positive that he had a web site somewhere and when I find it again, you can click here to check it out.
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Antara Arts
This page is for my little niece, actually a cousin by Western tradition, since she is a cousin's daughter, who draws lovely cards for sale. I plan to have some of her cards on display in this page.
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Last Revised: Monday, April 05, 1999