A number of interesting connections link the West of England with Kolkata. Shortly before coming to the Khoj workshop, I interviewed Jane Spray and Sydney Bryant about their family connections with the city. Jane’s grandfather, Sir Leonard Rogers, was a founder of the Calcutta School of Tropical Medicine. Generations of Sydney Bryant’s family lived in Calcutta. Sydney was born there in 1933, moving to England in 1947.
Raja Rammohun Roy died in Bristol on 27th September 1833. His tomb stands in Amos Vale Cemetery. He is further commemorated by a public sculpture located outside the Central Library close to Bristol Cathedral. The statue, made by the sculptor Niranjan Pradhan in Kolkata, was sited in 1997 to mark the 50th anniversary of India’s independence.
On a personal note – I spent my first 10 years in Assam, where my father was a tea planter and in Darjeeling at St. Andrews School. We often passed through Kolkata.