Crowds cheered, forgetting memories of colonial past: Queens rendezvous with Calcutta

People flocked from all parts of the city which had at one time been seen as the strongest opponent of the British Raj on a broad boulevard called Chowringhee, jostling for a vantage point to see the daughter of the King Emperor they had fought Queen Elizabeth II. Prof Aloke Kumar of IIM Calcutta, remembered the visit of the young Queen of Great Britain to Kolkata, then Calcutta, on a winter morning 61 years ago, when he was a five-year-old child as a fairy Book Pop-up, where cheering onlookers look up to find this beautiful lady in her tiara and white gloves waving and smiling at you. And then she was gone.

The Queen, who died on September 8 at the age of 96 having reigned the United Kingdom for 70 years, came to the city during her visit to the Indian subcontinent in February 1961. Calcutta had been the epicentre of the revolutionary fever that swept India in the first half of the century where the Congress, Forward Bloc, Communists and armed revolutionaries from groups such as Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar had their strongholds. The streets which had a decade-and-a-half back reverberated with the slogans `Vande Mataram and `Jai Hind and the sound of bombs, saw cheering for a Queen.

Among other places, she visited Victoria Memorial Hall, a marble edifice erected in memory of her great-great-grandmother in 1921, and the Royal Calcutta Turf Club, set up in 1847 by British enthusiasts. The queen was accompanied by her husband Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. And it was during their journey to RCTC that Kumar as a nursery class student had a glimpse of the royal visitors, which was etched in his memory.

Kumars mother brought him and his siblings to a relatives house on Chowringhee Road in central Kolkata as the Queens cavalcade was supposed to pass in front of it.

It seemed that the whole of Calcutta had landed at their home. But they were not grudging. What an occasion! As we settled a bit, we found the sweepers cleaning the road. The Bhistis with their leather bag douching water to prevent dust from flying, Kumar told

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Federal staff and is auto-published from a syndicated feed.)