Sandip Roy

1 week ago | thehindu.com | Sandip Roy

The other day, my partner Bishan showed me a letter his mother had found. It was addressed to him, from his father, written in Bengali, just a few sentences long, each sentence in an ink of different colour. Bishan must have been a little boy at the time and didn’t remember getting it. There was nothing of great importance in it. Just a father writing to say he would be home soon and promising to bring colour pencils.

1 week ago | kalw.org | Sandip Roy

April 15 means Bengali New Year. Food friends New clothes. But the LAST day of the old year means the Charak Mela, the Charak Fair. FAIR SOUNDSThis is Sandip Roy in Kolkata. The entire street is blocked with rows of people sitting on the ground selling all kinds of knickknacks Little clay images of Gods, baskets, palm leaf puppets, wooden stools, flutes and drums. FLUTES and DRUMSBut the real attraction is inside the old Market.

2 weeks ago | kalw.org | Sandip Roy

SWARNA_SONGSwarna Chitrakar sings the song of the Sundarbans - the great mangrove forests of India. As she sings, she unrolls a scroll that shows life in the mangrove delta. SWARNA SONG1Tigers pursues a herd of multicolored fleeing deer. Snowy white birds fly over blue waters. A bearded sage sits in meditation at the mouth of the river. SC1: Aami nijey nijeyi korechi. Jegule dekhechi ogulo bhebeyi korechi.

3 weeks ago | htsyndication.com | Sandip Roy

New Delhi, April 4 -- Sundari tram amader, Sundarban (Our beautiful trams, our Sundarban). As Swarna Chitrakar sings about crouching tigers and trundling trams at the Esplanade tram terminus in Kolkata, she unrolls the scroll she has painted. Tigers pounce on a flock of fleeing deer. Snow-white cranes fly over blue waters and kingfishers swoop to catch fish.

3 weeks ago | livemint.com | Sandip Roy

The Sundarbans are a buffer that protects Kolkata from devastating cyclones. They also act as a huge carbon sink. But now carbon particles from Kolkata’s vehicles and burning trash are being deposited on the Sundarbans’ mangroves, says Abhijeet Chatterjee, a scientist with the Bose Institute. Trams are a way to lower carbon emissions and pollution. D’Andrea has designed little cards to drive home that message. He hands them out to curious onlookers peppering his spiel with smidgens of Bengali.