[BITList] Fwd: She is the Howrah Bridge

[John Feltham]

From a correspondent…



The graceful old lady, at 75, is intertwined with the image of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). She is the Howrah Bridge. For, this bridge, straddling the twin cities of Kolkata and Howrah across the Hooghly river, has been a living entity, written about in poems and prose, evocatively captured as the backdrop in Gunday, Barfi!, Love Aaj Kal, and the English film on Dominique Lapierre's book City of Joy.

Old-timers also remember Howrah Bridge with Ashok Kumar and Madhubala, made in 1958 by Shakti Samanta. Of Bengali films with the bridge as the backdrop, there are so many that it does not need elaboration.

The bridge is also associated with the humongous Howrah Junction railway station connecting the east with the rest of India. It is the country's oldest railway junction. Academy Award-nominated 2016 film Lion, based on a true story, is about a poor boy from the hinterland who arrives at the station after taking a wrong train. That he landed in an orphanage and was adopted by an Australian couple to become an author after discovering his roots is another story.

Anyone landing at the Howrah station usually takes the bridge to cross over to Kolkata.
 
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/667649/from-here.html <http://www.deccanherald.com/content/667649/from-here.html>
 


ooroo



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/pipermail/bitlist/attachments/20180402/652f98ba/attachment.html>