Kolkata, June 8 (Calcutta Tube) With the FIFA World Cup in South Africa only three days away, celebrities of the soccer-mad city Kolkata are rescheduling their routine logbook to watch their favourite players and teams in action.

Writers, singers and actors here are either rooting for eternal favourites Brazil or giving their thumbs up for Latin American powerhouse Argentina.

Some feel that the samba magic will again see Brazil finish at the top, while others believe that Lionel Messi’s wizardry would see Argentina through in the month-long competition beginning June 11.

‘My favourite team is Argentina. I am banking a lot on Lionel Messi,’ said leading singer Indranil Sen.

‘I am a die hard soccer fan. My favourite always Brazil,’ said Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay, a writer popular among both teenagers and adults.

But writer Abul Bashar has a different team in mind.

‘I am banking on Brazil but I will also have an eye on Turkey,’ said Bashar.

The celebs have decided to rearrange their busy schedule to watch the maximum number of matches on TV in the month-long soccer carnival. They have also started preparing to savour the late night action.

‘During this time I have to write many stories for the special Durga Puja numbers of magazines. But still I will take out time to see most of the matches. I will even watch the late night games,’ said Shirshendu.

Indrananil Sen echoes Shirshendu.

Saikar Mitra, another popular singer, is a bit choosy about the late night offerings on the soccer pitches in South Africa.

‘Brazil is my first favourite. Spain is my second favourite. If there are good matches then I will surely watch late night contests. And I will surely fix up my schedule so that there is enough room to watch the games,’ said Mitra.

Stage and screen actor Kaushik Sen, an ardent Argentine fan, knows that late night games would impact his professional commitments next day. But the World Cup is a never-to-miss event.

‘In our profession we cannot reschedule our engagements. So even if I watch late night matches I will make sure that all other important engagements are attended properly,’ said Sen.

Kolkata, which is popularly known as the Mecca of Indian Football, is a major centre of football activity in India and home of top national football clubs such as Mohun Bagan AC, Mohammedan Sporting Club and East Bengal.

Kolkata, June 3 (Calcutta Tube) Sova Bazar palace, a historic residence in the Indian metropolitan city Kolkata built in the 18th century by Raja Nabakrishna Deb, a member of the aristocracy, has for the first time embarked on a makeover of its main living quarters and courtyard. The Kolkata chapter of conservation body Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (Intach) is the nodal agency for the restoration project.

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0"><tr><td><img src="" /><td></tr><tr><td><td></tr></table>‘We have started renovating the Thakur Dalan, the venue of one of the oldest Durga Puja (of the Deb family) for which the palace is famous across the country,’ Rathin Deb, a trustee of the board of Sova Bazar Rajbari and a member of Intach, told IANS.

The Thakur Dalan courtyard of the palace is steeped in history. It hosted Kolkata’s first Durga Puja in 1757, the year Bengal fell at the Battle of Plassey. The puja was attended by Warren Hastings and Lord Clive.

Archives cites that it was at the ‘dalan’ that Swami Vivekananda was accorded a civic reception on his return from the Parliament of World Religions in Chicago in 1893.

‘The courtyard has five ornate arches. We have brought a group of artisans and restorers from Murshidabad who are currently restoring the intricate ornamental design on the arches. The facade of the arches was crumbling.

‘Eventually, we will renovate the entire residential quarters of the palace,’ Deb said.

The Heritage Commission of West Bengal, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and the board of trustees managing the palace have agreed to fund the project as and when required.

Intach will also source funds from agencies both inside and outside the country. The estimate, which stood at nearly Rs.1.8 crore when the project report was prepared initially, will be revised under a new composite report being prepared, a spokesperson for the project said.

Deb said the board of trustees that manages the Thakur Dalan, shrines and the quarters inside the palace complex has spent Rs.10 lakh so far on the renovation.

A courtyard is an important architectural component of any heritage residence in Bengal. Almost all old private residences of 18th and 19th century Bengal boasted of grand courtyards that were used as community and prayer space for extended families.

‘The project is significant because this is the first time the main quarters of the palace is receiving a makeover. I am drafting a revised project report that should be approved by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and West Bengal’s Heritage Commission,’ restoration architect and conservationist Manish Chakraborti, whose firm Continuity is preparing a new restoration blueprint, told IANS.

The first project report for the restoration work was drafted two and a half years ago.

Deb said: ‘We were not in a position to initiate any major restoration project after we renovated the Nat Mandir (a structure to put up cultural performances in the palace).

‘Earlier the palace library that was used by educationist Vidyasagar and the naach ghar had been refurbished at a cost of Rs.12 lakh,’ he said.

Another reason that delayed the project was ‘the nature of ownership of the Sova Bazar palace’, Deb said.

The palace traces its origin to the early 18th century when an affluent member of the Bengali gentry, Ramcharan Deb, was murdered by Maratha plunderers in Midnapore. His widow and children decided to settle in Sova Bazar. The youngest of the brood, Raja Nabakrishna Deb, purchased the home from a local trader and added to it.

(Madhusree Chatterjee can be contacted at madhu.c@ians.in)

Bell Bajao Poster One

Calcutta Tube (May 18th): The man’s shouts rip through the neighbourhood that could be yours or mine. As he screams at and thrashes a woman, the character (Boman Irani) rings their doorbell. He asks permission to use their telephone. The angry husband glares at him. At this point, Irani’s cell phone begins to ring in his shirt pocket. The message is clear – the husband is a wife-beater. As Irani walks away, you get the feeling that one bell and a severe look will make sure it was the last time the man raised his hand on the woman. , young alumni of Kolkata’s South Point High School has directed this series of films under the Bell Bajao public service campaign produced by Breakthrough, a New York-based NGO working in India. It is an entire series, each one featuring a man, alerted by a woman’s screams, walks over to the house and rings the bell on a variety of pretexts such as asking for a cup of milk or retrieving a lost ball. One of these will be screened in Cannes this week as one out of six short films chosen for a section called Speak Out Against Domestic Violence Short Films Contest with entries from the Netherlands, Mexico, the UK and the US.  The awareness and intervention campaign, launched on August 20, 2008, in collaboration with the Ministry of Women and Child Development is on an award-winning spree. It has won a gold and a silver at Goafest (2009), two golds at the Indian Documentary Producers Association Awards, a Spikes Asia Gold, a Community Engagement Award at the Media That Matters festival in New York, a special jury mention at the Expression En Corto Film Festival in Mexico and the UNFPA-Laadli Media Awards, India, 2009. The second season of this campaign has just begun.

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