On 20th October, 1962, Chinese PLA launched attacks on Indian positions in both Ladakh and NEFA, sparking off the Sino-Indian border war. The conflict hides a resonating story that would shape Kolkata's vibrant food culture in years to come (1/n)
There was a small family of Chinese immigrants who lived in Shillong and owned a small eatery. But things changed for them as the war broke out and on a cold November morning, the sounds of army boots woke the family up (2/n)
One eight-year-old little girl, with her parents and siblings, were overnight uprooted from their home, sent on a train to Jaipur with thousands of other Chinese-origin people, and interned at Deoli refugee camp (3/n)
The little girl, Monica Liu (born Leong Sue Yek), grew up in the refugee camp, took care of her siblings, learned farming and cooking, taught other refugee children to sing, dance, and enact Ramayana (4/n)
Six long years after the end of the war, the family came back to their home-town penniless and spent months in near starvation. The little girl, a gritty woman by then, started a small Chinese restaurant to support her family in Tyangra, Kolkata (5/n)
Over the coming years, Monica became a stalwart within the Chinese community and had to face off with goons in order to run her restaurants earning herself the nickname ‘The Don Of Chinatown (6/n)
Today Monica Liu owns four iconic Chinese restaurants across Kolkata — Kim Ling, Mandarin, Beijing, and Tung Fong. We doff our hat to this incredible lady!! #kolkata#kolkatafoodtrails#kolkatachinese
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This is a photograph of Albert Einstein with an unassuming Indian man you probably haven’t heard enough about. He spent his life working on one idea: women should be able to live with dignity and make their own choices. Thread.
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His name was Maharshi Dhondo Keshav Karve. Karve was born in 1858 in Ratnagiri. He was a pioneering Indian social reformer, educator, and mathematics professor recognized for championing women's education and widow remarriage.
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At that time, widows in India had very few options. Many were expected to live a restricted life, without education or the chance to remarry.
Located in the Canadian High Arctic, Baffin Island is the fifth largest island in the world. In this land of the midnight sun and polar nights, where a handful of Inuit communities endure, you would find a hill named after a Bengali Major. Thread.
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Baffin Island remains a largely untouched Arctic adventure destination, shaped by glacier-carved fjords, sheer coastal cliffs, and remote headlands that define its dramatic landscape.
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Within this vast terrain, far beyond the usual routes, surrounded by wind, rock, and ice, Mount Sharat rises to about 1,600 feet (488 meters), located roughly 5 miles west of Bay of Two Rivers, near the shores of Frobisher Bay.
Satyajit Ray has suddenly become the target of some petty mudslinging on social media. But maybe that’s a good excuse to revisit that six-minute ghost dance masterpiece. It’s the kind of work that can still school anyone in what peak detailing really looks like. Thread. 1/24
While many of us who are privileged live within a bubble of entitlement, convinced that social or caste-based discrimination is non-existent, "Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne" had something to say that you may have completely missed. 2/24
The six-and-a-half-minute-long psychedelic ghost dance sequence from Satyajit Ray's timeless masterpiece, serves as a subtle yet profound social commentary. Through an eclectic display of visual choreography, it offers a raw reminder of our deeply ingrained feudal system. 3/24
Later today, the Indian Cricket Team is set to face New Zealand at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad for the T20 world champion crown. But do you know that India's first tryst with cricket began in Gujarat – a little over 300-years ago?
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By the mid-18th century, the Mughal Empire was on the decline and European powers were increasingly making their presence felt on the subcontinent. Although late to the party, the British were gradually stepping up their trading activities.
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The Gujarat coast was a hub of maritime trade and one of the busy ports was Khambat – back then known as Cambay. Globally well known for its classical agate industry, Cambay cloth, ivory, golf and lacquer works, one fine day in 1721, Cambay was witness to a strange scene.
In 1905, a young woman in Kerala was dragged into a trial for adultery. The system was built to break her. Instead, she brought the system down with her. It became, and remains, one of the most extraordinary episodes in Kerala’s social history.
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The story unfolded in the princely state of Kochi, within the tightly guarded households of the Namboodiri Brahmin community. At its center was Kuriyedathu Thatri, a young woman whose life and public trial laid bare the double standards of her society. 2/21
To understand what happened, one must first understand the social world Thatri was born into. In early 20th-century Kerala, upper-caste Namboodiri Brahmins lived under rigid patriarchy. Women were confined indoors, their lives dictated by strict codes of conduct. 3/21
1944. On a quiet night in the then State of Madras, a man was stabbed and left bleeding on the streets. He was a tabloid editor. The suspicion had turned toward a beloved comedian widely known as the Charlie Chaplin of the South.
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So who was this Charlie Chaplin of the South? He was N.S. Krishnan also called Kalaivanar- “the devotee of the arts” An actor and comedian who rose during the formative decades of Tamil cinema in the 1940s and 1950s.
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Like Chaplin, he came from a humble background, had little formal education, and turned to stage plays early in life. He set the screen on fire with satire that made audiences laugh, and think. But he was not alone. Beside him stood his wife.
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