Just hours away from America’s biggest game of the year, the Cincinnati Bengals and Los Angeles Rams will square off in Super Bowl LVI. A thread on its exquisite Indian connection. (1/9)
When Paul Brown, an American football coach from Ohio, was fired by his previous employer, he founded his new franchise Cincinnati Bengals. (2/9)
Brown, named the franchise after another Cincinnati football team named Cincinnati Bengals who played between 1937 and 1942 and was forced to close down due to World War II. (3/9)
Benzoo, the Royal Bengal Tiger from West Bengal, a unique specimen of Cincinnati Zoo, was chosen as the mascot for the Bengals. Benzoo proudly enjoyed her Sunday outings to the stadium in front of 50,000 fans in the 70s. (4/9)
Now, the original Bengal team that played in the 1930s had a fascinating story behind their naming. When Hal Pennington, the founder of the newly formed Cincinnati Bengal, sat in his mother’s kitchen one late summer day in 1937, he observed a stove. (5/9)
The logo of the stove caught his attention - it was a mighty roaring Bengal Tiger. The stove line, manufactured between 1870 and 1940 by Floyd-Wells, was named Bengal Stoves. (6/9)
It is this Bengal Stove line that influenced the name of the franchise playing the Super Bowl LVI today. While why ‘Bengal Stove’ was named after a Bengal Tiger is not clearly understood, many believe it was due to the owner’s fascination with safaris. (7/9)
It is rumoured that the president once went on a safari to hunt the Bengal tigers, and he was enchanted with the beast leading to the name of his stove line. Note to remember: it was common for Americans in that era to visit India for Tiger ‘shikar’. (8/9)
This Government-issued advertisement in the "Field & Stream" magazine, USA in 1956 luring Americans to contact the local office (at NYC & SFO) for Tiger hunting information, is a testimony to the above. (9/9)
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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?
1/19
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.
2/19
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.
Thread. 1/21
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.
1/22
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.
2/22
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.
3/22
Did you know Indians born in Suriname were once considered Dutch citizens? And while that might sound strange, all of this connects back to Lord Ram and the settlements of Chinsurah and Baranagar on the banks of the Hooghly. Do read on. 1/24
Moving through the streets of Baranagar in North Kolkata can be challenging at times. Rickshaws, autos, trucks, and even the odd stray cattle all vie for a place. It does not just bustle with activity; it practically lives and breathes it. 2/24
But as you move through the intricate, narrow lanes, you will find old houses, broken and scarred, called Kuthis. Now these kuthis once housed Sahebs, mostly Britishers, but for a time they also housed people from the land of the Oranje, the Dutch. 3/24
In 1977, an Indian art student set out on a bicycle for Sweden, covering more than 11,000 kilometers because he could not afford an airfare to be with the love of his life. An incredible story worth remembering a thousand times. Read on. 1/18
The facts of the journey are striking enough. But to understand why it happened, it is necessary to return to a village in Odisha where Pradyumna Kumar Mahanandia was born into the Kandha tribal community n 1949, historically among India’s most marginalized groups. 2/18
He grew up in poverty, in a house without electricity, and displayed an early aptitude for drawing. In interviews over the years, he has spoken candidly about the discrimination he faced as a child. It was too real to forget. 3/18
The high-octane trailer of #Border2 dropped recently and one character – played by Ahaan Shetty caught our eye. Shetty plays an officer of Indian Navy in the 1971 War and our thoughts went back to a real-life Indian Navy officer who left behind an eternal legacy through his actions in this war. 1/18
The INS Khukri was a Type 14 frigate of the Indian Navy in 1971. The Type 14 was a minimal anti-submarine craft, a cheaper alternative to the more expensive Type 12. They were introduced to the British Royal Navy in the early 1950s. By 1971, they were considered somewhat obsolete. 2/18
India had acquired three Type 14s, which it had named INS Khukri, Kirpan and Kuthar – all part of Western Fleet’s 14th Squadron. On the other hand, in the aftermath of the 1965 war with India, the Pakistan Navy acquired three Daphne class submarines – which it named PNS Hangor, Shushuk, and Mangro. 3/18