**************************************************************************************************************
"Bridge & Roof"...that was a Company whose name was ringing at IIT KGP when I joined her in 1965 at 21. Engg students used to consider themselves lucky if they got summer training at its plant in Cal. I was not an Engg guy but the name 'Bridge & Roof' fired my imagination. I salute whoever gave that name to their Company...I wish I were the one. No, I Googled for it just now and saw that it was a British Company whose Indian branch was floated in 1920 under the aegis of Balmer Lawrie, another giant in Cal that did the rounds at KGP.
Those were the pinnacle years of Calcutta's industrial glory. She had everything going for her. The sea, the river, the railways, the coal, the steel, the surplus power and water, and the first of the IITs.
Oh, well, it took just a decade for industrial Bengal and Calcutta to tumble and touch rock bottom. I don't think anything like it ever happened so fast in the history of any modern city of any country. Industries were beat up and chased away as we watched helplessly...watch we did because IITians then were hopeful technocrats and budding industrialists. And all of it was design and manufacturing and building...no software cockpits.
And I read that Balmer Lawrie had enough of its Bridge & Roof and sold it to the Govt of India in 1972....must be for a song...good riddance...
I see that it is now a Miniratna company of GoI.
At first I was puzzled and thought there must be a spelling mistake...I had heard of Maniratna(m)...but mini-ratna? But I was wrong...it IS Miniratna. I had heard of Navratna Companies (meaning 9 jewels). Navratna sounded ok...combo of two chaste Sanskrit words. But some Babu with a funny bone decided on Mini-Ratna, as hybrid a name as our Congress Presidentin's.
More was in the offing...the original list of 9 Navratnas got bloated to 16 (as of now). But still they are all Navratnas...not Shodasharatnas...
And 5 of them got too big for their boots and were promoted as Mahartnas.
And then came all of 69 Miniratnas (including Class I and Class II). I guess Mini was chosen as the opposite of Maha...actually it ought to be Laghu...but Laghuratna must have sounded like laghushanka (bladder evacuation) vis-a-vis gurushanka (bowel evacuation)...sorry!
Anyway, coming to bridges and roofs, the bridge that stunned me most was the Howrah Bridge:
That is a very personal matter...it has to do with my boyhood romance. When I was about 12, my eldest cousin who was posted in Calcutta (GSI) happened to visit us at Muthukur. And during dinner (on the floor) he was describing the glories of Calcutta to us gaping kids. And the two that stuck with me were the Howrah Bridge and the Kalka Mail...for long I thought he was making a mistake...it ought to be Calcutta Mail...
Well, my cousin told us that Howrah Bridge doesn't have any pillars supporting it. Not a single one. That made me think that the river it bridges must be a narrow creek, like our Village Canal that was bridged by a palm-tree trunk that we used to walk on precariously.
But then he told us that great steamers pass under it to and fro.
I was all agog to see that wonder of the world. And arriving at KGP, I was told that the Howrah Bridge is a cantilever bridge. And of course we read all about cantilevers in our B.Sc (Hons) at Vizagh...but all the cantilevers we worked with in our Phy Lab were meter sticks of steel loaded either in the middle or on the sides...
And I was raring to see this cantilever wonder. And when I first saw it, I was not disappointed...not at all.
One of my Vizagh friends, SPS, was employed in Kohima at that time and the gateway to the North-East was (and is) Calcutta. He broke his journey at KGP and stayed with me for a day. And asked me to accompany him to Cal. That was my first visit to that dream city.
As our train approached the Howrah Station, it took a curve. And my friend asked me to watch from the window. And suddenly (a la Wordsworth) the maaassive Bridge came into view and, as suddenly, disappeared as the train chugged into the Platform # 9.
Folks told me 3 decades later to go to Cal and see the brand new Vidyasagar Sethu. Which I did. But the romance was missing...it looked too effeminate...
Unthinkable in India?
There, there, are the First Lady and the President of the US, the Commander-in-Chief of their Armed Forces, visiting members of the military and their families in Anderson Hall at Marine Corps Base, Hawaii, on Wednesday.
And they are all SITTING and GORGING while their Supreme Bosses are standing!!!
I guess it is not DONE in India, I don't know...I have to ask.
gps: Sounds like the Commission of Inquiry will tell us who contributed to the rape: police or authority?
...Posted by Ishani
*****************************************************************************************************************
"Bridge & Roof"...that was a Company whose name was ringing at IIT KGP when I joined her in 1965 at 21. Engg students used to consider themselves lucky if they got summer training at its plant in Cal. I was not an Engg guy but the name 'Bridge & Roof' fired my imagination. I salute whoever gave that name to their Company...I wish I were the one. No, I Googled for it just now and saw that it was a British Company whose Indian branch was floated in 1920 under the aegis of Balmer Lawrie, another giant in Cal that did the rounds at KGP.
Those were the pinnacle years of Calcutta's industrial glory. She had everything going for her. The sea, the river, the railways, the coal, the steel, the surplus power and water, and the first of the IITs.
Oh, well, it took just a decade for industrial Bengal and Calcutta to tumble and touch rock bottom. I don't think anything like it ever happened so fast in the history of any modern city of any country. Industries were beat up and chased away as we watched helplessly...watch we did because IITians then were hopeful technocrats and budding industrialists. And all of it was design and manufacturing and building...no software cockpits.
And I read that Balmer Lawrie had enough of its Bridge & Roof and sold it to the Govt of India in 1972....must be for a song...good riddance...
I see that it is now a Miniratna company of GoI.
At first I was puzzled and thought there must be a spelling mistake...I had heard of Maniratna(m)...but mini-ratna? But I was wrong...it IS Miniratna. I had heard of Navratna Companies (meaning 9 jewels). Navratna sounded ok...combo of two chaste Sanskrit words. But some Babu with a funny bone decided on Mini-Ratna, as hybrid a name as our Congress Presidentin's.
More was in the offing...the original list of 9 Navratnas got bloated to 16 (as of now). But still they are all Navratnas...not Shodasharatnas...
And 5 of them got too big for their boots and were promoted as Mahartnas.
And then came all of 69 Miniratnas (including Class I and Class II). I guess Mini was chosen as the opposite of Maha...actually it ought to be Laghu...but Laghuratna must have sounded like laghushanka (bladder evacuation) vis-a-vis gurushanka (bowel evacuation)...sorry!
Anyway, coming to bridges and roofs, the bridge that stunned me most was the Howrah Bridge:
That is a very personal matter...it has to do with my boyhood romance. When I was about 12, my eldest cousin who was posted in Calcutta (GSI) happened to visit us at Muthukur. And during dinner (on the floor) he was describing the glories of Calcutta to us gaping kids. And the two that stuck with me were the Howrah Bridge and the Kalka Mail...for long I thought he was making a mistake...it ought to be Calcutta Mail...
Well, my cousin told us that Howrah Bridge doesn't have any pillars supporting it. Not a single one. That made me think that the river it bridges must be a narrow creek, like our Village Canal that was bridged by a palm-tree trunk that we used to walk on precariously.
But then he told us that great steamers pass under it to and fro.
I was all agog to see that wonder of the world. And arriving at KGP, I was told that the Howrah Bridge is a cantilever bridge. And of course we read all about cantilevers in our B.Sc (Hons) at Vizagh...but all the cantilevers we worked with in our Phy Lab were meter sticks of steel loaded either in the middle or on the sides...
And I was raring to see this cantilever wonder. And when I first saw it, I was not disappointed...not at all.
One of my Vizagh friends, SPS, was employed in Kohima at that time and the gateway to the North-East was (and is) Calcutta. He broke his journey at KGP and stayed with me for a day. And asked me to accompany him to Cal. That was my first visit to that dream city.
As our train approached the Howrah Station, it took a curve. And my friend asked me to watch from the window. And suddenly (a la Wordsworth) the maaassive Bridge came into view and, as suddenly, disappeared as the train chugged into the Platform # 9.
Folks told me 3 decades later to go to Cal and see the brand new Vidyasagar Sethu. Which I did. But the romance was missing...it looked too effeminate...
Unthinkable in India?
DC Photo, Page 9, Thursday 27 December 2012
There, there, are the First Lady and the President of the US, the Commander-in-Chief of their Armed Forces, visiting members of the military and their families in Anderson Hall at Marine Corps Base, Hawaii, on Wednesday.
And they are all SITTING and GORGING while their Supreme Bosses are standing!!!
I guess it is not DONE in India, I don't know...I have to ask.
Quotable "Half-Quotes
The Centre, meanwhile, on Wednesday announced the setting up of a Commission of Inquiry to identify lapses "on the part of the police or authority that contributed to the rape
...DC Page 2, Thursday 27 December 2012
gps: Sounds like the Commission of Inquiry will tell us who contributed to the rape: police or authority?
...Posted by Ishani
*****************************************************************************************************************
No comments:
Post a Comment