Bengali signs

Bengali signs, a set on Flickr.

I read Bengali really, really slowly (which doesn’t bode well for the Feluda book I bought in Kolkata over Christmas).

Nevertheless, for me there’s a real thrill in being able to decipher the script as it appears on the sides of buses, on shop signs* or those prohibiting something or other.

* Even if many of these are straight transliterations from the way they’re written in English.

Satyajit Ray begins Channel 4′s Indian Cinema centenary

Still from Satyajit Ray’s final film Agantuk, showing as part of Channel 4′s Centenary of Indian Cinema season

The centenary of Indian cimena is upon us, marking 100 years since Phalke’s Raja Harishchandra.

Curiously, though it’s by no means an unwelcome decision, the occasion will be first marked on Channel 4 not with screenings of Hindi films but with a short season of films from Bengali director Satyajit Ray. 

Alchemy in the UK

I seem to be behind with rather a lot of things at the moment. So what better to get back into blogging than with a nicely decorated rickshaw.

Learning Bengali, cooking and a shingara receipe

Shingara are one of my treats whenever I go to Brick Lane in London (along with jalibi and shondesh from Ambala, a Bollywood soundtrack from the compact filmi section in the Bangla music shop, a browse in Rough Trade East and Palanquin spiced tea from Taj Stores).

So I feel heartened that this video has been viewed more than 80,000 times, though whether I’ll have the time to try it out is another matter.

An American documentary-maker in Goa

Bollywood is a fantastically convenient shorthand for certain types of Indian film, but Channel 4’s latest Indian screening will likely stretch even the malleable use I put the term to here.

Made by American documentary film-maker Chris Smith, The Pool has an Indian setting and is in Hindi, but it’s unlikely to be ‘Bollywood’.

Part of a short world film season, The Pool transposes a short story by Randy Russell from Iowa to the sultry heat of Panjim, the capital of India’s long-established holiday destination, Goa.

Feeling virtuous

How many books are too many? I ask because, for the first time in recent years, I’ve decided against going to our local, annual book fair.

Which is a shame. It’s held in a church and has been bursting at the seams, expanding out of the hall, into corridors and even the church itself.

For a confirmed second-hand-book-aholic (I’m sure that is a word) it’s the easiest place to while a way hours at a time, even if it does get a bit ‘elbows at dawn’.

Learning more Bengali numbers

Click on image to view larger version

I’ve not entirely mastered the numbers 1-50 in Bengali, but getting towards the end of the book I’m reading I’ve reached the somewhat information-heavy Numbers, Weights, Measures chapter.

So it’s time to press on with learning the other 50 numbers, along with the chapter’s other miscellaneous information.

The version of Teach Yourself Bengali I’m reading was published in the mid-1960s, pre-dating by a few decades the Radice issue.