1943

Not many people of today are familiar with the Bengal Famine of 1943. We do not study it in the standard history text books in school. But this famine, during the Second World War, was a devastating one that took its toll on the people of Bengal. My grandmother was then just a little girl living in Calcutta, but the images from 1943 are still vivid in her memory.

Our house in Calcutta was built in the year 1897 by my ancestors in Ballygunj. It is a double storied and a stout house that almost juts onto the road, or rather I should say that the road was built close to our house. With this layout, the balcony on the first floor has a very strategic location – you can pour water on the heads of people on the road (that is exactly what we do during Holi).

1943 was an important year in the history of Calcutta. Most of the well-to-do Bengalis living in Calcutta had left the city for fear of Japanese bombing but some had stayed behind, including my grandmother’s family. It was also the year of the famine. Thousands of starving people swamped the streets of Calcutta in search for food.

The first memory of 1943 that my grandmother has is of enemy-plane-warning sirens going off at all hours of the day. All the windows had to be covered with paint or cloth or paper so that no light escaped from the houses at night. Vehicles were not allowed to ply with their headlights on and could only use a headlight-shade with the permission of the authorities. She still remembers standing at the balcony and watching the two black plumes of smoke spiraling up from the Calcutta docks after it was bombed by the Japanese.

And then she talks about the famine. She remembers the announcement made by the authorities one early morning requesting people not to throw away the starch after boiling rice as it would be given to the people as food was short. She still remembers the people flocking through the road in front of our house – people wearing nothing but loincloth and with their ribs showing and children with bloated bellies trailing behind. They carried earthen utensils and stood in front of the houses with their utensils outstretched. People poured starch into them and the people fought over it. These starved and half naked people used to stand below our balcony and my great grandmother and my great grandaunt used to pour starch into their bowls from the balcony.

These are the memories that my grandmother has of 1943. These are the memories that still haunt her.