“The Legend of Fat Mama” is a bittersweet story of the Chinese community in
Though a small number of Chinese still live there, many of them left
About the director:
Rafeeq Ellias is an internationally known photographer. As a cinematographer, he has shot three documentaries: ‘The Nectar of Immortality’, a Channel Four film on the Kumbh Mela; ‘Slum Mumbai’, on Mumbai’s pavement-dwellers; and ‘Steps in Time’, on the Asiatic Society, Mumbai. ‘The Legend of Fat Mama’, made for BBC World, was Ellias’ first documentary as director and scriptwriter.
“The Legend of Fat Mama” won the Best Anthropological/Ethnographic Film at the 52nd National Film Awards.
Rafeeq is my friend, guide and mentor and I have had the honor and privilege of working with him on many an ad campaign over the years.
27 comments:
This is great, Sunil; thanks! Now I know where to go when I'm back in India and feel nostalgic at Chinese New Year time. It's all so familiar.
Great job Sunil for capturing the salient points of the Calcutta Chinese. Big Mama was a famous personality among Anglo-Indians such as myself and among Chinese. Her food was simple but mouth-watering good.
Another unforgettable memory of the Calcutta Chinese were the shoe shops in New Market and at Bentinck Street. The tremendously interesting designs and variety was a Mecca for shoe afficiandos. As a young boy I remember the very stylish pointy toe buttoned down and buckled shoes in a variety of leathers and till date even though I reside in NYC, I have yet to come accross such innovative shoe designs as my Mom used to buy us from the New Market. Also, hair setting and styling of young and not so young ladies at the Chinese hairdresser shops in Calcutta was a standard procedure during Christmas, weddings, Easter and other special occasions. The Anglo-Indians and the Calcutta Chinese had a tremendously strong rapport and interdependance amongst themselves and many members from the two communities even intermarried and started new families. Till date the best Indian Chinese restaurants are to be found in Toronto, to where a large number of both of these communities immigrated.
Down memory lane,
Neville Rosario
This is a great video, brings back memories.
Absolutely wonderful....Such valuable insights... such marvellous editing and photography! Thank you.
A former resident of Calcutta, and a patron of various Chinese eateries and shoemakers, I found your post (forwarded by a friend) of great interest.
Unfortunately, Fat Mama was unknown to me -- I left Calcutta in 1969. I assume that she plied her business after I left.
I now live in the San Francisco Peninsula. Frank Yee, A Chinese friend had this to say about the Legend of Fat Mama.
*****
Rana,
I am so appreciative of your sending this to me. Perhaps you didn't know that I have been a Chinatown walking tour guide for almost two decades and I make a point of visiting any Chinatown there is whenever I'm traveling. As a result, I found the film fascinating, with so many segments that resonated with my own marginalized experience as a Chinese in this country.
I was in Cuba two summers ago and visited a Chinese newspaper in Havana that became defunct for the same reasons as the one in Calcutta--the lack of readership as the youth could care less about learning the Chinese language and the old folks were dying off. Those who have had the means have all fled, similar to those who emigrated to Toronto.
The segment about the lion dance team was equally interesting, since my son began taking lion dance lessons as a very young child and eventually became the top instructor for the only lion dance team of an Ivy League university at that time.
I knew that the Chinese controlled nearly every Southeast Asian country's economy, whether in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, Malaysia, or Indonesia, and let us not forget that three of the five Asian tigers, whether Hong Kong, Taiwan, or Singapore, were the result of Chinese entrepreneurship. The resentment against them, of course, caused the mass slaughter of over half a million in Indonesia during the mid-sixties, as well as the independence of Singapore from Malaysia. When I was in Vietnam last summer, I saw Chinese characters on every temple along with many business establishments, not surprising since Vietnam was under China's domination for a thousand years. Many of the boat people who escaped were ethnically Chinese because they had the gold to buy their way out. (I have found very few Vietnamese restaurants in the Bay Area that don't have Chinese characters written in the menus, either.)
But what I didn't know until this video was the Chinese community that once thrived in Calcutta. It was also the first time for me to hear English spoken with an Indian-Chinese accent! So I must thank you for this lesson on another Chinese diaspora I wasn't aware of.
--Frank
*****
Thanks for making it possible for
Old Calcuttans to revisit once familiar and favourite scenes. As T.S. Eliot wrote: "Memory, you have the key.....".
Regards
What an amazing story of the much-loved but sadly always-left-alone Chinese of Calcutta. Thank you ever so much for your research and this great film.
Sundar Rao
Hyderabad-India
mailpsr@yahoo.com
Thanks for posting this wonderful documentary. It brought back memories from my childhood in Calcutta, when a Chinese hawker of silk and cotton used to come to our house every month. My parents knew him as he was used as the model of the protagonist in a feature film my father (Mrinal Sen) made in 1958 (Neel Akasher Nichaey). The film was about the relationship between a Bengali political activist woman and a Calcutta Chinese hawker. This person, whose name I can no longer recall, came every month, but my parents were too poor to buy much. But that didn't stop him from coming regularly. Then in 1962, he suddenly stopped coming one day. As a eight year old, that was my first experience of the ugly face of war. When I visit my parents even today, I see napkins that we bought from him 50 years ago -- unsused, but still there.
Kunal Sen
This is a riveting documentary on the Calcutta Chinese community, many of whom now live in my part of Canada - Vancouver, B.C. These enterprising immigrants have opened some wonderful Indo-Chinese restaurants serving up food that is reminiscent of my childhood years as an Anglo-Indian living in Calcutta in the 1950s. Also fondly remembered are Chinese-run hairdressing salons and shoe shops - now seemingly extinct as I couldn't find any on my last visit to Calcutta two months ago. Next time I'm there, I'll be sure to visit Fat Mama's neighbourhood in Calcutta's Chinatown
Around 1973 to 1976 , I used to go to Fat Mamas for lunch,she was no longer there , but her son Peter , who had worked in Hongkong as a cook was there making very delicious food for Rs 10 per head.The best chinese food I ever had .It was great experience sitting in a kind of garage and eating great meal.
Oh, for those days! Remember vividly China Town in the 50's and then again post 62. Only a pale shadow remains today. Fantastic video - getting emotional!
This is a wonderful documentary that gave former Calcuttans like us a great trip down memory lane. We well remember the shoe shops of Bentinck Street and the great restaurants of Chinatown - and also the little Chinese restaurant just down the road from us on Wellesley Street that served such tasty Hakka noodles and other dishes.
Rafeeq Ellias has captured the spirit of Calcutta's Chinatown beautifully, both on camera and through the nostalgic tone of his commentary. Bravo.
Anglo-Indians like us in Canada are fortunate that many of the Calcutta Chinese have immigrated to Toronto and have re-created their superb Indian-Chinese Hakka food there.
Dragon dance??? I thought that was the LION dance
Heartwarming and an eye opener. Thanks.
I was emailed this clip and I find it fascinating and well worth my time watching. Thank you very much, I loved it.
Thanks for this nostalgic insight into the Calcutta Chinese. I used to go to Fat Mama's almost every day in the early seventies as I worked nearby. I enjoyed her food so much I would take a notebook and jot down all the ingredients and the cooking process while Fat Mama cooked my order and then try it at home with great success. Just thought I'd mention that, contrary to what the title suggests, the doco is more about the Chinese in Calcutta than about Fat Mama, but very interesting.
George.
Very interesting presentation on a subject most Chinese outside India know nothing about. Sorry Sunil, the 4 legged dancing creatures are LIONS, NOT DRAGONS. A lion dance is always performed by 2 persons. A dragon dance is performed by many more, 8, 10, 20, 40, depending on how long the dragon is made to be.
Joe.
A very interesting presentation on a subject most Chinese outside India know nothing about.
Sorry Sunil, the 4 legged dancing creatures are LIONS, NOT DRAGONS!
A lion dance is always performed by 2 persons. A dragon dance may be performed by 8, 10, or 40 or more, depending on how long the dragon is made to be. Just google "Chinese dragon dance" to watch some video & you will understand.
wow, i didn't know there is a story behind it,i mean the 1962 incident, i only know Chinatown of Kolkata is the only Chinatown in India, i m a Malaysian Chinese who married a girl from Dharamsala of Himachal Pradesh, i been to India many times, but never been to Kolkata, i think i will go to the Chinatown next time, maybe if i open a Chinese restaurant in Delhi, i can get my things over there...
When in India I was an Indian citizen of chinese descent and proud of it but it's true the ugly war of 1962 started the migration of the chinese, sadly,now numbering only around 5k from a robust 50k(according to this article).As a child the hostilities that I faced walking back to and from school from the slum kids increased my desire to leave India yet I'm very Indian at heart and thankful for all the friends and family. A very well written article, nostalgic and sentimental.
HI Sunil. Thank you so much for sharing your film with us. It was a bitter sweet experience watching the story of Fat Mama. My name is Patrick and I am a Malaysian of Chinese descent. My father was born here and my mother came from China when she was 14. Malaysia is a multi-racial, multi-cultural country. But over the last few years politics has driven a nail of division into the racial-cultural fabric of our history too. And now we fight to keep our country the paradise it could still be.
Thank you.
Thanks for sharing this wonderful film that captures the poignant memories of the Calcutta Chinese.
Dear Sunil, Thank you for sharing. I think the Chinese Malaysians are also heading the way of the chinese indian, except that there is no war between China&M'sia. We have today, divisive & racial slant politics instead. Sad but true....
Hi,
I was in Kolkata in the 1980's and Chinatown was my home away from home. The documentary brought back memories and some tears to my eyes. I wish them well, they are really the survivors, those still in Kolkata.
Thanks Sunil for an educational video. Just a clarification - the "dragon dances" you have presented in the video are known as "lion dances". Chinese dragons look more like serpents with at least 9 people moving the muppet.
All the best!
Elsie
Hi Sunil,
G'day mate. I have not been to Calcutta but my next tour of India will be China town and experiencing its history with the local Chinese. I share similar sentiments with Patrick and Keith, some of these people just forget that we as human beings had contributed one way or the other to make the outlook of that country , both economically and politically . This is planet earth and we should be allowed to live in peace just like anyone else.Pogroms should be avoided at all cost and respect of the one Race, The Human Race be paramount. Jo Bole Sohnihal , Sat Sri Akaal
thanks for the documentary of the Chinatown of Calcutta. I was there in 1979 and it was the most memorable Chinatowns I have happen to come upon in my world travels.
I am Chua from Malaysia. I am a Malaysian male of Chinese decent & we are living side by side with many Indians here too. I am not alien to Indian cultures & lifestyles. The Indians & Chinese cultures are very much intact & vibrant in Malaysia. Both of these 2 races are exceptionally harmonious & comfortable with each other in Malaysia.
Interestingly, to note the war between the 2 giant neighbors then had no effects or whatsoever impact on both of these 2 races in Malaysia. There has never been a single conflict between us. History was our forefathers were there in great numbers building the then Malaya. Our greatest achievement was having fought together for independence with the Malays from the British in 1957.
There is a very high numbers of inter-marriage between us. These Chinese diaspora in India is unique & cute as opposed to oversea Chinese elsewhere. This were the 2 different races & cultures who once lived together harmoniously with stark contrast. We can see that it wasn`t due to internal racial conflicts of those living together then, but rather due to the ugly war of 1962.
To this very day, we outsiders have never heard of any ill treatment or suppression on such a small minority in a land of a billion. So this goes to prove that there has never been any racism issues and more so a proof the Indians are not racist & bullies.
These two races are great survivors & economy movers. Where ever the corners of the world they are dumped, they will survive through thick & thin, blood & sweat. They just can accomodate or blend into another`s culture easily. Simply put it, they are easy to get along. Bygone be bygone. It is heart warming to note the 2 most populous race & great civilization are at peace now after so many years of animosity.
Kudos it is a great video.
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