Dundee’s population had shot up by 30,000 during the jute boom in the 19th century, yet only a few hundred new houses were built. The cramped quarters ruined the health of the residents; by the time of the Great War, most of Dundee men were considered too weak to fight. The jute barons meanwhile built their own large houses away from the grime of industrial Dundee, in a district called Broughty Ferry. So posh was it that the area by Strathern Road was for a time the richest square mile on the planet, until it was superseded by Hollywood in the early 20th century.

Calcutta (Louis Malle) - DocuWiki

In their prime, though, walking about Chowringhee was like ambling about Dundee High Street, what with all the accents of home they heard at every turn. The Jutewallahs left Dundee for India in search of better lives, a fortune perhaps. They imprinted themselves in Calcutta’s being. Even in the 1980s, long after they had returned home, the jute barges on the Hooghly River still bore marks of Dundee’s great mills – Eagle Works, Baxters…In a revealing documentary from BBC Scotland, Hollywood star Brian Cox, whose films include X-Men 2, The Bourne Identity and Braveheart, traces the history and varied fortunes of the city's jute emigrants. It's easy to laugh at that thought but these people had a real go and had interesting lives, and I admire them for that." Next month, we'll see one of Dundee's most famous sons follow in their footsteps in a voyage of discovery. But they were Scots and the sun always shone, so they did what they always did best: wild parties. The bearers would be in their splendid turbans and cummerbunds, the cooks aflutter; the Scots fell upon the gin and whisky bottles; there would be tennis and swimming, and by the end of it, they would be drunk silly, in the pond, the mill tank, everywhere...

Brian Cox: Jute Journey (BBC 4 Tuesday 6 June 2023)

On one hand, jute gave people a whole new life, but at the same time it also reduced life for many people, and gave them a really tough time," he said. May: Herald. 12 properties changed from orchard to settlement within a month of notifying amendment to Section 17 (2) of TCP Act. As many as 12 properties, including six in Morjim village, were changed from orchard to settlement within a month of notification… What has surprised Goans is that all the applicants are non-Goans and have questioned how can the experts made such glaring errors at the time of preparing a comprehensive plan? “Where is city planner Vinayak Bharne, who was supposed to guide TCP on the development plan as per TCP Minister Vishwajit Rane?”… The crew was overwhelmed by the welcome at each mill. “Everyone was very hospitable and so keen to let us film them and their lives,” smiled Archer. For Cox, this was an extremely emotional experience. “A couple of hours spent in these mills made me realise what hard work it was for my parents and all the others who laboured for years in the jute industry,” said Cox. The workers at each mill were interviewed, with Cox spending some personal time — off-camera — with them. IIT'S a long way to go to die - but that's exactly what happened to many of the women of Dundee who "disappeared" after travelling to India to cash in on the jute industry of Calcutta.

Life for the peasants who grew the jute was, inevitably, much much tougher. From planting to maturation was ninety to hundred days, by which time the jute had grown over seven feet high. In intense humid heat, the farmers worked day after day to harvest their golden fibre. When jute prices began to fall, they had to supplement their incomes by growing other crops. Even today, Bengal’s farmers are unable to participate in the rise in demand for the ecologically green crop. They scarcely earn 40 pence a day from it. But still, today, nearly four million families owe their livelihoods to jute. Half and ten and nineBy the time she wrote these lines, the time of jute in Dundee was already passing. The jute barons strove to outdo each other in the grandeur of their mills, playing ‘my chimney is bigger than your chimney’. They failed to see that their industry was nearing its end. The balance of power in the world of jute had shifted to Calcutta. The jute barons made a fortune out of these people. They gave them work, which allowed them to have houses and so on, but Dundee still had the worst child poverty in history at the time - and these people were living half a mile away from some of the richest people in the world." May: Navhind Times. Starting small. Integrative, holistic nutrition and lifestyle medicine expert Luke Coutinho, recently launched his book, “Small Wins Everyday” … I began working on this book in January 2022… Some of our most complicated cases from cancer to diabetes to Alzheimer’s to other diseases have been successful as we teach our patients to make small life style changes on day at a time… Because this has worked for us, we thought we should put it into a book and share it with the world… Episodes 4 hours ago Secrets of the Royal Palaces: Love and Marriage (Channel 5 Saturday 4 November 2023)

Dundee - Blogger JOST A MON: The Jutewallahs of Dundee - Blogger

A Dundonian himself, Cox was visibly moved. “To uncover the history of my fellow Dundonians who travelled all the way to India to work under extreme conditions and died in an alien land is extremely emotional.” The shooting went off smoothly, with the crew having little to complain about. Except the sweltering heat. “The sun is a scorcher and the heat is killing. I have been through three shirts already,” laughed Cox. I use Stevenson's great saying: 'I travel not to go anywhere but instead to go, the great affair is to move...' The Marwaris, business-oriented clans from Rajasthan, became the new kings of jute. They had been involved in India’s jute industry from the very beginning, but they continued to employ Dundonians as managers. Interaction between the Scots and the Indians increased substantially. The Jutewallahs trained up Indian colleagues; in some conservative mills, however, there were still lines that could not be crossed. Several of them who fell in love with Indian women found themselves fired from their jobs. Dundee was closely connected to Kolkata through the jute trade, which involved the production of hessian from India’s “golden” fibre. It’s already starting to fade from memory. Following the footsteps of the Dundee jute workers who emigrated to India, this documentary travels through Brian Cox’s childhood and then on to Kolkata.May: Gomantak Times. A bleak future for Goa’s taxi drivers. Metred taxis, Mopa airport, post-pandemic woes prevail… “Now that we have fitted metres, the government without consulting us decides to create an app for us and to be operated by us. Unfortunately, they forgot that it should have been thought of by us,” says Anthony, taxi driver from South Goa… Brian said: "In India, I sampled jute pakora. I had no idea you could eat it. It's actually very nice. They make soup from it too, but I didn't try that. He added: "The Scots organised the Empire and organised it very well. But you can still feel the shadow of the Empire in Calcutta all these years later. Episodes 4 hours ago World’s Most Expensive Cruise: Season 3 Episode 2 (Channel 5 Friday 3 November 2023) With India’s partition in 1947, the best quality jute-growing areas fell into East Pakistan (later Bangladesh), tantalisingly out of reach for Calcutta’s jute mills. In the orgy of violence that befell the countries in the wake of that great sundering, the Dundonian Jutewallahs found themselves protected behind their compound walls, defended by stalwart Gurkhas. Shortly thereafter, the Indian government issued directives that more and more locals should be employed in positions that were held by Europeans. Many Jutewallahs thought that the mills would collapse once they left and the Indians took over; the know-how, after all, was with them and not the natives. There was a mass exodus of expatriates out of Bengal, and by the early 1950s, most of Calcutta’s mills had passed into Indian ownership.

Goan Voice Newsletter: Thursday 01 Jun. 2023

May: Times of India. Not just MLA, even residents wait and watch if Panaji floods… In an effort to create “smart roads” and “smart traffic management” system, Smart City Mission has completely ignored St Inez creek… As if that was not enough, IPSCDL allowed a GSUDA to build a new culvert at Tonca atop the existing culvert, further throttling the flow of rainwater… After spending the entire morning on the church premises, the crew took a lunch break and then proceeded to the Scottish Cemetery in Park Circus in the hope of finding the graves of Scots who had lived in Calcutta, made it their home for over a hundred years, and were buried in the city.

This was Brian Cox’s first day on the shoot and the actual start to the filming of the documentary. The crew started their day early with a visit to St Andrews Church at Dalhousie Square. “Seeing the church was overwhelming. Not only did we have an opportunity to attend a beautiful Palm Sunday service, we also managed to meet with some of the congregation, chat and film them,” said Cox. The actor remembers the last days of the jute industry, and considers the pioneering spirit of the jute emigrants to be something he has in common with them. Most of the immigrants were from Ireland, poor and Catholic. The churches that stand there to this day owe much to the indigent Irish jute workers. Yet it wasn’t their religion or nationality that made them stand out. Three quarters of those who worked in the mills were women. And so Dundee became known as ‘She Town.’ Women and children could weave, and an entire matriarchal society was setup. Women became powerful in many ways. To this day, women’s church groups continue the tradition of autonomy and social power. He also gives the voice to one of the farmers in the much-anticipated reimagining of Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr Fox with Meryl Streep and George Clooney. The penultimate day saw the crew leave the hotel early, only to spend half the day crammed in their cars in the intense heat. “We got lost! And when we found our way out, there were endless traffic jams. It was really frustrating,” lamented Cox. Finally the crew proceeded to the banks of the Hooghly for a few hours of filming the barges filled with mounds of jute. “Like the other days, the heat sapped all our energy,” rued Archer.