Archives: history

By Zaara D’Souza

Arati Saha was a swimming legend, who created history when she became the first Asian woman to swim across the English Channel, at the young age of 19. Read on to know more about her life. 

Childhood

Arati Saha was born in 1940 in Kolkata, West Bengal to a middle class family.  She was brought up by her father, as her mother had passed away when she was still a toddler. After her mother’s loss, her elder brother and younger sister were sent off to live in their maternal aunt and uncle’s house, while Arati was left to be brought up by her grandmother in North Calcutta. Panchugopal Saha, her father, would take little Arati along with him and his brother to the city’s popular bathing grounds – Champtala Ghat.

Almost immediately Panchugopal was able to recognise that his daughter had an inclination towards swimming, even at such an early age. He decided to enroll her for proper training at the Hatkhola Swimming Club. As luck would have it, India’s first Asian Games gold medalist, Sachin Nag noticed her one day. He too, immediately spotted her talent and decided to take her under his wing and began training her. After this, Arati dived right into her professional swimming career. 

Accolades

After starting training at just 4 years old, Arati won a gold medal for 110 yards freestyle at the Shailendra Memorial Swimming Competition of 1946, only a year later. With exemplary determination and discipline, she went on to win more than 22 state competitions in West Bengal over the next 6 years. Her game-changing recorded time for her laps allowed her to take part in the 1952 Olympics at the mere age of 12, but unfortunately she did not manage to win a stand on the podium. This did not stop her, but only encouraged her to go further. 

The Dream

As she was pushed harder and harder to train, she started to gain more confidence. She soon began to harbour a challenging dream — to attempt swimming the intimidating English Channel. Although a few women had attempted this before her, it was still a highly male dominated area at the time. Arati’s own participation is what changed this for future female swimmers.

Brojen Das, the English Channel’s first Asian finisher (not just once, but six times!) proposed Arati’s name to the organisers for the event that year. Even Mihir Sen, another accomplished English Channel finisher, encouraged this idea. With the motivation of many other supportive men and the financial aid of the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy, and the then Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, the English Channel dream began to take shape. 

In 1959, she attempted the feat for the first time but was unable to finish. She made her second attempt just one month later. This time, Arati came back and completed the entire length at the impressively young  age of 19. This won her not just a Padma Shri, but also a place in the history of swimming, as the first Asian woman to swim across the English Channel.

Arati passed away at the age of 54, unfortunately losing a battle to jaundice and encephalitis. The Government of India honoured her by releasing a postage stamp in her name. She is remembered not just as a swimmer, but as a woman who changed swimming for every Indian girl who dreamed of the same things she did.

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Did you know that Kadambini Ganguly was the first woman practitioner of western medicine not only in India but in all of South Asia? She was also the first woman speaker in the Indian National Congress. Read more to learn some interesting facts about this inspiring woman. 

-By Srinidhi Murthy 

Early Life and Education 

Kadambini Ganguly was born on 18 July, 1861, in Bhagalpur, Bengal Presidency (present-day Bihar). She was the daughter of Braja Kishore Basu, a well-known champion of the Brahmo Samaj. He was the headmaster of Bhagalpur School and co-founded ‘Bhagalpur Mahila Samiti’ in 1863, the first women’s organisation in India. Kadambini received her early education at the Brahmo Eden Female School, which later merged with Bethune School in 1878. She and her classmate Chandramukhi Basu from Dehradun became the first two women graduates in British India when they graduated from Bethune College in 1882. 

Pursuing the Dream 

Kadambini married Dwarakanath Ganguly in 1883. Her husband supported Kadambini’s dream to pursue medicine. With his support, she became the first woman to be admitted to the Calcutta Medical College (CMC) in 1884. When she completed her studies at CMC, the then-principal Dr J.M. Coates awarded her a Graduate Medical College of Bengal (GMCB) diploma that allowed her to start a private practice as a doctor in 1886. Along with Anandibai Joshi (who studied at the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in the United States), Ganguly became one of the first Indian women eligible to practice medicine in 1886. During this time, Kadambini’s achievements were praised by British nurse and social reformer Florence Nightingale, and British socialist Annie Besant. 

Life in England 

With her husband’s unfailing support, Kadambini decided to further her medical studies in London. She arrived in London on March 23, 1893. In July, she received the Triple Diplomas, i.e., Licentiate of the College of Physicians, Edinburg (LRCP), Licentiate of the College of Surgeons, Glasgow (LRCS), and Licentiate of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons, Dublin (LFPS), from the Scottish College after training in Dublin, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. She was the only woman among the 14 successful candidates who graduated that year. 

Medical Career 

When she returned from England, Kadambini joined Lady Dufferin Hospital in Kolkata as a senior doctor and started her career as a gynaecologist. Kadambini once correctly identified a pregnancy that had been misdiagnosed as an abdominal tumour. She not only corrected the initial misdiagnosis but also safely delivered the child. She later started her private practice. 

Social Worker 

Kadambini was involved in several social and freedom movements and was a champion of women’s rights and education. In 1908, she supported the Satyagraha movement and encouraged people to raise funds to support the cause. Ganguly was part of the first ever female delegation in the Fifth Session of the Indian National Congress, where women were invited to vote. In 1922, she visited Odisha and Bihar to help women miners. Until the day she died, she never refused to attend to any of her medical appointments. Kadambini Ganguly breathed her last on 7 October, 1923. She was truly a pathbreaker who proved to be an inspiration to many.  

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By Zaara D’Souza

Bhanumati Rajopadhye (now Athaiya), was born in Kolhapur in the year 1929. She was one of the seven children of self-taught artist and photographer, Annasaheb Rajopadhye. As Bhanu watched her father work alongside different directors and filmmakers, it opened her eyes to the world of art and film. Bhanu was a driven young woman, who was lucky to have parents whose beliefs aligned with hers. Her mother, Shantabai, as Bhanu has said, gave her the “freedom to move to a big city in pursuit of my studies at a time when women did not have such opportunities”. Her father, despite his passing away when she was just 10 years old, was her biggest pillar of inspiration, as she called him “her guiding light” throughout her entire life and professional career. 

Around the age of 17, Bhanu moved to Mumbai to study painting at the JJ School of Art, but wound up being a little late for the admissions and was unable to attend that year. But, as fate intended, she decided to enroll at a private school, which led her to working at the magazine Fashion and Beauty as an illustrator, and then at Eve’s Weekly, which shifted her focus to fashion. Still managing to complete her initial goal, Bhanu graduated from the JJ School of Art in 1952, and became a part of  the newly formed Progressive Artists’ Group. In 1953, she contributed three artworks to the PAG show in Mumbai, being the only woman who held this honour. Soon, Bhanu realised her talents aligned more with fashion design, completely changing her line of work. 

Bhanu began designing clothes in a boutique, for a dazzling clientele of movie stars and socialites. In 1953, she began creating designs for films and her career skyrocketed when she was introduced to Indian actor and director, Raj Kapoor. This sparked a long-lasting partnership between the two, leading to memorable films  with iconic costumes, such as Mera Naam Joker (1970), Satyam Shivam Sundaram (1978) and more. After the success of her initial projects, Bhanu became a sought-after designer. By the time colour entered the screens of India, she was ready to use her knowledge and take on the challenge of designing the now colour-enhanced costumes. 

Bhanu had a meticulous approach towards her designs. She handpicked every aspect of the costume she was designing, in order to stay true to the setting. For the movie Reshma Aur Shera (1971), Bhanu travelled to the location of the plot — Pochina, Rajasthan — and “collected detailed information on every aspect of life in that village in order to conceive the look of the costumes”. Bhanu always considered herself a “director’s designer”, who did not work for fame, but for the director’s vision and betterment of the film. She knew the difference between costume design and fashion design, when she stated, “Any costume designer needs to remember that they are not creating clothes for the market, but for the character.” 

Her big break arrived with the film Gandhi (1982). Richard Attenborough, the director of this film, said it took him seventeen years to set up the making of  Gandhi, but only fifteen minutes to decide that Bhanu Athaiya would be the right designer for it. After analysing all the available photographs and hunting for every detail possible, Bhanu produced costumes that displayed the struggle and culture of life of the times. Everything was so perfectly depicted, that it won her an Oscar! Her win was not supported by everyone. Some people complained that the actors were dressed in extremely simple costumes, making them look ordinary and sometimes even shabby. But others knew that the film was not meant to be a fashion show, but rather, the reality of the common man living through that dark stage in Indian history — Bhanu had nailed the brief. 

Even though this was the highest achievement of her career, Bhanu did not slow down. She continued to create beautiful costumes for some of India’s most respected films, such as Lagaan (2001), Lekin (1990) and others. In 2012, when she was informed that she had a brain tumour, Bhanu decided to send her Oscar back to Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles, for preservation. In 2020, Bhanu Athaiya passed away at the age of 91, leaving the world of cinema and costume forever changed. She is still remembered as the first Indian to win an Oscar, and a woman of incredible artistic vision. 

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