By IANS
Mumbai : The Unesco award-winner photographer Rafeeq Ellias’ movie, “The Legend of Fat Mama: Stories from Calcutta’s Melting Wok”, will be screened here at an event organised by Asia Society India Centre as a part of its Chinese New Year programme series Feb 15.
Also shown will be a video, in which Ellias talks to noted Kolkata-born Chinese author Kwai-Yun Li.
Kolkata once had a thriving community in its Chinatown, engaged in different trades, like medicine shops, food and shoemaking. Though a small number of Chinese still live there, many of them left India in the aftermath of the 1962 India-China war.
Li, now based in Toronto, was born in Kolkata and brought up in Chattawala Gali in the city, where she had made a name for herself in Chinatown for making the most delicious noodles. She migrated to Canada after her marriage in 1970.
In her new country, Li started off as an accountant. But she quickly switched to writing.
In several of her books, like in “The Palm Leaf Fan” and “A Kiss Beside the Money Bar”, she has written about her growing up days at Chinatown in Kolkata. Some of her books are included in the curricula of the Jadavpur University, York University and University of Toronto.
Ellias, who heads an advertising agency in India, has been photographing Kolkata’s Chinese community for the last two decades.