What’s love got to do with it?
Love has nothing to do with religion is the motto the Armenians, small in numbers as they may be, live by. And live, they do. Mathures Paul reports An Armenian rugby team no longer exists and the few enthusiasts today play for other teams. Of the many thousand Armenian merchants who began arriving in India 16th century onward, only a handful remain. When the English arrived, these people lent East India Company money to purchase zamindari rights in Bengal and together pioneered the jute trade. Kolkata’s Armenian community consists of about 200 members and is best symbolised by their church and college. The latter – the Armenian Philanthropic Academy – was founded in 1821 and later moved to Free School Street. Few know that William Makepeace Thackeray was born here. “The very existence of these two institutions says we are here to stay. There was an inflow after the 1914-15 genocide that saw two million people dead. My grandfather settled here because Kolkata was considered the land of ...