Panagarh and Pin Up Stars of Hollywood

 

I have the dodgy distinction of having served in the most unheard of and unheralded places in the country, places most others would find difficult even to locate on a map! So, when the powers that be decreed that I should move to to Panagarh, it was just yet another feckless feather in my colourless cap! Panagarh, a small town close to Durgapur on the famed Grand Trunk Road (GT Road), is an old army logistics base and air force station of World War II vintage. Heading out of Kolkata airport, the GT Road passes alongside Dakshineswar Temple (made famous by Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa) and sneaks past the sorry desolation of Singur before looping out of Panagarh onto the industrial town of Durgapur. An inconspicuous turn on the highway led into the army base. Reaching the base on an unbearably muggy summer morning, I was helpfully informed by a DRDO scientist that the 40⁰ C air temperature, coupled with the prevailing 77% humidity, translated into a heat index temperature (what the body feels) of 79⁰ C! Welcome to Panagarh!!

The weather was just one hazard. The place was infested with snakes (the name Panagarh is believed to have originated from Phana (the hood of a snake) + Garh (abode), Panagarh = abode of the hooded beings). The army base itself looked like it had been bypassed by the wheels of time. Panagarh was a very important base during World War 2, providing vital logistic and air support to the Allied offensive against Japan. With the end of the war, Panagarh appears to have lost its shine and soon, almost everyone forgot about its existence. But not everyone, though. In some recesses of the institutional memory, Panagarh lurked like a Kaala Pani to banish troublemakers and trouble seekers to.

If one lives long enough at any place, the place begins to grow on you. I began to discover the charms of living in a small cantonment. The easy camaraderie of the station fraternity going beyond regimental and office cocoons, the unbridled enthusiasm for community celebrations, the luxury of walking to and back from the office, the freedom to do one’s own thing without having to worry about someone looking over one’s shoulder et al. The benevolent grace of Khetrapal Baba Mandir (dedicated to Lord Shiva) on the campus was reputed to protect the denizens of Panagarh Cantonment from evil, both natural and manmade. Shantiniketan was just about 50 km away, if ever one wanted to top up on one’s aesthetic quotient. The village adjoining the cantonment went by the sonorous name, Bud Bud. So, my newly constructed official residence was duly christened ‘Bud Bud Bari’ (Bari being Bengali for house)!

Stepping out of the cantonment, a different world unfolded. The main bazar of Panagarh, which the GT Road sliced through, looked like a dystopian Detroit! Trucks, cars, vans, buses, tractors, tempos and many other sundry four wheelers in various states of disassembly littered the roadside. ‘Cutting’ was the main industry of Panagarh, informed the friendly driver from the Station Headquarters, a local who had volunteered to show me around the place. ‘What’s cutting?’ I inquired. It’s the business of stripping down a vehicle completely, separating out all the major assemblies and disposing of them, he explained. Any stolen vehicle reaching Panagarh will cease to be an entity in less than 24 hours, snuffed out of existence by the dextrous hands of his compatriots, he declared with a barely concealed sense of pride! A nice nugget of information but I knew Panagarh would have more honourable claims to fame. So, I dug deeper.

Voila! What emerged was a bonafide connection to Hollywood! John Leslie Coogan (Jackie Coogan) was the eponymous kid in the 1921 Charlie Chaplin movie, ‘The Kid’. 

One of the first ‘child stars’ of Hollywood, Jackie Coogan continued to have an extremely successful career in Hollywood in his adulthood. He acted with Betty Grable, reputedly the top pin-up girl of World War II. 

They married in 1937 and divorced in 1939. Jackie Coogan joined the US Army in 1941 and after the attack on Pearl Harbour, he transferred to the US Army Air Force as a glider pilot. In 1944, he joined the 1st Air Commando Group (1ACG), located at Panagarh air base (since named as Arjan Singh Air Force Station). 1ACG provided fighter cover, bomber support, and air transport services for the Chindits operations (led by the redoubtable Orde Wingate), fighting behind enemy lines in Burma. Their operations included airdrop and landing of troops, food, and equipment; evacuation of casualties; and attacks against enemy airfields and lines of communication. 

So, here was a genuine Hollywood star, once married to the hottest pin-up girl of his era, discharging his military obligations with panache, walking the same parched Panagarh earth, flying over the same humid skies several decades earlier! Now, that’s a story I could tell my grandchildren on a cozy winter evening!!