List of people from Kolkata

List of notable people from Kolkata. The city of Kolkata has been regarded as the cultural capital of India.^[1]

Writers, including poets

Rabindranath Tagore, 1st non-European to win a Nobel Prize
Gulzar
Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay
Kumudini Basu
Suchitra Bhattacharya
Sukanta Bhattacharya
Buddhadev Bose
Amiya Chakravarty
Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay
Shakti Chattopadhyay
Nirad C. Chaudhuri
Pramatha Chowdhury
Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury
Dinesh Das
Jibanananda Das
Henry Louis Vivian Derozio
Bishnu Dey
Michael Madhusudan Dutta
Satyendranath Dutta
Sudhindranath Dutta
Sunil Gangopadhyay
Joy Goswami
Amelia Horne
Kazi Nazrul Islam
Sisir Kumar Maitra
Binoy Majumdar
Mohitolal Majumdar
Samaresh Majumdar (b.1944)
Arun Mitra
Dinabandhu Mitra
Premendra Mitra
Dhan Gopal Mukerji
Subhas Mukhopadhyay
Purnendu Patri
Christopher Raja
Annada Shankar Ray
Dwijendralal Ray
Tarapada Ray
Sukumar Ray
Samar Sen
Syed Mujtaba Ali
S Wajid Ali
Badal Sircar, dramatist and theatre director
Shobhanasundari Mukhopadhyay, Shovana Devi Tagore, folklorist
Mimi Mondal, First Indian English writer who nominated for Hugo Award.
Srijato

Philosophers and religious teachers

The most famous religious figure of Kolkata is Mother Teresa. Others are (in order of surname):

Bhakti Hridaya Bon (1901–1982)
Bhakti Prajnana Kesava Goswami (1898–1968)
Rajendra Pillai (born 1968)^[2]^[3]
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977), founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON)
Ramakrishna (1836–1886)
Ram Mohan Roy (1772–1833)
Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati (1874–1837), founder of Gaudiya Math
Keshab Chandra Sen (1838–1884)
Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905)
Bhaktivinoda Thakur (1838–1914)
Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902)
Paramhansa Yogananda (1893-1952)

Engineers and scientists

List in order of surname.

James Atkinson (1780–1852), surgeon, artist and Persian scholar
R. D. Banerji, archeologist
Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937), Bengali polymath, physicist, biologist, biophysicist, botanist and archaeologist
Upendranath Brahmachari
Asima Chatterjee (1917–2006), chemist
Debendra Mohan Bose (1875–1975), physicist
Satyendra Nath Bose (1894–1974), physicist and polymath from Bengal
Suniti Kumar Chattopadhyay (1890–1977), Bengali linguist
Barun De (1932–2013), historian
Brajendranath De (1852–1932), civil servant and orientalist
Anil Kumar Gain (1919–1978), mathematician and statistician
J.B.S. Haldane (1892–1964), British-Indian scientist, known for his work in the study of physiology, genetics, evolutionary biology, and mathematics
Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis (1893–1972), Bengali scientist and applied statistician
R.C. Majumdar (1884–1980), historian
P. J. Marshall (born 1933), historian
Ujjwal Maulik (born 1965), computer scientist
Subhash Mukhopadhyay (1931–1981), physician
Sisir Kumar Mitra (1890–1963), physicist
Rajat Kanta Ray, historian
Amal Kumar Raychaudhuri (1922–2005), physicist, known for his research in general relativity and cosmology
Tapan Raychaudhuri (1926–2014), historian
Tapati Guha-Thakurta (born 1957), historian
Sukanta Chaudhuri (born 1950), literary scholar
Ananda Lal (born 1955), academic and theatre scholar
C. R. Rao (1920–2023), mathematician and statistician
Prafulla Chandra Roy (1861–1944), Bengali chemist, educationist, historian, industrialist and philanthropist
Meghnad Saha (1893–1956), astrophysicist
Sir Jadunath Sarkar (1870–1958), historian
Sumit Sarkar (born 1939), historian
Susobhan Sarkar (1900–1982), historian
Tapan Kumar Sarkar (1948–2021), electrical engineer
Ashoke Sen (born 1956), theoretical physicist
Bikas K Chakrabarti (born 1952), theoretical physicist and econophysicist
Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay (born 1968), computer scientist
Sukumar Sen, historian of Bengali literature

Gallantry Awards winners

Ashoka Chakra

Flight Lieutenant Suhas Biswas

Maha Vir Chakra

Squadron Leader Madhavendra Banerji

Bankers and business people

Amar Kumar Bera
Lakshmi Narayan Mittal
Ravi Modi^[4]
P. C. Bhattacharya, 7th Governor, Reserve Bank of India
Aditya Vikram Birla
Rama Prasad Goenka (RPG Group)
Sanjiv Goenka
Chandra Shekhar Ghosh (founder of Bandhan Bank)
Radhe Shyam Agarwal
Radhe Shyam Goenka
Rajat Gupta (b. 1948)
Nalini Ranjan Sarkar
Mati Lall Seal
Ellis Jacob (founder of Cineplex Entertainment)
Tiny Rowland (chairman of Lonrho from 1962 to 1993)
Prannoy Roy (b.1949)

Freedom fighters

Performing arts

Artists

Directors

Satyajit Ray, winner of Oscar for Lifetime Achievement in 1992 and considered among the greatest director of film history.
Hrishikesh Mukherjee
Bimal Roy
Tapan Sinha
Shakti Samanta
Mrinal Sen
Rituparno Ghosh
Sujoy Ghosh
Nitin Bose
Buddhadeb Dasgupta
Anik Dutta
Kaushik Ganguly
Ritwik Ghatak
Gautam Ghose
Srijit Mukherji
Shiboprosad Mukherjee
Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury
Aparna Sen

Cinema actors

Uttam Kumar, actor, singer, composer, producer, director and screenwriter
Kaushik Ganguly, actor, director and screenwriter
Koushik Sen, actor and TV personality
Mithun Chakraborty, actor, dancer and TV personality
Rabi Ghosh, actor and comedian
Ranjit Mallick, actor
Dhritiman Chaterji, actor
Tapen Chatterjee, actor
Barun Chanda
Pahari Sanyal
N. Viswanathan
Chhabi Biswas
Karuna Bannerjee
Koel Mallick, actress and daughter of Ranjit Mallick
Anil Chatterjee
Arpita Chatterjee, actress and TV personality; wife of Prosenjit Chatterjee
Subir Banerjee
Roopa Ganguly
Uma Dasgupta
Saswata Chatterjee
Tarun Kumar
Anup Kumar
Ashok Kumar
Bhanu Bandopadhyay
Biswajit Chatterjee, actor, producer, director and politician
Prosenjit Chatterjee, actor, producer and TV personality; son of Biswajit Chatterjee
Debashree Roy, actress, dancer, choreographer, animal rights activist and politician; ex-wife of Prosenjit Chatterjee
Jahor Roy
Kanan Devi
Sagarika Mukherjee
Swastika Mukherjee
Razzak
Dev, actor, singer, producer, screenwriter and politician
Jeet, actor, producer and TV personality
Ruma Guha Thakurta
Tapas Paul
Mahua Roy Choudhury
Mirza Abbas Ali
Suchitra Sen
Antara Biswas, actress
Aparna Sen, actress, filmmaker and scriptwriter
Moonmoon Sen
Riddhi Sen, actor
Riya Sen, actress
Raima Sen, actress
Reema Sen, actress
Omar Sani
Victor Banerjee, actor
Moushumi Chatterjee
Parambrata Chatterjee
Konkona Sen Sharma, actress and filmmaker
Varsha Ashwathi
Abhishek Chatterjee
Tathagata Mukherjee
Monali Thakur, singer and actress
Yash Dasgupta, actor, producer and TV personality
Bonny Sengupta, actor and politician
Nusrat Jahan, actress, politician and former Miss Kolkata 2010; wife of Yash Dasgupta
Mimi Chakraborty, actress, producer and politician
Anirban Bhattacharya
Sayani Gupta, actress
Sayantani Ghosh, actress and TV personality
Sayak Chakraborty
Sulakshana Pandit, singer and actress
Vijayta Pandit, singer and actress

Theatre figures

Rudraprasad Sengupta, actor and director
Sambhu Mitra, actor and director
Girishchandra Ghosh father of Bengali theatre
Chitra Sen
Koushik Sen

Photographers

Composers

Hindustani classical singers/maestros

Hindustani classical instrumentalists

Other singers

Contemporary Bollywood musicians

Abhijeet Bhattacharya, playback singer
Anupam Roy (b.1982), singer-songwriter
Alka Yagnik (b. 1966), playback singer
Arijit Singh (b. 1987), singer, music producer, recordist and music programmer
Babul Supriyo (b. 1970), playback singer, live performer, television host, actor and politician
Kumar Sanu (b. 1957), playback singer
Pritam (b. 1971)
Sagarika (b. 1970), playback singer and actress
Shreya Ghoshal (b. 1984), playback singer
Shaan (b. 1972), playback singer and actor

Dancers

Prominent dancers of the city include:

Uday Shankar and his wife Amala Shankar
Mamata Shankar
Tanushree Shankar
Ananda Shankar
Sadhana Bose
Sharmila Biswas^[7]
Shila Mehta, classical dance artist, choreographer, teacher, and composer
Rani Karnaa
Rajeswari Vaidyanathan, Tedx Speaker, trainer, performer and choreographer

Magicians

Kolkata is the magic capital of India and has produced internationally famous magicians and performers, including:

Sports

Norman Pritchard, track and field, Olympic medallist (1900)
Richard James Allen, hockey, Olympic(1928, 1932, 1936)
Leslie Claudius, hockey, Olympic medallist (1924, 1928, 1936)
Gurbux Singh, hockey, Olympic medallist (1964, 1968)
Vece Paes, hockey, Olympic medallist (1980)
Leander Paes, tennis, Olympic medallist (1996)
Sourav Ganguly, cricketer, former India national cricket team's captain, sports administrator, former BCCI president
Chhanda Gayen, mountaineer, first Bengali woman to summit Mount Everest
Pankaj Roy, cricketer
Laxmi Ratan Shukla, cricketer
Deep Dasgupta, cricketer
Rohan Gavaskar, cricketer (son of Sunil Gavaskar)
Manoj Tiwary, cricketer
Ashok Dinda, cricketer
Wriddhiman Saha, cricketer
Mohammed Shami, cricketer
Len Stubbs, former cricketer
Chuni Goswami, footballer
Gautam Sarkar, footballer
Shailen Manna, footballer, former India national football team's captain (guided India to Gold medal in 1951 Asiad)
Pradip Kumar Banerjee, footballer
Krishanu Dey, footballer
Sudip Chatterjee, footballer
Subrata Pal, footballer
Subhasish Roy Chowdhury, footballer
Syed Rahim Nabi, footballer
Mehtab Hossain, footballer
Arnab Mondal, footballer
Pronay Halder, footballer
Pritam Kotal, footballer
Narayan Das, footballer
Subhasish Bose, footballer
Mihir Sen, record swimmer
Jyotirmoyee Sikdar, track and field
Arjun Atwal, golfer
Surya Shekhar Ganguly, chess grandmaster
Dibyendu Barua, chess grandmaster
Sandipan Chanda, chess grandmaster
Deep Sengupta, chess grandmaster
Gobar Guha, wrestler
Manohar Aich, body builder, Mr. Universe 1952
Dipu Ghosh, badminton, Arjuna Award
Saurav Ghosal, squash player
Jaidip Mukerjea, tennis player
Jagmohan Dalmiya, sports administrator
Pankaj Gupta, sports administrator
John Holman, cricketer
William Laidlay, cricketer
Hira Mondal, Footballer

Nobel laureates

Six Nobel Prize winners have been associated with Kolkata:

Sir Ronald Ross (1857–1932) – medicine, 1902
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) – literature, 1913; first Asian to win the Nobel Prize
Mother Teresa (1910–1997) – peace, 1979
Amartya Sen (born 1933) – economics, 1998
Abhijit Banerjee (born 1961) – economics, 2019
CV Raman – physics

Ramon Magsaysay Award winners

The Ramon Magsaysay Award, sometimes called "Asia's Nobel Prize", is given "to perpetuate his example of integrity in government, courageous service to the people, and pragmatic idealism within a democratic society." Kolkata winners include:

Mother Teresa (1910–1997) – Peace and International Understanding, 1962
Satyajit Ray (1921–1992) – Journalism, Literature, and the Creative Communication Arts, 1967
Gour Kishore Ghosh (1923–2000) – Journalism, Literature, and the Creative Communication Arts, 1981
Mahasweta Devi (1926–2016) – Journalism, Literature, and the Creative Communication Arts, 1997

Others

Samik Bandyopadhyay (born 1940), critic of Indian art, theatre and film
Tanmoy Bhattacharya (born 1958), politician
William Carey (1761–1834), missioner and reformer
Laksmikanta Roy Choudhury (1570–1649), Brahmin scholar, social and political figure
Alexander Duff (1806—1878), missioner and reformer
Manny Elias (born 1953), drummer, record producer; original drummer of the Tears for Fears
David Hare (1775–1842), philanthropist and founder of many important and prestigious educational institutions of Kolkata
Mohit Kumar (born 1992), fashion model and influencer^[8]
Rajendra Prasad (1884–1963), politician, the first president of India (from 1950 to 1962)
Romita Ray (born 1970), art historian
Radhika Roy (born 1948), journalist
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (born 1942), scholar, literary theorist, and feminist critic
Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar (1820–1891), philosopher, academic, writer, translator, entrepreneur, social reformer and philanthropist; key figure of the Bengal Renaissance

References

^ naiya, Arijit; Anita Desai (2003). Calcutta: a cultural and literary history. Signal Books. p. xiv. ISBN 978-1-902669-59-5.
^ "Meet Our Team | Damascus Road Community Church". Damascus Road Community Church | Welcome. Retrieved 28 January 2019.
^ "Rajendra Pillai | Penguin Random House". PenguinRandomhouse.com. Retrieved 28 January 2019.
^ "The Untold Story Of How Ravi Modi Built Vedant Fashions—the Makers Of Manyavar—into A $3.5 Billion Behemoth". Forbes India. Retrieved 5 December 2024.
^ "Shanu Lahiri dead". The Telegraph (Calcutta). Archived from the original on 7 February 2013. Retrieved 15 March 2013.
^ "A Tale Of Two Women: In search of their own songs". The Telegraph. 11 March 2012. Archived from the original on 29 July 2014. Retrieved 6 June 2013.
^ "Katha Kavya Abhinaya". Sangeet Natak Akademi. 2011. Archived from the original on 27 September 2013. Retrieved 28 May 2013.
^ https://medium.com/@wearemojocreatives/mohit-kumar-fashion-model-of-kolkata-wins-male-model-of-the-year-west-bengal-2023-dce7214ffb6a

[1] ya, Arijit; Anita Desai (2003). Calcutta: a cultural and literary history. Signal Books. p. xiv. ISBN 978-1-902669-59-5.

[2] "Meet Our Team | Damascus Road Community Church". Damascus Road Community Church | Welcome. Retrieved 28 January 2019.

[3] "Rajendra Pillai | Penguin Random House". PenguinRandomhouse.com. Retrieved 28 January 2019.

[4] "The Untold Story Of How Ravi Modi Built Vedant Fashions—the Makers Of Manyavar—into A $3.5 Billion Behemoth". Forbes India. Retrieved 5 December 2024.

[Telegraph-5] "Shanu Lahiri dead". The Telegraph (Calcutta). Archived from the original on 7 February 2013. Retrieved 15 March 2013.

[tele12-6] "A Tale Of Two Women: In search of their own songs". The Telegraph. 11 March 2012. Archived from the original on 29 July 2014. Retrieved 6 June 2013.

[sna-7] "Katha Kavya Abhinaya". Sangeet Natak Akademi. 2011. Archived from the original on 27 September 2013. Retrieved 28 May 2013.

[8] ttps://medium.com/@wearemojocreatives/mohit-kumar-fashion-model-of-kolkata-wins-male-model-of-the-year-west-bengal-2023-dce7214ffb6a

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