The image is not inappropriate, since Brian Cox, one of the stars of Conor Mc- Pherson's The Weir , sees the theatre in quasi-religious terms. Two hours earlier, a full matinee audience on a wet, dreary day had hung on every word as the actors explored the aching nature of loss, ghosts and memory. But they were Scots and the sun always shone, so they did what they always did best: wild parties. The bearers would be in their splendid turbans and cummerbunds, the cooks aflutter; the Scots fell upon the gin and whisky bottles; there would be tennis and swimming, and by the end of it, they would be drunk silly, in the pond, the mill tank, everywhere... In their prime, though, walking about Chowringhee was like ambling about Dundee High Street, what with all the accents of home they heard at every turn. The Jutewallahs left Dundee for India in search of better lives, a fortune perhaps. They imprinted themselves in Calcutta’s being. Even in the 1980s, long after they had returned home, the jute barges on the Hooghly River still bore marks of Dundee’s great mills – Eagle Works, Baxters…

During the four-day festival, to be held at Kolkata’s Nandan Film Centre, Cox will introduce every film and give talks at the local film school. The actor, who revealed last week he would star as former House of Commons speaker Michael Martin in a new BBC drama, has been a regular fixture in Scotland this year. Video: 30 May: Herald. GOA @36: Young are grateful for Goa’s Statehood… Goa was finally liberated from Portuguese rule on December 19, 1961. It became a Union Territory of India… A pivotal referendum took place in 1967, resulting in their choice to remain a Union Territory. Eventually, on May 30, 1987, Goa attained Statehood… Youngster like Sheefa Tonse reveal what they think about Statehood… “Statehood is important,” she says “as it helps establish Goa as a state with a distinctive entity…” 6m.40sThis will not be Cox’s first encounter with Kolkata and West Bengal. In fact, the area has a very personal pull for the Dundee-born actor. His parents worked in the jute mills by the River Tay, processing tonnes of the yarn shipped from the subcontinent. Cox recently made a BBC documentary, Brian Cox’s Jute Journey, about Dundee’s and his own links with West Bengal. May: Herald. 12 properties changed from orchard to settlement within a month of notifying amendment to Section 17 (2) of TCP Act. As many as 12 properties, including six in Morjim village, were changed from orchard to settlement within a month of notification… What has surprised Goans is that all the applicants are non-Goans and have questioned how can the experts made such glaring errors at the time of preparing a comprehensive plan? “Where is city planner Vinayak Bharne, who was supposed to guide TCP on the development plan as per TCP Minister Vishwajit Rane?”… Brian says: "My folks followed their parents into the mills but the closest I got was as a wee boy, peering through the open doors of the Eagle Jute Works on a hot summer's day. I recall being dazzled by all the noise, the dust and the activity."

The cemetery is in a terrible state. Many of the graves are broken, it’s overgrown with weeds and the entire place reeks of extreme neglect,” said Cox. In their search for the graves of fellow Scots, the crew was helped by Norman Hall, the caretaker of the cemetery for years now, and his wife Loretta. Cox and the crew were rewarded — “we discovered a good 10-15 graves of people from Dundee who had lived in Calcutta and worked in the jute mills in the vicinity,” said Archer. You see that in the people who went out there - they were up for an adventure. For me it was to go south and become an actor. Dundee had one of the best theatres in the country but I didn't properly appreciate that at the time." With India’s partition in 1947, the best quality jute-growing areas fell into East Pakistan (later Bangladesh), tantalisingly out of reach for Calcutta’s jute mills. In the orgy of violence that befell the countries in the wake of that great sundering, the Dundonian Jutewallahs found themselves protected behind their compound walls, defended by stalwart Gurkhas. Shortly thereafter, the Indian government issued directives that more and more locals should be employed in positions that were held by Europeans. Many Jutewallahs thought that the mills would collapse once they left and the Indians took over; the know-how, after all, was with them and not the natives. There was a mass exodus of expatriates out of Bengal, and by the early 1950s, most of Calcutta’s mills had passed into Indian ownership.

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My family are all Irish. My great-grandfather came from Derry. My great-grandmother came from Donegal – the McCann side of my family. The Coxes all came from Enniskillen. They were forced to move, to wander and be uprooted.” But of course that social power was exclusively within their own milieus. As far as the bosses of the mills, the rich upper-class were concerned, the mill-hands were so much cattle. The mills were incredibly noisy and many workers went deaf; the dust and fibre in the air destroyed their lungs. Still generation followed generation into the mills, entire families occupied in creating wealth for Dundee.

The highlight of the day for Cox? Having freshly fried pakoras made with the jute plant! “They were delicious and I gobbled up quite a few of them,” he laughed. You have been so subjugated. You have had such a bad rap for so long. It is very hard to know what the Irish model themselves on, because they don’t want to model themselves on their previous generations. I don’t like that very much. So who do they model themselves on?”

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I think it translates well,” says Cox, sitting in a tiny room upstairs in the cavernous, winding Wyndham’s. “I think there is a universal quality to this. It is what the Mass used to do for Catholics, the celebration of the Eucharist. The Mass had a kind of mystery about it, and the theatre has a mystery about it. Cox’s journey has made him favour Scottish independence in this September’s referendum. “I am not a nationalist, but I believe in independence because I believe the whole thing has got to start over again. Top) Brian Cox on the Scottish Cemetery premises. Picture by Aranya Sen. (below) The crew shoot at the Tollygunge Club There is that predilection about drink in the Irish, it is a kind of a cliché, but it is also about the nature of celebration and storytelling, and the fact that they do celebrate, the whole spirit of the seanchaí, that is such a powerful spirit.” Brian said: "My family history is bound up in jute. My parents followed their parents into the mills but the closest I got was as a wee boy, peering through the open doors of the Eagle JuteWorks on a hot summer's day.