Late German Nobel Literature Laureate memorized in India

Late German Nobel Literature Laureate Gunter Grass was memorized on Tuesday by an Indian newspaper in the eastern city of Kolkata as one who has given the Indian city and its people its due through poems and sketches.

The Telegraph daily published an article in memory of the German writer who visited Kolkata, also known as Calcutta, twice in 1975 and 1986.

Grass, best known for his novel "Tin Drum," died on Monday in his Berlin home at the age of 87.

When he visited Kolkata in 1975, Grass was shocked by the poverty and uncleanness of the sprawling metropolis, which was the former capital of British India. But he was inspired by the courage of local poor people to keep on living and surviving, especially poor women, according to the article by Subhoranjan Dasgupta, an Indian writer who met him several times.

"I cannot tear myself away from your country, the Calcutta is a city that has changed me radically. It has opened my eyes," he once said.

When Grass visited Kolkata again in 1986, he wrote a poem entitled "Show Your Tongue", in which he "stuck the essential truth" about life in Kolkata through the description of children who were laboring and at the same time learning from textbooks the local Bengali language at a huge garbage belt outside the city.

"He was seeking to build a bridge with the Third World, an effort which had originated in the political philosophy and practice of his political mentor Willy Brandt," said Dasgupta in the article.

In 2001, Grass said in a media interview that his Indian experience has left "an indelible imprint on his creativity." He also said the three cities he loved most were Danzig in Poland, where he was borne and grew up, Berlin and Kolkata, according to the article. Endi