Anderson club kicks off centenary celebrations, honours members

Kolkata: Indian Life Saving Society (ILSS), popularly known as Anderson club, on Sunday began its centenary celebrations by honouring its members with Gold Card, who have 30 years of membership and attained the age of 60 years. The club also felicitated its oldest security staff Lal Bahadur Gurung (88) who has been serving the club over half a century.
The birth of ILSS was a strange coincidence. “The elites of the city used to spend the summer evening at Babu Ghat, where they saw a boy drowning. No one could help as none present there knew swimming. They decided to build a society to save people from drowning. The society was established in a small house at Ahiritola Ghat in 1922. The house still exists and we still pay Rs 2 rent to the Kolkata Port Trust. But it was occupied by a local club,” said Arabinda Roy, general secretary of ILSS.
The club later shifted to its present address at the eastern end of Rabindra Sarobar where the house of John Anderson was located. “We now have 7,000 members and we trained 5,000 children every year. We still impart life saving training to a large number of youths at free of cost , who get recruited at various institutions,” said Roy.
“Over the years, the club with its twin swimming pools, has evolved into a social club where families and friends of the members meet in the evening. But we have not deviated from our main motto — saving life. The club has an illustrious history with swimming luminaries who used to train here. Legendary coach Anil Dasgupta, after whom writer Moti Nandi created the character, swimming coach Khitish Sinha, who was portrayed in the movie by Soumitra Chatterjee. The students included Nafisa Ali and Sriparna Banerjee who acted in the film,” Roy added.
ILSS is commonly referred to as Anderson club. Beside the central theme of swimming, this old institution is found to carry the heritage of rich and elite culture of old Kolkata and it was once the gathering point of the elites of the city. “Surely, that elegance is not still there but the essence of the elegance could still be found there in this swimming club of Kolkata,” said an old member