Coming back to Kolkata
Returning home always feels special. I am back in Kolkata nee Calcutta after almost a year. But I feel like a stranger in my own city. I am staying in a city hotel this time with my colleagues instead of the family home. It feels very strange.
I grew up in this much reviled city. Winston Churchill once told his mother that he was glad to have seen Calcutta "for the same reason Papa gave for being glad to have seen Lisbon - namely, that it will be unnecessary for me ever to see it again". Rough justice given that Calcutta was the first capital of the British empire. The muggy weather did not help - Mark Twain found the climate humid and hot "enough to make a brass doorknob mushy." Gunter Grass, who spent time in the city, wrote about the "great bloody mess that was dropped by God and called Calcutta". Much later it was hyped as a City of Joy - I never quite understood what it meant; I am not sure whether Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre did either. Then it was derided as a "dying city" by a former Indian premier. Kolkata has had to live with flak for as long as anyone can remember.
In many ways, Kolkata has been a cursed city. It had been rocked by religious riots and its people decimated by famine - three million people starved to death in the city in the early 1940s. The partition in 1947 dealt a further blow to the city with thousands of refugees pouring in from its eastern borders. They set up homes in shantytowns which sprung up everywhere; the pathos of post-partition life was mirrored best in Bengali auteur Ritwik Ghatak's movies. They were also the most neglected refugees: the per capita government spending on a refugee in Bengal was a tenth of the spending on his counterpart in Indian Punjab, which bore the brunt of a post-partition influx.
The war for the independence of Bangladesh in 1971 truly broke the city's back - another wave of refugees arrived. It earned the infamy of a pestilential and putrefying metropolis, full of hungry and dying people on the sidewalks. "In a sense, Calcutta is a definition of obscenity," wrote Geoffrey Moorhouse in his well-known book on the city.
Half a century ago, in the fifties, the city made a brief revival as a destination for business and a robust nightlife. Nightclubs on the city's high street which is called Park Street (there are no parks on the street apart from a tiny, unkempt apology of one) with fashionable names like Magnolia and Trincas hosted cabarets and live music. The city was best known for its crooners who sang a mean Billie Holiday and jazz bands which played Dave Brubeck and Duke Ellington (Take The "A" Train, was a hot favourite).
I was a child of Kolkata's decaying days. I lived with my parents in Delhi when the Maoist violence swept the city in the early 1970s as idealist, bright young men signed up to a quixotic revolution that never was. It was a naïve, botched and bloody campaign where strange class enemies were targeted - a poor policeman here, a university professor there. It died a swift death as the government cracked down on it ruthlessly. Many of the bright Maoists fled the city for safer climes abroad. They went on to teach in top universities, among other things. I have known many such fire-spitting Maoists turned sedate champagne socialists.
I faintly remember the Communists sweeping to power in the late 1970s as the people voted against the Congress misrule of the state of West Bengal, of which Kolkata is the capital. The Communists have ruled ever since, uninterruptedly for over three decades. Many now quip that the dictatorship of the proletariat has given way to the rule of a new lumpen proletariat in the city where there are simply not enough jobs.
I did my school and college and watched the city go to pieces in the 1980s: studying in candle light as night-long power outages crippled the city, and strikes at the drop of the hat regularly brought it to a halt. Examinations were always delayed and question papers were leaked. In the last decade or so, Kolkata has picked up its pieces and got some of its groove back. To be true, it is a city of faded grandeur, still looking back to its glory days. But it has always taken the punches gamely and held out a promise of better things to come. That is why I keep coming back to Kolkata.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~32~RS~)
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Even when it comes from a Bengali, why oh why does an opening article on one of the world's greatest city always have to be about its negative traits, when being published by the Western media? Is it because that's what the Westerner, especially the British, always want to read about what was once their Second City? I am assuming the further blogs on this site will show the more enduring side of a city that has been home to some of our nation's greatest citizens and also a region that once and for all produced the freedom fighters to eventually throw the British out, great men like Lalaji, Tilak and Gandhi notwithstanding. I've always felt: what India is to the world, Calcutta is to India. No city defines India better. Frankly who cares what Churchill or Moorehouse or Lapierre thought. As humans, we must visit it at least once; as Indians, we must love it; and as Bengalis we must protect and cherish it till we die.
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Soutik is letting his emotions get the better of him -- a very unwelcome trait in a journalist. This was meant to be a election blog and not a travelogue.
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Soutik Biswas wrote, "I was a child of Kolkata's decaying days. I lived with my parents in Delhi when the Maoist violence swept the city in the early 1970s..." He may indicate the Bengal's Naxalite era and its violence as 'Maoist violence' days. But so many people in Bengal believe that, today's so-called Maoist activities could not matched with this days Naxalite movement led by veteran communist leaders like Charu Majumder, Saroj Dutta and so many bright young students.
Then Naxalites gained a strong presence amongst the radical sections of the students movement in Kolkata. Large number of bright students left their education to join revolutionary activities, some of them fled the city, as Biswas wrote "many of the bright Maoists fled the city for safer climes abroad." But many of them did'nt fled. Eventually, the powerfull state, began to institute counter-measures against the Naxalites. The Kolkata police are accused of several civil and human rights violations on the Naxalites, including detention without counsel, torture, and staged shootouts.
But was it realy 'decaying days' ? It's still has a big questions ?
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Every one is entitled to his or her opinions about a city. Soutik seems happy to have "fled" to greener pastures. The blog is supposed to be about elctions in India and not personal opinions of NRBs (Non Resident Bengalis).
I have lived all over the country and in a few places abroad. While Kolkata has it's haters and baiters, i think it a great place to live in. The results of the ongoing Loksabha elctions is unlikely to chage it for the better or the worse. Those occupying the seats of power may change but Kolkata shall "Cholche, Cholbe...."
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great despatch. straight from the heart. however, there is a lot, lot more history here than what the reporter saw "here and now"
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It is a great piece of writing, but, as someone said, more of a travelogue. I am a Bengali and proud of my city. In some ways I am able to relate to what Mr. Biswas says. But this article is more about the city itself than about the role Kolkata is going to play in Indian elections. I understand the pain that Mr. Biswas feels when he sees Kolkata like this, but I guess it more important to hold on to one's emotions while reporting on all-encompassing issues like the general elections.
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I am non Bengali but I love the city Kolkota (Calcutta) I understand the life up and downs take you to roller coaster of life but still a great city specially people share there feeling and belonging with high respect. Its city of Joy
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I think Soutik must have some bad experiences about city of joy or probably his thoughts are based on whatever he has heard from others. But, for me this city has lots of things to offer for every segment of society. Agreed that state & local politics has played major role in cities growth which was stagnated. Kolkata is still having the great potential to drive the country’s economy & politics. I'm non-bengali but am now big fan of this city. City has many colleges which started in early 18th century, even before the sepoy mutiny. If we are able to correct the loopholes about this city, then this city will again emerge as one the most promising & competitive in the global front. City has great history, culture & traditional values so mere blaming or raising fingers won't make real sense. So here lies local folks responsibility to bring the glorious days of Kolkata back & making it again pivotal in Indian mainstream politics.
Hope Soutik must be knowing that Kolkata timings has framed as Indian standard time & also it is called as Eastern Dallas.
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The curse of the millions that died in man-made famine & religious riots in the forties in Kolkata possibly still haunts this city.
The insensitivity of the city dwellers to people dying on the streets was hardly compensated by the genuinely compassionate work of Nobel Laurette Mother Teresa among those wretched.
Kolkata is a city of extreme contradictions. Here poetic work of another Nobel Laurette Rabindranath Tagore continues to be culturally venerated alongside the pervasive culture of protest, bandhs & violence that damages millions of rupees of public property like buses & trams besides productive time.
The city is also a perfect example of symbiotic coexistence of thousands of leftist intellectuals,little magazines as well as prostitutes. The latter live out their trapped lives in one of Asia's largest brothels in the heart of the city.
Kolkata is the only city that continues to churn out the few Nobel Laurette from India , the latest being the economist Amartya Sen. Commerce & industry , however, take a second place to politics in this city.
I liked Soutik's concise portrayal of Kolkata. One needs to get out of Kolkata not only to assess the true character of the city but also to get rid of the "Stockholm Syndrome" that appears to afflict most of its residents including yours truly.
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Thank you Soutik. You dare tell the truth.
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I lived for seven years in West Bengal and mostly in Calcutta as it then was in English, it was always Kolikatta in Bengali. I have returned four times and always wish that I could live there again. It is a wonderful vibrant city full of kind people, but Indian Immigration Rules make it impossible to do other than visit. So my ability to speak, eat, dress and live like a Bengali are poignant memories that remind me of my youth and happiness in that home from home.
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Soutik:
It's great thing, that you made the return trip to Kolkata and check things out...
~Dennis Junior~
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