With four extraordinary photographs from my talented friend, Kashyap Ray @kashyray
Yes, Kolkata is a city in eastern India. But there are many Kolkatas. Rich Kolkata and poor Kolkata. North Kolkata and south Kolkata. Elegant Kolkata and grimy Kolkata. Amazing how many Kolkatas there are. But for me there are only two Kolkatas. The Kolkata I lived in thirty years ago and the Kolkata I now visit.
In fact, the Kolkata I grew up in had a different name, Calcutta. Up to the end of the 16th century, India was the world’s richest country with the largest economy. So the British, the greatest maritime power at the time, sought a trading license from the royal Nawab to make use of the riverine port of Calcutta and three villages. Over the years they fortified their trading post and eventually, treacherously, ejected the Nawab. They made Calcutta their capital, the starting point of their Indian empire, the jewel in the British crown.
Calcutta was certainly my own private empire, the jewel of my life.
Yes, Kolkata is a city in eastern India. But there are many Kolkatas. Rich Kolkata and poor Kolkata. North Kolkata and south Kolkata. Elegant Kolkata and grimy Kolkata. Amazing how many Kolkatas there are. But for me there are only two Kolkatas. The Kolkata I lived in thirty years ago and the Kolkata I now visit.
In fact, the Kolkata I grew up in had a different name, Calcutta. Up to the end of the 16th century, India was the world’s richest country with the largest economy. So the British, the greatest maritime power at the time, sought a trading license from the royal Nawab to make use of the riverine port of Calcutta and three villages. Over the years they fortified their trading post and eventually, treacherously, ejected the Nawab. They made Calcutta their capital, the starting point of their Indian empire, the jewel in the British crown.
Calcutta was certainly my own private empire, the jewel of my life.
Thirty years I walked its winding streets, drank its sweet milky tea and breathed its acetic air, happily and with gusto. I lived in succession in Mechua Bazar, College Street, Wellington Street, Park Circus, Ballyganj and eventually in Alipore – the first three in relatively modest areas, and the latter three, especially the last, in elite environs. Even when we lived in a run-down neighborhood, we had decent digs with functional furniture, and I always had a room of my own. So I could be by myself, read endless books in preferred isolation and listen to popular music and dream dreams.
Modest barrios have their benefits. It was the only time in my life, I got to know slum kids as I played soccer with them and they treated me as equals, without distance or deference. Thanks to my parents, who had a large circle of friends, I had a vast assortment of kids as friends, from the rambunctious child of a Scottish professor to a quiet but mischievous neighborhood girl who spoke little but wrote me long and suggestive notes. Our living room was curiously egalitarian: father wanted us kids to sit with adults and discuss whatever caught our fancy, even the multiple affairs of a Hollywood star du jour.
Modest barrios have their benefits. It was the only time in my life, I got to know slum kids as I played soccer with them and they treated me as equals, without distance or deference. Thanks to my parents, who had a large circle of friends, I had a vast assortment of kids as friends, from the rambunctious child of a Scottish professor to a quiet but mischievous neighborhood girl who spoke little but wrote me long and suggestive notes. Our living room was curiously egalitarian: father wanted us kids to sit with adults and discuss whatever caught our fancy, even the multiple affairs of a Hollywood star du jour.
I fondly remember a Turkish journalist who stayed with us and taught mother how to make some lamb delicacies and a Japanese scholar who sang hosannas of Sushi and helped an Indian boy overcome his natural distrust of uncooked pesce. Unencumbered by the rules of hygiene, I ate with friends whatever street vendors dished out, with miraculous triumph over intestinal disorders.
I went walking everywhere, taking a bus only when the few coins in my pockets permitted it. It didn’t seem arduous or unpleasant at all, and I saw things you see only when you are not whizzing past in a car. You saw every pedestrian, every beggar, every fruit seller, every rickshaw-puller with his lined, sweat-soaked face. On Kolkata’s crowded roads your shoulders touched that of other passers-by; you had to be aware of the people, men or women, tall or short, old or young, that lived around you.
When I came out of the university and took a job with an affluent corporation, I was transported overnight into another world. I got to see the elite clubs, the fancier restaurants and the night life of the well-heeled, especially the movie stars for whom I did an occasional stint on scripts. It was, however, to the credit of Kolkata that it had bistros and coffee houses where the different worlds intermingled. Politicos and professors, reporters and policemen, executives and clerks, all talked, argued, analyzed, discussed, fought and made up. Kolkata was breathlessly alive on the streets and inside.
I went walking everywhere, taking a bus only when the few coins in my pockets permitted it. It didn’t seem arduous or unpleasant at all, and I saw things you see only when you are not whizzing past in a car. You saw every pedestrian, every beggar, every fruit seller, every rickshaw-puller with his lined, sweat-soaked face. On Kolkata’s crowded roads your shoulders touched that of other passers-by; you had to be aware of the people, men or women, tall or short, old or young, that lived around you.
When I came out of the university and took a job with an affluent corporation, I was transported overnight into another world. I got to see the elite clubs, the fancier restaurants and the night life of the well-heeled, especially the movie stars for whom I did an occasional stint on scripts. It was, however, to the credit of Kolkata that it had bistros and coffee houses where the different worlds intermingled. Politicos and professors, reporters and policemen, executives and clerks, all talked, argued, analyzed, discussed, fought and made up. Kolkata was breathlessly alive on the streets and inside.
After decades overseas in different continents, now that I live in the west, I make an annual pilgrimage to Kolkata, partly to see friends and partly to renew my link with a city I still don’t want to become an alien universe. It is a quite a different Kolkata I visit.
A mammoth, modern airport beckons you. The roads are better, major street corners have become flyovers and the cars bear wellknown brand names. Some of the advantages are balanced by a fierce flow of traffic and a swollen and careless army of pedestrians. Many old buildings, even the ones I knew and loved, have yielded place to large condominiums. Some shops, run by family businesses I once knew, still exist, but several have ceded ground to large shopping malls that are impressive but seem a little impersonal to me.
The city has a different look – and a different price. The last pair of shoes I bought when I lived there was for thirty rupees; when I came for a World Bank mission twenty years ago I paid three hundred for a comparable pair; now it costs three thousand. A breathtaking variety of cuisine, Indian and Indianized Asian or western food, offers the gourmand a tantalizing temptation. Friends invite me to a number of clubs, still bastions of peace and grace, and the service is jaw-dropping.
A mammoth, modern airport beckons you. The roads are better, major street corners have become flyovers and the cars bear wellknown brand names. Some of the advantages are balanced by a fierce flow of traffic and a swollen and careless army of pedestrians. Many old buildings, even the ones I knew and loved, have yielded place to large condominiums. Some shops, run by family businesses I once knew, still exist, but several have ceded ground to large shopping malls that are impressive but seem a little impersonal to me.
The city has a different look – and a different price. The last pair of shoes I bought when I lived there was for thirty rupees; when I came for a World Bank mission twenty years ago I paid three hundred for a comparable pair; now it costs three thousand. A breathtaking variety of cuisine, Indian and Indianized Asian or western food, offers the gourmand a tantalizing temptation. Friends invite me to a number of clubs, still bastions of peace and grace, and the service is jaw-dropping.
I don’t walk as much as I used to, though I would love to: the sidewalks show neglect and are crowded, not the least because vendors have misappropriated a slice. Walking in the dusk, with the breeze in my face, feels strangely nostalgic, and, when I get lost, people on the street seem strangely solicitous to help me regain my bearing. One or two will even walk several yards to show me the correct turn.
That, to me, is quintessential Kolkata. Other things change, but remarkably the people haven’t changed all that much. They are busier, more hard pressed, more squeezed by the demands of more demanding offices and factories. But they have defiantly retained some of their pristine habits or virtues. They are helpful. They are warm. They are companionable. They talk, express, exult and pull no punches to tell you what they think of the government, the city, the people around them, and their own life. They are voluble, candid and lively. They are exactly as I remembered the people of this exciting and confusing city.
I will keep visiting, and getting excited as well as confused.
That, to me, is quintessential Kolkata. Other things change, but remarkably the people haven’t changed all that much. They are busier, more hard pressed, more squeezed by the demands of more demanding offices and factories. But they have defiantly retained some of their pristine habits or virtues. They are helpful. They are warm. They are companionable. They talk, express, exult and pull no punches to tell you what they think of the government, the city, the people around them, and their own life. They are voluble, candid and lively. They are exactly as I remembered the people of this exciting and confusing city.
I will keep visiting, and getting excited as well as confused.
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