Impressions of Calcutta 2

Fifty Years Ago
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I explore the city travelling by buses and trams with friends. At a few paise per trip, one can go all over town, all day, without spending a rupee. Buses all over India are overloaded, but Calcutta gives the word a new meaning. Remarkably, a female can get into a 40 seater bus carrying 80, be offered a seat, travel in peace and come out of it untouched. In Delhi it would be a miracle to emerge unmolested.

In fullness of time I land in Park Street; virtually a carry-over from colonial days with its continental food restaurants, western bands, crooners and cabarets. There is even a smallish Moulin Rouge with a rotating windmill on its fascia. Most men are in suits or at least ties, and most women in western dress. Calcutta, one finds, is the only Indian city without a hypocritical attitude towards alcohol, entertainment and romance.

The Burra Bazaar with its Marwari dominance is a different city within a city. Here be the chaps who make money and create jobs. One of them, R D Bansal, produces and finances Satyajit Ray films.

The colleges, the book shops and the coffee house of College Street are another fascinating world. The coffee house is a hotbed of student politics increasingly turning left. Marx, Engles, Che and Mao are the heroes here.

Tangra is a sizable Chinatown from where emerge beauticians, excellent shoes and other leather products as also superb banglafied and indified Hakka Chinese food.

Bihar is everywhere in the city. From Rickshaw pullers to coolies to water haulers and herders of butchery-bound live-stock, you name any backbreaking job and there is a Bihari willing to take it.

The city is full of aesthetically pleasing buildings. Most are poorly maintained. The Victoria Memorial will never grow up to be a Taj Mahal, but it is a pleasant place to go to, as are places like Belur Math, Dakshineshwar, Bandel Church and Botanical Garden.

Some of these are also places where urban romance flourishes. There is nothing more romantic than a walk by the lakes, or a slow sail boat across the Ganges, with the light rain and the setting sun conducting the background music playing in one's head.  Young couples have a hard time getting any privacy and head out to a dozen or so lover's lanes just to get away from prying familiar eyes. Like in many Indian cities, the cheapest and best private space is cinema seats in the last row - after the show starts.

Indian Statistical Institute founded by P C Mahalonobis is a nationally and internationally famed place of academic excellence. This is where, for the next six years, I live and learn. Learn to live - neither wisely nor too well, I am afraid. And to love - too well but perhaps not wisely.

It is an idyllic place to study and work. Its vast campus is an eclectic mix of the ancient and the very modern. Fellow students are from all parts of India and a few are from other countries. One learns the ways of 'others'. One learns about local cuisine, music, film, theatre customs and so on. One learns the local language. And Addabaazi.

The ISI faculty harbours many tall intellects of a calibre rarely seen together in any one space. It is the cradle for India's statistical back-bone, giving birth to the Central Statistical Organisation and the National Sample Survey. ISI also plays a large role in shaping the Planning Commission and later the National Informatics Centre.

ISI is where India's first mainframe computer will be installed and the very first post-graduate programme in computer science will be started. In course of time, there will be no academic or professional space on earth involving statistics which will remain untouched by ISI alumni or faculty.

After I left in 1968 I have gone back to Calcutta a few times. Sometimes for business but sometimes also 'just'. To touch favourite places. Or to touch base with favourite people. As I write this I have tried not to update my first impressions and have referred to later events only where they bore a direct relationship to what I observed then.

As I write this Mamata di is the Chief Minister, her Trinamool having displaced the CP(M) after thirty-five odd years. She promises to turn Calcutta into London of the east. And has started out by painting the town blue.

Impressions of Calcutta

Fifty Years Ago

It’s 1962. I arrive at Howrah from small-town Punjab at the ripe old age of fifteen. As a student-select headed to the Indian Statistical Institute, having side-stepped the IIT system which refuses to let me in till I reach sixteen, I feel a foot taller than my five feet few.

Emerging from the railway terminus, the first thing one sees is the Howrah Bridge. One word: majestic. The sprawling and muddy Hooghly underneath is a sharp contrast to the slim, gushing rivers of the Punjab.

The next thing one notices are the clichéd teeming crowds. Most of the men are dhoti-kurta clad: a sartorial effect I have seldom seen in Delhi or Bombay. The kurta is called punjabi; I never find out why. Women, and even teenage girls, are mostly clad in saris. No salwaar-kameez.

Beggars - rarely seen in the Punjab, occasionally in Delhi, and often in Bombay - abound here. Then comes the shock of the inhumane hand-pulled rickshaw; long banished from other states. One is familiar with the concept but the reality is something else. From time to time, the government avows piously to ban the rickshaw and rehabilitate the pullers. No progress so far.

Dr. B C Roy who was the chief minister for 14 years has just died. A towering figure in Bengal politics, his demise paves the way for the decline of the Congress, and the rise of the Communist party.

Though it will be 15 years before the CP(M) gets to power, Jyoti Basu, a relatively young lawyer, is getting noticed in trade union and industry circles. He will eventually become the chief minister, but be denied the opportunity to become the prime minister by his party.

Film is the cheapest and most accessible form of entertainment. In three languages. Hindi films, made in Bombay and Madras rule the roost. A unique-in-India feature of the old style movie theatres, mostly showing English films, is the in-house bar where one can enjoy a glass of beer (or something stronger) before, during or after the show.

Satyajit Ray has already made his mark in Bengal and internationally. His work though is little known elsewhere in India, except to art film clubs. In 1962 Ray makes his first film with Waheeda Rehman. Suddenly people outside Bengal take notice. Later, Bombay will happily absorb some Ray girls like Sharmila Tagore, Jaya Bhaduri and, less successfully,  Aparna Dasgupta.

Many film makers are, or claim to be, influenced by Ray. Others, like Ritwick Ghatak and Mrinal Sen, make excellent films but no one receives the adulation that Ray commands. Many Bengali scientists, academicians and artists have phenomenal accomplishments to their credit and have acquired considerable fame but in bong consciousness Ray is the sole eminence of recent vintage who deserves to be right up there with Kobi Guru and Netaji. To this day. Fifty years on.

Kobi Guru is, was and will forever, be the colossus everyone pays cultural obeisance to. Be it poetry, music, theatre, stories or painting he has left a phenomenal legacy. Your average bong, I discover, is much more into music, poetry and theatre than the denizens of northern and western states. Each household harbours a budding poet, actor, musician or singer or all four.

Music shows and events are aplenty. A harmonium is a standard and low-cost piece of household furniture. Music teachers, poorly paid but highly regarded professionals, are as thick on the ground as tuition teachers elsewhere. Often an avenue of ready romance for their pupils.

There is a wide-spread theatre scene which can only be described as passionate and vibrant. Theatre, however, is an expensive pursuit and is in a state of perennial decline for want of patronage, for production and at the box office.

The sport of choice, and indeed passion, is football. Gully football is all pervasive rather than gully cricket. Almost everyone has a favourite club team. Often a personal preference clashes with that of a sibling or spouse; leading to unending, loud, sometimes ferocious and often hilarious arguments. Chuni Goswami becomes my hero and by transference Mohun Bagan is my team. Chuni leads India to her first and last Asia Cup football title. He plays in the Bengal Ranji Trophy team. He captains the Mohun Bagan hockey team. He will go on to act as the hero in a movie, Prothom Prem. India has never seen a sports person like this.

Durga Puja is a phenomenal festival. The whole city is transformed as its entire cultural ethos comes into play. Puja pandaals come up everywhere in public spaces; throwing an already chaotic traffic into a deeper mess. The goddess emerges gradually taking shape from clay. Many artists work day and night to mould, paint, be-robe and be-jewel her. Loads of food and sweets are made, bought, distributed and consumed. Much shopping for new clothes happens. Gifts are exchanged. Teenagers go a-hunting all over town looking for adventure and meetings with the opposite sex, both planned and per happenstance. Neighbourhood gangs of boys spring up to protect the local girls - nobody asks the girls if they want it. . and everyone has a good time.

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