My Calcutta

I haven't been to Calcutta in three and a half years. I belong to that class of homesick individuals who eagerly browse the web for any new information about the city they grew up in, who read and re-read emails from home, to glean every bit of information about the newest development, the latest trends, the coolest resturants, the hippest shops, and the juiciest gossip to hit my hometown. I have a strange nostalgia associated with anything Calcutta and that gets rekindled everytime I come across an article, a photo, that talks about the people, the culture, the city.

Yet, the larger portion of what I read or learn about Calcutta is a city that I have a hard time identifying with. Calcutta that is in the news today, is vastly represented by a modern pro-western metropolis. One that boasts of glamorous shops selling "ethnic wear" and "designer fusion wear", coffee shops where you pay fifty bucks for a cup of coffee, discotheques and pubs where people just "hang out", fashion shows where tank tops rule, shopping malls and multiplexes where a fat wallet can get you "in". I know I am old-fashioned and dated and that I do not live my days in the "new" Calcutta, and I am happy for all the upcoming fashion and technology that has hit my city, yet, somehow it just does not add up. Because when I remember Calcutta I remember her as a melting pot of people and culture and passion.

To me the average Calcuttan is not that girl in her tank-top and shorts or the guy with spikes in his hair and sporting an Armani. When I think of the people I see a man rushing to office in a terrycot pant and an untucked poplin bush shirt, a woman in a crisp cotton saree wiping sweat off her forehead with the "aachol", the vendor on the street corner in an old faded dhoti and dirt streaked sweaty banian, the rickshaw-wala in a brightly printed lungi and turban tied round his head. Those are the people out on the street, the ones that I'd see everyday. And feel at home. Like comfort food. Not KFC fried chicken or pizza from Pizza-hut or a latte from Coffee-Pai. But plain and simple bhaat, palong shaak, lau shukto with daaler bora, mochar ghonto with kucho chingri, alu-posto, mooshur daal with gondho-raj lebu, patla machher jhol, aamer tok, mishti doi. Going out on a date would not have to be an expensive deal. We could still have matir bhare cha from a street vendor or chinebadaam from a miniscule thonga and watch the last rays of the sun ebb out in the pond at Nandan.

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying this globalization and change of face that Calcutta is experiencing is bad. I am glad for the youth of Calcutta. For the exposure, the opportunities, and the options. But my city is not all about malls and call centers and discos and multi-national food chains. It's about the crowded streets, the traffic congestion, the billboards that sport catchy ads in bangla, the early morning radio jingle of "shurobhito antiseptic cream Boroline", the hawkers that line the pavement, the rickshaw-wala, the thelawala, the phuchkawala, the man selling Joynagarer mowa, the kagoj-bikriwala, the shil-kataowala, the bashonwali. They are the ones who do not feature in the news from Calcutta, yet they form the vibrant life-source that is the heart of the city.

Calcutta is beautiful. You have a heady crowd dancing to the beat at Tantra. And you have a music conference that boasts the best in Hindustani classical music. And you have a baul with a dotara singing at the street corner while a group of men light a bonfire and sing Bhojpuri songs while they keep warm on a cold winter's night. And it is all music. You have art galleries that present the best in Indian modern art and you have people drawing on the pavement with colored chalk to earn a few pennies. And it is all art. You have a sumptous meal served to you in an upscale resturant and you have wonderful food cooked up in front of you on a little stove on the street. And they all taste great.

That to me seems great.

That to me is Calcutta.