A Narration of Melancholic Elation

[Listening to DNTEL]

“It’s a very nostalgic place”, a guy on a bus ride from Poona to Bangalore tells me. He grew up here and each time he returns he’s thrown back into his childhood. “Bombay is much like New York. Maybe even a bit like San Francisco. But Calcutta is more like Berlin or Milan.”

When people ask me, “Where in India are you from?” I tell them that my family is from Calcutta. Since I haven’t been here for twelve years, I was excited tofinally see it with older, wiser eyes, and now to be able and compare it with the many big Indian cities I’ve now seen: Bombay, Delhi, Jaipur, Johdpur, Surat, Poona, Bangalore.

177 Lenin Sarani, where my grandparents live, is a a 5 story building in Central Calcutta. On the ground floor is Temple Bar, second floor is Saqi Restaurant - both established by Cavas Ardesher, my great-great Grandfather in 1871. During the second world war, it was the place that sailors first headed to when they got into Calcutta: a place to drown yourself in away from sea and surely get lucky for a low fee. It’s now a seedy spot, quite popular with the hard working, scruffy male crowd. On the third floor is an office space for secretaries, fourth floor residence, and fifth floor terrace/office/garden.

My first morning in Calcutta I wake up and decide to head out and walk around the city. I had heard of an old cafe (though newly rennovated and looking like a Tiffany’s gift shop) called Flury’s, on the popular Park Street, so I duck down five flights, and hit the street. Woah, cultural shock after 3 and a half months in India! I get this feeling like I’ve just stepped into Eastern Europe or Cuba. The old Ambassador classic vehicles, the crumbling buildings, the hammer & sickle graffitied on walls (The Communist party has maintained rule in the state of West Bengal for the last 26 odd years). Most of the days have been quite muggy, so maybe that’s a another cause to feeling like I’m in a city living in the cold war. It’s a beautiful, interesting place and I see the positives & negatives, though not through any sort of crystal clear lens just yet.

As I walk down Chowringee Street (previously called Jawalal Nehru Road), my eyes feel the need to move rapidly around the 180 degree scope set before me. Stores are lined on one end of the sidewalk while street vendors inhabit the other end of the same sidewalk. These street slangers are selling hundreds of items (boxers, belts, behl puri, books..and everything else that starts with the letter B) along this “sidewalk” filled with potholes, as people walk in both directions. I have to make sure I don’t trip in a pothole, so I have to constantly keep an eye floating down to scan my path, as I manuveur my way around & past people, while trying to get a glimpse of all the items for sale, along with all the interactions taking place, and all the different faces saying something through facial expression without opening their mouth.

In India people don’t give a flying you know what. They are the most curious bastards I’ve seen and there is no shame in the amount they express. Strangers passing by will give you a 10 second look-over/stare down without the least discretion. Since you are in a public space, people feel like you are on display, and can be observed & scrutinized as need be. There’s times where I just want to say, “What the bloody hell are you looking at man? I’ve had a long day bro, back the bleep off.” This means that if you are a women or a white foreigner, you are going to get it 100 times worse. More about this gripe and others later.

It’s a fascinating stroll: The reminance of British rule & architecture. The look & feel of a city woven with patches of Marxism…but the threads slowly coming undone as captitalist enterprise sews some shiny new material to an old cotton quilt.

I had tea on Thursday with an old friend of my father’s Samir, his wife Anita, and a famous Indian author, Amit Chauduri. Samir was stricken with polio 45 years a go, so at home is where he spends his days, writing articles for The Telegraph, and reading fine literature. These folk along with my Grandmother & many others, like to fondly reminisce on the days of the British in Calcutta. Much of our conversations during the evening dreamt off to over fifty years a go.

“This isn’t the days of the British,” Samir says with a sigh and a look of reflection. “Today, you can’t even walk on the sidewalk, due to the potholes. The education system can’t even compare.” He speaks with this pleasant British accent and his vocabulary is astounding.
“There’s no sophistication these days. People spit, defecate on the streets, litter without regard for anything.”
In an article written for “The Telegraph” of Calcutta starts off:

Their ways were impeccable, their manners elegant. Samir Mukerjee recalls individuals shaped by days of the Raj-

Westernized indians have become an extinct species now and with them gone, an entire way of life has been obliterated. During British rule, the sun shone on them and they never put a foot wrong as far as their own values were concerned.

My mother’s friend Sudhira Bhagat, better known as Cissy Bhagat, was one such extraordinary example of a smart, elegant, soigné and sophisticated lady who left an indelible imprint on the minds of those who had the good fortune of knowing her.

I admire Samir and enjoy hearing his stories, reading his articles, and analyzing his theories/generalizations. But part of me dislikes these snooty Western admirers who are living in the past and detesting the present; people who are so stuck in the past, knowing they’ve lived in the best of times. I’ll be meeting him a few more times before I leave CAL, so I’ll get a clearer picture of his beliefs I’m sure. As for Amit Chauduri, I’m reading his book “A New World” and its a damn good depiction of people in Calcutta.

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