Oh CALCUTTA !!!!!!

Alright so its Kolkata now but as the venerable bard said "what's in a name after all?"....indeed

I have been in this city for only 3 months now, incidentally the longest stay ever….and I now understand my father because I too, have fallen in love with this city.

The first thing that makes you fall in love with a city are not its monuments or its oft repeated cultural heritage (past and continuing) but its people.

And if a city has people has its assets, Kolkata (or Calcutta) would rank among the top.

For starters, especially coming from a city like Delhi, the first thing that strikes you is that the autorickshaws and the rickshawallahs don’t have the propensity to cheat you. If the fare is 1 rupee 50 Paisa, they would not round it off to 2 rupees….which, as I said , coming from Delhi, is something that you become quite used to (for one because you don’t find 50 p there!!!! Though which went first, the 50 p or the disintent of taking 50 p is debatable!!!)….i mean, I have been here for 3 months and I have never been cheated once, not once. And not only will they not cheat you, they would even advice on the best route to the next destination and warn you of certain roads if they have a reputation of being jam-packed. This going the extra mile to make a newcomer to the city comfortable is the very thing that distinguishes the common citizen here.

A pretty strange thing about the markets (which I had heard of before but somehow never believed it) is that they close the markets in the afternoon and open it in the evening. Why? Because it’s the time for their siesta!!!!! On a day in one of the earlier weeks, I had gone to the market and was stunned to see the shops closed (and it was not the day that shops close). Well wandering around, I came upon a shop that was ‘open’, ‘’ because though the shop was open, the guy inside was lolling in his sleep…..I asked him for a couple of things, and his reply was that the shops were closed and to come back in the evening. I told him that his shop was open, and he said it looks open but since the market was closed, the shop too was ‘closed’. Eventually I did get what I want, though not without quite some grumblings from his side…..

Critics might take this and give it as an example of yet another Bengali tendency to have a union-like inflexibility in everything and worse, a telling reminder of the lack of professionalism of the Bengali. There is truth in those accusations of course, but to me, it also shows to me the easy-going, unruffled nature of the people here. I do believe that they understand economics of supply and demand better than the critics. I mean, why would they open the shops at a time when the whole Bengali population is indulging in their favourite afternoon pastime – sleep? Surely they would not open the shops for a few Delhi upstarts who happen to pass by!!!!!

So as I said, it points to the general tendency of the people to take it easy, to take it as it comes. That is one thing that we seem to be forgetting in our daily mad march towards putting so much in our day that we overlook the necessity of leisure in life. Perhaps the reason why Shri Shri Ravi Shankar has so few devotees here. That guy’s programme is for those who are over-stressed. That is something alien to the people here. And I do see many positives in that. Maybe this is one of the primary reasons that art and literature flourished here and made Bengal one of the world’s richest repositories of culture. Mercantile tendencies kills the finer instincts. A part of Bengal is showing the evidence of that though the malaise hasn’t caught the popular imagination….not yet.

Having said that, I condemn laxity in work and underperforming in work which reached endemic proportion among the people here during the heyday of the left government when trade unionism took a decidedly militant turn purely for vote-bank politics and muscle power. This resulted in closure and migration of industry from Bengal in the 80s till mid 90’s. But then, the people here have shown, in the last few years that it’s not their fundamental creed to be work-shirkers (a label which has been stuck on them for some time) what with the flowering of IT industry here and the opening of other sectors for industrial and retail investments. It’s been shown clearly that with the government taking a positive stand (the same left is still here, which has done much good in the rural sector to ensure uninterrupted power for years to come), the Bengal which was left behind will come back to the fore again.

But what I do hope is that this love of leisure is not compromised by the temptations that mercantile success offers. Let’s hope that a balance which is win-win is found. Bengalis have that capability. Hope they recognize it in time….

And how can I talk of Bengalis without talking of their love of politics? Where else would you find in India a sticker of George Bush pasted at the back of an autorickshaw with the words “American Idiot” underneath, during the American president’s visit here (here as in India…he would not dare to come to Kolkata. Hugo Chavez visits here, Raul Castro visits here, not George W Bush!!!!)? Talking of “American Idiot”, that seems to be quite a popular song here……

In a survey taken by Times of India during Bush’s visit, when the surveyed were asked whether the Iraq invasion had altered their perception of USA (negatively ie), Kolkata scored a measly 14% (Delhi was 41%, Mumbai was around 30%). The newspaper was quick to add that since the kolkatans already had a poor opinion of the US policies to begin with, there were anyway very few people left to be converted!!!!! As if we needed to be told that.

And yet, when you talk to the common man here (and yes to the common man here, Nicaragua means something), they are very quick to distinguish between the American people and the American administration. At a time when most of the world is reeling under a severe attack of anti-Americanism, this attitude speaks volumes of the political maturity of the people here (as opposed to case based political knowledge, which is the staple of most of the politics in India specially the northern belt, which is sometimes gushed over by the western media as evidence of political knowledge of the Indian people).

The above are just the starting points by which I have fallen in love with this place. I havnt had time yet to explore its cultural side (the best to be found in India) because of various career commitments but to be sure, they will be explored and so this article is set to grow…watch the space!!!!!