Calcutta !!!!

Being in Calcutta is like watching a mid twentieth century love story, everything is excruciatingly SLOW. Traffic inches along, people plod sweat pouring out of their pores, the heat sags the city. Everyone over here waits as if its a written rule, any questions asked the answer is “eikhaney to erokom-i hoy", (This is how it goes on around here). Its a city of closed desolate factories not empty mind you as the cadres with red flags dotted the perimeter giving a demonstration of the so called strong trade unionism and the “Leftist” ideas which have strangled the city into despondency and stagnation. My beloved city is getting decayed but then great cities decay and are reborn again, unfortunately Calcutta wont, it wont because of the perspective of the people who live in the city. For a city / civilization to grow and evolve it must change. Talk about change in Calcutta , its like a dirty word. For them “Old is Gold”, change certainly is not welcome here. And then there is the typical bengali “Sab Janta” attitude (I know it all) coupled with a sheer disdain for anyone who talks sense that brings the cities fortunes down to levels of Ashish Nehra's batting average.

I left Calcutta some 8 years back just when the air around was optimistic about some change. I left nevertheless but in a turn around none ever expected the city seemed to have gotten rid of the attitude that strangled it for decades. The Grand Old man of Stagnation “Jyoti Basu” finally stepped away and Buddhadeb his replacement was supposed to be a trans formative figure. The slammed doors were reopened again and with IT majors, heavy industries and other projects lined up to open offices and factories it seemed Calcutta was turning over a new leaf.

“We feel it in our fingers, We feel it in our toes.

Change is all around us

And the feeling grows”

And that was all we got a feeling that change might happen. A few years later the government shot itself in the foot. Mamata who was subdued and almost forgotten for a few years arose from the ashes while burying all chances of TATA opening up a factory and with it went all hopes of Calcutta ever becoming a manufacturing hub. But then it not Mamata's fault completely, what did we do to claim a share of the riches of investment when the doors were opened in 1991.We shunned it !!!! So while the state coffers went empty our streets became the hub of business, Hawkers I mean. Footpaths were as if meant for them to run business as they took them over forcing people to plod on the roads, we did so too as “eikhaney to erokom-i hoy". And then once the arteries became too clogged for tolerance they were tried to evicted only to be rescued by the perennial “Didi” of all Mamata herself. Votebanks restored she put her eyes on the naxal situation thus gathering support by letting out false sympathy. And while she chugged away with the Railways the WB “Goborment” lies almost brain dead and dis functional. How “Brain Dead” they really are was put to show a few weeks back when 30 or so were cooked inside a burning building while the fire brigade ran around trying to hunt for pneumatic ladders, once they did arrive no one knew to operate it and the belly pouting firemen watched as people having more faith on miracles tried jumping from the 20^th floor rather wait for the firemen to reach them.

The state was slow to come to terms with the market driven regime that dismantled the so called command driven economy the left used to rule the state , but ask them and they claim “Change is all around”. Well yes if we look at the basement car parks of the sky gazing apartments built all around no longer has the slow moving huge Ambassadors but shiny American, Korean and Japanese models. “Adda” has been shunned as people spend more time in fancy restaurants, lounge bars with ethnic themes, and coy night clubs which have sprouted all around the city. The eternal “Shonar Chele” has shaken up inhibitions and traditions but willing to work at nights, the family get together now takes place at the nearby country club where the 150 kilo odd “Boudi's” barely manging to squeeze herself in the latest designer jeans tries sampling wine, “Aare eta to grape juice ei” (its grape juice after all). All for a “Resurgent Bengal”, and what if industrialists dont come in with the money we have SRK pouring in the MOOLAH, all we need to do is shout “Korbo, Lorbo, Jeetbo Re”.

But then is this the change we are really looking for, if yes then the renaissance for change in Calcutta was started with small change. The city needs to adjust to the global market while the Left themselves have to remove the old industrial map and dismantle its kind of protectionist economy.