It is a Broadway show, a movie with plenty sexual innuendos, it is a new age restaurant by Anjan Chatterjee, home to Mother Teresa, and it is the city of joy, a state of mind… Oh Calcutta. 25 years back after my graduation exams got over I boarded a train to Calcutta. I left behind a deep passion for music, a degree that was not going to be worth the paper it is written on, many friends in Palghat and a lonely adolescence filled with books which were of such eclectic choice it made no sense. On the train I had a last small paper folded neatly containing the magical weed (marijuana) which I claimed gave me a better perspective to life (What bumkum!!!) and also made Pink Floyd sound much more heart wrenching. When I got down at Howrah, the smell hit me. I don’t know how to describe this. It is like dirty water with iron content. The smell followed me through my three months stay.
This was my first step to life in a big bad city and I saw a very bleak future ahead. My brother was then employed in Calcutta, living with his bachelor friends in a house in Linton Street near Park circus. He bought a small cot for me to shack in. I shared the room with his friend Achu, Manager to Anand Shankar, the Musician. Achu was a great aficionado of Bob Dylan, Salman Rushdie, John Steinbeck and beer. On weekends I went to my friend Satish’s house. My Victorian class mate who failed to make good in life and was living off his father- a senior Official in Garden Reach Shipbuilders- a company with which I was to associate later. The story of Satish is worth telling. He messed up many opportunities in life. When he made it, he really made it big time. Now a big shot in the media business, Satish’s story is an inspirational one I like to relate to friends. We would smoke grass and ogle at Bengali women, our amorous attention centered on women who were at least ten years older than us. One day Satish received an acknowledgement letter from the girl across the balcony that we ogled at. I still don’t remember the exact contents; but something to the effect that Satish’s father, Cdr Mukundan (Indian Navy retd) is a far more handsome guy than the oafs ogling at her from across the balcony. That broke our hearts. We swore to grow up and have sweet vengeance…. Satish had been slowly polishing off the whisky bottle which his father had received as a gift from someone. The unsuspecting teetotaler father never knew this. Satish was smart enough to keep the level in the bottle constant by mixing it with golden coloured tea mix. Until one day the generous Commander offered the concoction to visiting guests. All hell broke loose.
I started working in a small ad agency called Creative Dimensions in New market. Officially it was my first job- although it didn’t pay enough for coffee, cigarettes and bus fare. It was July and the heat was oppressive and sweaty. I would spend hours walking the streets, eating Kathi rolls at Nizam’s at New Market, raiding used-book shops and music shops in Free School street. Also watching the fallen women eking out a living soliciting sex in dirty cubicles on the side streets.
We smoked Charms cigarettes, which pretty much summed up our life. Charms is the spirit of freedom: Charms is the way you are… the slogan said with the picture of a well-worn pair of jeans in the ads. Maggi noodles were recently introduced in India. We ate Rossogollas from the nearby halwai. We watched the late night show in Globe theatre. We would have a shot of brandy in the bar attached to the theatre. Have you seen that anywhere else in India? I mean a bar attached theatre? The streets had homes close to each other. Tall vertical structures with dirty unpainted exteriors and dank interiors where life throbbed. Outside there is a boisterous neighbourhood with children playing cricket on the roads. Hundred-year-old homes from where Rabindra Sangeet would waft out in the early morning hours. Then came the rains.
I was used to the Kerala village rain. The prelude to a rain was always ominous. The sky is dark. Leaves rustle and a whistling wind blows. It is much cooler. And the aroma of cool large droplets of rain on warm earth titillates your nostrils. And then it starts raining and it goes on raining and raining. In the nights you press your head to a cool pillow and listen to the pitter-patter outside. In a few hours the river grows wider, richer, carrying twigs and tales from upstream. The Calcutta rain was different. The skyline turns dark. There are rumblings in the sky. And suddenly it pours without warning. It is still sweaty. The streets are not distinguishable from big broad streams. Brownish water containing drain water, excrement and all that mess sloshes around the streets. In the nights one could hear huge splashes in the water. You peer out and realize that water has filled the streets and is almost on the verge of flooding your warm abode. A rickshaw puller is wading through all that water and trying to make it somewhere. The rains do not bring respite from the heat. It is still muggy and sweaty outside. A city that was meant to accommodate 200000 inhabitants is home close to 17 million today. As expected the drainage system is dysfunctional. There are still vestiges of colonial practices- that of washing the streets with water every morning.
One could see dark bare bodied slum dwellers taking a bath on public water pipes. My favourite hobby was watching the roadside barber plying his trade. A chair is placed on the street side with photos of gods with adorned by flower garlands on the branch of a nearby tree or a wall with the knife, shaving brush and other tools. Rickshaw pullers and construction workers and other lesser human beings are primary customers. Of particular interest is to watch the expression on the face of the person being thus serviced. He has that look on his face, on top of the world, being taken care of……. A rare moment in a life spent taking care of the needs of others and being treated like servants.
I loved munching on the barbecued raw corn from the stalk (Butta in Hindi) sold on the street side. I recollect a very talented musician called Bertie D’Silva who would hold shows in Gyan Mandir at Shakespeare Sarani. Bertie is a one-man band with an acoustic guitar and several mouth harps. I marveled at his talent and felt good that I am no more playing music, lest I should be exposed for what I am: just a pretender musician. Another friend of Achu, Cyrus Tata, and a Parsi businessman in the film distribution business would join in after the break and make the concert richer with Electric guitar. I remember Bertie singing, ”Send me the pillow that you sleep on”- it still rings in my ears.
Work was just a pastime. The owner of the Ad agency, Mr Chandra a bald man from UP speaks fluent Bengali. He was very unlike archetypal Advertising professionals. His clients were primarily shops in New Market. I had to write copy for ads and sometimes, even go and collect payments. Mr Chandra’s whole life saving was the lease on the Office in New Market. I had two young friends, Abhijit Banerji and Himanshu Lathia who did the marketing. For once my NRI Mallu sensibilities were shaken at how everyone did a nice spoof of South Indian English. Yell… Yemm, Yenn… it went on and giggles followed with sympathetic looks thrown in at me. Here I was thinking that I am from the English speaking Elite of Kerala and everyone was laughing at me in spite of my perhaps more refined (than today and than others’) pronunciation. Eshtanding Eshpeaking Undereeshtanding etc were graded as Queen’s English in North Of Vindhyas. The Bengali V and B were always pronounced interchangeably and I would strain to make sense out of it. I would stand outside during lunch break and eat Singara or Channa Batura from the small eating joints. I also developed a taste for a tobacco called Prince Henry, a pipe tobacco with a rich aroma. I would buy cigarette paper and roll it in them before smoking. Smoking a pipe, I thought was too uhm… upper class and loudly demonstrative for my quiet plebeian tastes. Also rolling paper made the task of occasional weekend weed smoking easier.
And then India won the World cup. I watched the match in a relative’s house till late night. When we came out there was celebration all around. And it went on for weeks together. That was Calcutta, celebrating life and its small victories on the streets, dancing, bursting crackers and playing loud music. In the evenings I would attempt to take a tram to Park circus. It was always crowded. Running silently through the boisterous Calcutta streets with an occasional tinkle of the bell to disperse the crowds lazing in the middle of the road. More often than not, I would settle for a mini bus- we called them spondylitis chambers. Six footers have to stand bent through the journey. Not a very comfortable ride. But the aggressive soliciting by the cleaner always wins over lazy customers like me who can’t wait too long for the tram or a less crowded bus. The cleaner would shout “Beck Bagan, Beck bagan, beckgan, beckgan…. in a loud musical rendition, reaching a crescendo and falling rapidly, tapping the metal door vigorously as the bus maneuvers dangerously and screeches to a halt. When successive buses are crowded, I would walk into KC Doss & sons in Esplanade for a plate of Rossogollas. Then there were frequent power cuts. The city was dug all over to build the Metro. In those days, very few people believed Metro would really be operational one day.
I attended a job interview with the Hare Krishna organization. They wanted me to act as a marketing man for their books and ideas. A Caucasian gentleman interviewed me. Bald, tall and well built guy with an exotic Indian name. He gave me an insight into the Hare Krishna movement. Among other things, he told me that they didn’t believe that man set foot on the moon and the whole drama was a western conspiracy. That did the trick; I wasn’t going to work for a loony religious sect that refused to believe that the great step for mankind ever happened.
It was September. The nights grew pleasant and there is a nip in the air. Park Street started wearing a festive look. Durga Puja was around the corner. Soon the Paras(Mohallas or neighbourhoods) will start putting up pandals. Young men in the Puja committee had begun collecting money to make the event a big hit. My results had come. I had done not too badly. I took a call on the future. I decided to go back and pursue studies. A stupid decision, when I see the whole situation in retrospect. I took the train back home one day. I have a great future in advertising- that was Mr. Chandra’s prognosis when I said good-bye to him. It felt good to hear that, although I didn’t believe it. Since bald sweaty Mr Chandra who speaks English with a thick UP accent wasn’t exactly my idea of Advertising professional. But the old man gave me a break, after all. I never knew that I would go back to Calcutta again twenty years later……
This was my first step to life in a big bad city and I saw a very bleak future ahead. My brother was then employed in Calcutta, living with his bachelor friends in a house in Linton Street near Park circus. He bought a small cot for me to shack in. I shared the room with his friend Achu, Manager to Anand Shankar, the Musician. Achu was a great aficionado of Bob Dylan, Salman Rushdie, John Steinbeck and beer. On weekends I went to my friend Satish’s house. My Victorian class mate who failed to make good in life and was living off his father- a senior Official in Garden Reach Shipbuilders- a company with which I was to associate later. The story of Satish is worth telling. He messed up many opportunities in life. When he made it, he really made it big time. Now a big shot in the media business, Satish’s story is an inspirational one I like to relate to friends. We would smoke grass and ogle at Bengali women, our amorous attention centered on women who were at least ten years older than us. One day Satish received an acknowledgement letter from the girl across the balcony that we ogled at. I still don’t remember the exact contents; but something to the effect that Satish’s father, Cdr Mukundan (Indian Navy retd) is a far more handsome guy than the oafs ogling at her from across the balcony. That broke our hearts. We swore to grow up and have sweet vengeance…. Satish had been slowly polishing off the whisky bottle which his father had received as a gift from someone. The unsuspecting teetotaler father never knew this. Satish was smart enough to keep the level in the bottle constant by mixing it with golden coloured tea mix. Until one day the generous Commander offered the concoction to visiting guests. All hell broke loose.
I started working in a small ad agency called Creative Dimensions in New market. Officially it was my first job- although it didn’t pay enough for coffee, cigarettes and bus fare. It was July and the heat was oppressive and sweaty. I would spend hours walking the streets, eating Kathi rolls at Nizam’s at New Market, raiding used-book shops and music shops in Free School street. Also watching the fallen women eking out a living soliciting sex in dirty cubicles on the side streets.
We smoked Charms cigarettes, which pretty much summed up our life. Charms is the spirit of freedom: Charms is the way you are… the slogan said with the picture of a well-worn pair of jeans in the ads. Maggi noodles were recently introduced in India. We ate Rossogollas from the nearby halwai. We watched the late night show in Globe theatre. We would have a shot of brandy in the bar attached to the theatre. Have you seen that anywhere else in India? I mean a bar attached theatre? The streets had homes close to each other. Tall vertical structures with dirty unpainted exteriors and dank interiors where life throbbed. Outside there is a boisterous neighbourhood with children playing cricket on the roads. Hundred-year-old homes from where Rabindra Sangeet would waft out in the early morning hours. Then came the rains.
I was used to the Kerala village rain. The prelude to a rain was always ominous. The sky is dark. Leaves rustle and a whistling wind blows. It is much cooler. And the aroma of cool large droplets of rain on warm earth titillates your nostrils. And then it starts raining and it goes on raining and raining. In the nights you press your head to a cool pillow and listen to the pitter-patter outside. In a few hours the river grows wider, richer, carrying twigs and tales from upstream. The Calcutta rain was different. The skyline turns dark. There are rumblings in the sky. And suddenly it pours without warning. It is still sweaty. The streets are not distinguishable from big broad streams. Brownish water containing drain water, excrement and all that mess sloshes around the streets. In the nights one could hear huge splashes in the water. You peer out and realize that water has filled the streets and is almost on the verge of flooding your warm abode. A rickshaw puller is wading through all that water and trying to make it somewhere. The rains do not bring respite from the heat. It is still muggy and sweaty outside. A city that was meant to accommodate 200000 inhabitants is home close to 17 million today. As expected the drainage system is dysfunctional. There are still vestiges of colonial practices- that of washing the streets with water every morning.
One could see dark bare bodied slum dwellers taking a bath on public water pipes. My favourite hobby was watching the roadside barber plying his trade. A chair is placed on the street side with photos of gods with adorned by flower garlands on the branch of a nearby tree or a wall with the knife, shaving brush and other tools. Rickshaw pullers and construction workers and other lesser human beings are primary customers. Of particular interest is to watch the expression on the face of the person being thus serviced. He has that look on his face, on top of the world, being taken care of……. A rare moment in a life spent taking care of the needs of others and being treated like servants.
I loved munching on the barbecued raw corn from the stalk (Butta in Hindi) sold on the street side. I recollect a very talented musician called Bertie D’Silva who would hold shows in Gyan Mandir at Shakespeare Sarani. Bertie is a one-man band with an acoustic guitar and several mouth harps. I marveled at his talent and felt good that I am no more playing music, lest I should be exposed for what I am: just a pretender musician. Another friend of Achu, Cyrus Tata, and a Parsi businessman in the film distribution business would join in after the break and make the concert richer with Electric guitar. I remember Bertie singing, ”Send me the pillow that you sleep on”- it still rings in my ears.
Work was just a pastime. The owner of the Ad agency, Mr Chandra a bald man from UP speaks fluent Bengali. He was very unlike archetypal Advertising professionals. His clients were primarily shops in New Market. I had to write copy for ads and sometimes, even go and collect payments. Mr Chandra’s whole life saving was the lease on the Office in New Market. I had two young friends, Abhijit Banerji and Himanshu Lathia who did the marketing. For once my NRI Mallu sensibilities were shaken at how everyone did a nice spoof of South Indian English. Yell… Yemm, Yenn… it went on and giggles followed with sympathetic looks thrown in at me. Here I was thinking that I am from the English speaking Elite of Kerala and everyone was laughing at me in spite of my perhaps more refined (than today and than others’) pronunciation. Eshtanding Eshpeaking Undereeshtanding etc were graded as Queen’s English in North Of Vindhyas. The Bengali V and B were always pronounced interchangeably and I would strain to make sense out of it. I would stand outside during lunch break and eat Singara or Channa Batura from the small eating joints. I also developed a taste for a tobacco called Prince Henry, a pipe tobacco with a rich aroma. I would buy cigarette paper and roll it in them before smoking. Smoking a pipe, I thought was too uhm… upper class and loudly demonstrative for my quiet plebeian tastes. Also rolling paper made the task of occasional weekend weed smoking easier.
And then India won the World cup. I watched the match in a relative’s house till late night. When we came out there was celebration all around. And it went on for weeks together. That was Calcutta, celebrating life and its small victories on the streets, dancing, bursting crackers and playing loud music. In the evenings I would attempt to take a tram to Park circus. It was always crowded. Running silently through the boisterous Calcutta streets with an occasional tinkle of the bell to disperse the crowds lazing in the middle of the road. More often than not, I would settle for a mini bus- we called them spondylitis chambers. Six footers have to stand bent through the journey. Not a very comfortable ride. But the aggressive soliciting by the cleaner always wins over lazy customers like me who can’t wait too long for the tram or a less crowded bus. The cleaner would shout “Beck Bagan, Beck bagan, beckgan, beckgan…. in a loud musical rendition, reaching a crescendo and falling rapidly, tapping the metal door vigorously as the bus maneuvers dangerously and screeches to a halt. When successive buses are crowded, I would walk into KC Doss & sons in Esplanade for a plate of Rossogollas. Then there were frequent power cuts. The city was dug all over to build the Metro. In those days, very few people believed Metro would really be operational one day.
I attended a job interview with the Hare Krishna organization. They wanted me to act as a marketing man for their books and ideas. A Caucasian gentleman interviewed me. Bald, tall and well built guy with an exotic Indian name. He gave me an insight into the Hare Krishna movement. Among other things, he told me that they didn’t believe that man set foot on the moon and the whole drama was a western conspiracy. That did the trick; I wasn’t going to work for a loony religious sect that refused to believe that the great step for mankind ever happened.
It was September. The nights grew pleasant and there is a nip in the air. Park Street started wearing a festive look. Durga Puja was around the corner. Soon the Paras(Mohallas or neighbourhoods) will start putting up pandals. Young men in the Puja committee had begun collecting money to make the event a big hit. My results had come. I had done not too badly. I took a call on the future. I decided to go back and pursue studies. A stupid decision, when I see the whole situation in retrospect. I took the train back home one day. I have a great future in advertising- that was Mr. Chandra’s prognosis when I said good-bye to him. It felt good to hear that, although I didn’t believe it. Since bald sweaty Mr Chandra who speaks English with a thick UP accent wasn’t exactly my idea of Advertising professional. But the old man gave me a break, after all. I never knew that I would go back to Calcutta again twenty years later……
To be continued
1 comment:
D'm i remeber mukkundan? where is
he now?,good for him.I was madely
in love with both his sisters.when ever i pass through palghat i look
for that mukundan House.Palakkade
how can i forget thee. Can u role we some weed ,Bro.
lost sole of palakkade
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