Sorry to break your heart Calcutta romantisizers... it is certainly not a city where the old and the new rub shoulders with equal aplomb. Tried extremely hard to think of one 'new' thing that Calcutta has... nothing!! Just an old and decaying carcass. Hyenas and vultures roam around eating away into its dying flesh. It is often argued that Calcutta is rich in culture as against other uncivilized cities, how i ask.... what is that great culture that we keep talking about? What do we mean by this word which is thrown around like a coin every now and then to hedge oneself against so called uncivilized onslaughts... Is it a city which knows how to respect its own heritage, history, women, ordinary citizen, democratic and civil rights, poets, philosophers, teachers, artists, film-makers, musicians...do these people respect one another... am afraid not! Anyone of any repute and with any degree of talent has moved out to the so called uncivilised, uncultured cities, which have welcomed them with open arms.
Coming back to the question of old and new rubbing shoulders and what nots, i doubt. Firstly I dont think that there is anyone young or anything new left in Calcutta. The young and the new left Calcutta in 1969. So the question of old and new meeting at esplanade or coffee house or maidan or offices or trains and buses and rubbing shoulders does not arise. In many ways the city reminds me of Cuba. It was supposed to be a paradise but ended up like a old wrinkled mass of flesh and concrete.
And yet the smell of sweat and the humidity and the filth and dirt and wrinkled faces, and the protests and, strikes and endless cups of burnt tea, cigarettes, statues, tram lines, soviet era buses, rains, Nandan, Parkstreet, New market, New Empire, north Calcutta, south Calcutta, university, college street, heavily accented english... evokes a sense of great belonging, cause thats who I am, these are the things that have made me who I am...So irrespective of whether the oft quoted phrase about the old and the new rubbing body parts, I long for the city.. Would I want to live in the city again? would I want my son to grow up in that city? No. My love for the city is like the love I have for Cuba. I dream about it, wonder what it must have been like, what it could have been, but certainly dont want to be a part of it anymore. I'd rather dwell among uncivilized brutes and misquote Trotsky but move forward than take ten steps backward....
Coming back to the question of old and new rubbing shoulders and what nots, i doubt. Firstly I dont think that there is anyone young or anything new left in Calcutta. The young and the new left Calcutta in 1969. So the question of old and new meeting at esplanade or coffee house or maidan or offices or trains and buses and rubbing shoulders does not arise. In many ways the city reminds me of Cuba. It was supposed to be a paradise but ended up like a old wrinkled mass of flesh and concrete.
And yet the smell of sweat and the humidity and the filth and dirt and wrinkled faces, and the protests and, strikes and endless cups of burnt tea, cigarettes, statues, tram lines, soviet era buses, rains, Nandan, Parkstreet, New market, New Empire, north Calcutta, south Calcutta, university, college street, heavily accented english... evokes a sense of great belonging, cause thats who I am, these are the things that have made me who I am...So irrespective of whether the oft quoted phrase about the old and the new rubbing body parts, I long for the city.. Would I want to live in the city again? would I want my son to grow up in that city? No. My love for the city is like the love I have for Cuba. I dream about it, wonder what it must have been like, what it could have been, but certainly dont want to be a part of it anymore. I'd rather dwell among uncivilized brutes and misquote Trotsky but move forward than take ten steps backward....
