Lately there has been a great deal of interest in the ‘changing face of Calcutta’. The impression has got around, nationally and internationally, that Calcutta is becoming a modern city at last, that the Nightmare City, the Dying City of the 70s and 80s is slowly coming back to life, that the black sheep of urban India is finally coming back to the fold. The middle class is heaving a sigh of relief that the pall of radicalism, Communism and worse that has been hanging over the city for so long is finally lifting.
I am at College Street Coffee House after a long, long time. Calling it the centre of the city’s intellectual life would be an exaggeration now, but it certainly was that till, say, 2 decades ago. College Street is home to the University and Presidency College campuses. Other well- known colleges are not that far away. A lot of us spent more time here, in the hotbed of radical politics, than in class in days gone by. You could catch a glimpse of everybody who was somebody- or nobody- in the arts, cinema, theatre and politics in its high- ceilinged, smoke- blue interior. New movements in both poetry and politics have been launched from here. Coffee House conversations from 40 years ago would probably provide an authentic account of the Naxalite movement. I am relieved to see that Coffee House has remained much the same. The walls as you go up the stairs are still plastered with posters of protest and of upcoming leftwing student rallies. The charged buzz of intense debate, the acrid smell of cheap tobacco and the soothing aroma of freshly brewed coffee comfort your senses as you enter the main hall. The walls, and some of the waiters, show signs of age, but it would otherwise not be difficult for a Coffee House regular to return from hibernation after 4 decades or so and resume a conversation without missing a beat. The hotbed of radical politics, happily, is still quite warm. One Sunday morning, taking a stroll down memory lane along paths that once led to school, I wander into yet another shrine- Central Avenue Coffee House. This is where the likes of Satyajit Ray, Utpal Dutt and Chidananda Dasgupta (list obviously not exhaustive) gathered. The place is closed for renovation but the manager shows me around. My memory of the place is green and gloomy- the green of glass- topped tables and the gloom of small windows and tobacco smoke. That’s all gone now, replaced by gleaming standing- only counters, cheerful colours, air- conditioning and, of course, no smoking. Not wanting my worst fears to be confirmed, I don’t ask if there’s going to be piped music as well. ‘No more loitering’ the manager informs me quite severely, ‘no more sitting for hours over a cup of coffee’. That seems to be the driving principle of the interior design. No more lengthy discussions about cinema, theatre and the state of the world either, I think to myself. The needs of busy office workers and the splintered bursts of mobile phone conversations have taken over.
The Tale of Two Coffee Houses is an apt metaphor for change in Calcutta. The Second City of Empire was perfectly content to bask in its colonial glory until change was forced upon it by the famine and the communal riots of the mid 1940-s. It had hardly settled down when another wave of migration hit during the early 70s, after the creation of Bangladesh. The city has never been entirely in charge of its own fortunes or future, for when you speak of Calcutta, you speak of much more than its physical confines. You speak of the whole of Bengal. Indeed, you speak of all the eastern States and of neighbouring Bangladesh and Nepal. Streams of migrants have converged on Calcutta for refuge and livelihood and their narratives have shaped the story of the city. Unintended cities (I am grateful to a social scientist friend for the phrase) have been seeded, taken root and thrived in bewildering variety. In fact, it would be difficult to talk of Calcutta in purely urban terms for it carries within it the memory of so many villages left behind. If it is at all possible to capture the elusive essence of Calcutta, that essence can only be called diversity. Diversity, as we all know, is never easy to manage. It can be unruly, messy, contradictory. At the same time, it can be rich, life- giving and participatory. The rule book of globalisation and free market capitalism, however, prescribes homogeneity rather than diversity. For all its talk of democracy and free choice, capitalism is acutely uncomfortable with anything that disturbs its well- oiled mechanism and disrupts its universal edicts. It abhors mavericks who play outside the rules. And that is perhaps the biggest change (or threat, depending on your point of view) that confronts Calcutta today. Plans are afoot to make it fall in line, join the mainstream, become nice and homogeneous. West Bengal has reaped all the benefits of land reforms and agricultural productivity, goes the official argument, and it’s now time for a change in paradigm, time for rapid, and if necessary, forced private sector led industrialisation. And Calcutta must become the beacon that heralds the brave new age, aglitter with flyovers, night clubs and shopping malls,. Calcutta has become Kolkata not, paradoxically enough, to become more indigenous but more ‘global’. The massive satellite township taking shape on its eastern fringe is a dreary, faceless, uncompromisingly ‘modern’ collection of vertical towers. It is called, perhaps prophetically, New Town and draws its inspiration from Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. The advertisements for these developments proudly announce that all you have to do to go shopping in Singapore is to go down to your basement store. In time, this is the only face of Kolkata that the visitor might see as she comes in from the airport. Will she be reassured by its bland upper class functionality or dismayed that the legend of the city and its reality just do not match? So, yes, Kolkata is changing its face. But appearances, as they say, can be deceptive.
The ongoing turmoil in Singur and Nandigram is a landmark phenomenon in the social and political history of West Bengal, every bit as significant as the Naxalite movement 4 decades ago. The agriculture- industry debate comes into sharp focus, communities stand up and say ‘no’ to a Government that has become used to having its own way. The protests become an example of resistance to neo- liberal industrialisation elsewhere in the country. A well- known theatre group presents a version of George Orwell’s Animal Farm and gets veiled threats of being shut down. Prominent personalities resign from Government sponsored institutions. Even in the Calcutta Club, as venerable and colonial an institution as you could hope to set foot in (provided you’re wearing the right shoes), voices are raised in genteel dismay at the way the Government is behaving. Last Christmas, I join a candlelight vigil at the centre of Kolkata’s arts district. Theatre goers and holidaying passersby gather and in no time a lively debate gets going. The road gets jammed but nobody seems to mind.
The Maverick City, it appears, will not be that easy to tame. Kolkata’s face may be changing, but its heart still seems to be in the right place.
