Travelpost: 10 Things about Kolkata, from an Outsider's Perspective

Wikipedia enumerates the following steps to be followed in the process of doing research

·         Identification of research problem

·         Literature review

·         Specifying the purpose of research

·         Determine specific research questions or hypotheses

·         Data collection

·         Analyzing and interpreting the data

·         Reporting and evaluating research

Since I don't think I have the right orientation for this kind of work anyway (I am after all quoting Wikipedia), I will dispense with any pretence at a scientific enquiry. The following are my (sometimes biased) observations about Kolkata, formed through a lifetime of summer holidays I have spent here.

v  Kolkata is only a different type of hot. While Delhi’s heat will announce itself to you, with its nasty sun and the infamous loo, Kolkata’s will sneak up from behind and take you by surprise. The sweet wind that appears to be blowing outside, when you are at home will conspire to stand still as soon as you step out, and reduce you to a sweaty mess, in the first ten steps you take.

v  Getting work done here, especially in the first attempt, is a near impossibility. This would normally be fine, except when you are working according to Delhi deadlines.

v  One of the reasons for the above is the interminable lunch hour(s) that shops here follow. Long enough, to ensure that the worst administration departments of the best Delhi University colleges are a distant second.

           Last week I needed to use the cyber cafe here for a few printouts. Admittedly, I reached the market at 3:30, and was justly informed that I would have to wait for the shop to open. At 4, I spied the owner entering the market, a man I had known since I was 10 (having overheard him planning a ganja party over the phone, but I digress). When I limped after him to ask when he would open, he waved me away, saying ‘later’.

 I went again to the cafe at 4:25, thinking it was sufficiently ‘later’. He had the shop open and most of the computers on too. I smiled. He grunted and said ‘Come at 4:30’.

I showed him my watch, pleading there were only 5 minutes for that.

He turned around now facing me properly for the first time. He seemed to hesitate first, then something in my eager, pleading face helped him make up his mind. Taking a deep breath, he leaned forward and said, “4:30 means 5.”

An important life lesson learnt.

v  People are unnaturally chatty here. Especially in comparison to Delhi, where even the Metro keeps reminding you to not befriend any strangers (lest you get drugged and raped/ drugged and looted/ not drugged but still sweet-talked into parting with all your money etc.).

The chattiness can sometimes be nice, when you receive a nugget of absolutely irrelevant information. When it takes the form of unsolicited advice, then it can be a little infuriating.

v  Kolkata is second to known, when it comes to political awareness among its citizens. Domestic help/ guardsmen/ vendors etc. take en-masse leave during election season to go back to their native villages to cast their vote. A few years back, my three year old cousin examined my fingernails and disappointedly surmised that I hadn’t voted.

v  Children are very precocious here. Okay no, children are precocious everywhere.

v  Kolkata kids (students) are very hard working. At the tender age of nine when their Delhi counterparts don’t know what an essay is, these kids are mugging up dozens of them every week. When a Delhi kid has difficulty pronouncing participle , the Kolkata kid is far past the stage where he/she wrote the participles of 10 verbs every day. The Kolkata kid, as soon as he/ she enters class eight, is reminded of the impending Board examinations. Life outside school ceases in class 9. That’s when they start going for two tuitions for every subject. And if you have a cousin in Kolkata who is in tenth standard, the same year as you, then besides all the studying/mugging/ tuition-taking, he/she will also make life very miserable for you.

v  People (adults) have a lot of time on their hands. Markets, have dedicated spaces here, where people congregate to chat, have tea, while away their afternoons/ evenings. In fact no time is sacrosanct.

Today, at 12:15 pm, I saw two youngish-men, dressed in formals, at the neighbourhood park, SWINGING. Yes, on those contraptions designed for kids-which they no longer need, given how busy they are, studying or just being precocious.

Mind you, these were bhodrolok, not the unemployed youth who loll about in Delhi’s Central Park.

v  Scatological humour is big here. This is tied in to the general pre-occupation about one’s digestive systems and food.

v  Food’s everywhere here. And relatively cheap.

5 June 2013

It was the beginning of my second week into D school. My only friend from college there, had decided she wanted to go to JNU. I hadn't bothered making any new ones, too busy realising I wasn't really cut out for the place, that I did not have the self assurance to leave. You get the idea...I was miserable, and alone on my way back home in the metro. Desperately in need of a friend.

Nearing Rajiv Chowk, I messaged you asking where you were. You were already there, on your way home and in the company of another friend. I wanted you to wait for me, hear me whine. But I knew you did not get to meet him that often. It wouldn't be fair on you to tell you to wait. So I didn't. You messaged back saying you were carrying on.

I think that's the problem with us introverts. It's legitimate that we don't have a very large network. It's perfectly fine if we don't want to always talk. Not even with our closest friends. It's okay to be happy alone. But being unhappy and alone-not such a great idea.

Anyway, I got off at the station and made my way to the platform above. Walking slowly towards the ladies coach. Glad that the bad day over was over. But equally aware that the week was only starting.
And then from nowhere, you appeared, smiling and cheerful. Telling me you had stayed.

It's okay to be an introvert, if they have a friend like you.
Thank you.
Happy Birthday.

Random thoughts of a demented mind (attached to a leg with a twisted tendon)

• Doctors should be legally mandated to take calls at all hours. And make home visits when required.
• Nobody quite gets me except the guy who comes to collect the garbage everyday. He admitted to crying loudly and all the time, when the same thing happened to him. I immediately felt like less of an entitled cry baby.
• If I ever get a husband/ live-in partner/platonic room-mate, it will have to be an orthopedic specialist.
• A friend recently wondered aloud how wonderful it would be if we could excise certain body parts when possible, to be attachable, whenever convenient. She was talking in the context of a certain female body part. Should be equally applicable to your legs.
• You think/ say a lot of crap when in pain.

“My servant hasn’t come today”, Mira mashi wailed on the phone.

“Domestic help.” I could see Asha mashi’s eyebrows twitch as she mentally corrected her sister.

“I will have to cook, clean all on my own, that too on a Sunday…”

Asha mashi rolled her eyes, then looked apologetically at me. I pretended I hadn’t seen her disinterest, getting up to drink water from the bottle kept at her bedside table.

Mashi , my mother’s first cousin, was my local guardian in Delhi. To my misfortune, she was also a senior Professor in the Department I had chosen to do my PhD. Luckily though, I had avoided her being my Supervisor as well (though I did not realise the lucky part until I spoke to Sourav, her graduate student/personal indentured labourer).

As a kid, I loved her. She had a large, pretty home, and had the fanciest delicacies served, when we visited her. That would usually be enough as a mark of character. But I also loved the way she dressed-cotton kurtas and lots of big, ethnic jewellery. Her salt and pepper hair, cut extremely short gave her gravity, as well as warmth. Also as little as I like to admit my absolute lack of depth, I loved the way she spoke English. It was fluent, but most importantly free of the embarrassingly heavy Bengali accent that saddled my parents’ diction.

What led to my grown up self not particularly liking her, was what has historically been responsible for drawing a wedge in even the most tightly knit of families: close contact.

It is difficult to avoid that, given that we spend the better part of the day in the same building. But I make sure that every visit I make to her place is punctuated by a gap of at least three months. This time it hadn’t been so bad. She had just discovered blogging. So we talked about that.

“It’s really lovely, isn’t it?, she said.

“ It really allows me to interact with people from all walks of life -other academics, enlightened journalists, social workers. No other forum provides such a democratic space for free discussions and debate. And it’s becoming quite a necessity in the increasingly censored non-virtual world, no?”

I agreed absent-mindedly as I stared at her blog counter. The number of hits she had gotten in two weeks had exceeded the number I had managed in over ten months.

Her first post had been an impassioned argument against a rabid communal leader, emerging as the Prime Ministerial candidate of a right-wing party. That had received a rousing reception from the readers. Her latest post was a chilling account of how the film industry and a best-selling author were conspiring to turn popular opinion in the leader’s favour.  The first few comments awaiting moderation, showed that there were others who agreed with the view.

“The dumbed down easy version of history that the film offered will be lapped up by the ignorant and consumerist masses of the country”, a journalist from an Eminent Newspaper wrote.

I didn’t take kindly to being called ignorant. And my stipend didn’t allow me to be consumerist. So I felt happy seeing an Indian Warrior, defending my ilk. Unfortunately, his argument, that I speed-read while Asha mashi was busy tuning her sister out, was less than convincing.

 “how can you pseudos ignore 59 innocents killed in the train…your arguments are not only dishonest, but downright treacherous. You people should just go to China. They will shoot you in the head there if you write such things and you would bloody well deserve that…”, he had written.

It never got published.

                                                                       ***

Monday morning, a mail from mashi sat in my inbox. It had her recent academic paper in the attachment. She invited everyone from the Department to give feedback. Apparently an anonymous referee had said the paper made sweeping generalisations, and that certain sections were devoid of research. The same day, Sourav had his research methodology torn apart. I deleted the mail in solidarity with him. Plus I was already being compelled to do the same kind of work for my Supervisor, Prof Abhimanyu. I was certainly not going to voluntarily do more.

Actually I don’t know what I hate more. The pointless vacillations that Mashi’s papers are, or the equally useless, complicated mathematical edifices that my professor constructs. Of course, he gets more respect in the Department, as in the profession in general. Some of the older professors practically dote on him, their star ex-student, who went on to get a PhD from Harvard, but returned after years of teaching there, to give back to his alma-mater.

“It’s an exciting time for India, isn’t it?, he said when I asked him what made him come back.

I would like him more, I think were it not for his budding friendship with Asha mashi. More sources of close contact, I rued, when I saw them having tea from the coffee-house. Apparently, they had bonded since the last Departmental meeting (which Sourav had attended by virtue of being a TA).

Some of the professors had wanted to drop Mashi’s subject. In a department dominated by Game theorists and Econometricians, it was seen as soft.  The matronly Head of the Department had offered her the chance to teach economic history instead. Mashi had been shocked. Nobel prize winning economists had been in the vanguard of her subject. Economic history was the preserve of historians, she had argued. Abhimanyu had backed her up then. He and Prof Qureshi. The three of them had been inseparable since. And not just on campus. I once spotted them at Habitat, where I had gone to meet a friend. I deduced they were there for a Sufi Music Recital. Prof Qureshi was nowhere around though.                                                                               
                                                                                           ***

In the afternoon, Prof Abhimanyu called me to his office to discuss my dissertation. I had asked for an appointment two weeks back and he could finally accommodate me. He looked busy when I entered, evidently going through the document I had sent him. He found a fault in my work, and tilted the computer screen in my direction, so that I could explain myself. My stuttering was interrupted by his intercom ringing. The HOD wanted to see him. He told me to think while I waited for him to come back. I obediently decided to google my way through the problem. Apparently the Professor was going through a blog before I had entered. The post was by an Indian Warrior. The post revealed how the mainstream media’s coverage was biased towards the ruling pseudo secular party. How it was mechanically spreading canards about the only alternative, a dynamic leader, slowly emerging as the most viable candidate to lead the country into a new, bright future. A half written, yet-unsubmitted comment by a TruePatriot47 sat in the comment form.

“You have nailed it!  The youth want development. Which he CAN deliver. And which these sickular commies refuse to acknowledge”, the message said.

Kai Po Che!

This is not a review. Just a few spoiler-ridden thoughts on the movie, which I need to get out of my system.

People all over the world today, including those in urban India, lead increasingly homogenised lives. We watch the same American television programming, use the same kind of brands, and eat the same kind of food.  It’s not just about a job anymore, any job that would support a family back home. Our aspirations for a career revolve around the more first-worldly ideal of finding one’s true calling. Likewise, our movies have come to reflect this (or a more exaggerated version of this) reality. Take the toast-making, skydiving trio of Zindagi Milegi Na Dobara. I can’t help but feel that they would fit in rather more comfortably in New York than Mumbai. Transplant the leads of Dil Chahta Hai to London, and it would make absolutely no difference to the narrative. Which is probably why films like Cocktail and Ekk Main aur Ekk Tu completely dispense with an Indian backdrop. And which is why Kai Po Che is the most refreshing film I have seen in a long time.

Kai Po Che is an Indian film in every sense of the word. Yes, of course there is song-and-dance, and Manja manages to evoke an atmosphere that reams of dialogue could possibly never establish. But more importantly it’s the world Govind, Omi and Ishan inhabit that makes the film resonate so much. You can see the dust, the sweat. Here, an eleven year old’s most pressing concern is the goti championship in his neighbourhood. A young man longingly fingers the plastic covered seats of a new car. Dates are carried out in extreme secrecy. Travelling inside a Roadways bus is more uncomfortable than on the roof. Sure, finding love is important, but achieving other goals (monetary, political or, otherwise) more urgent.  This is a movie where you cheer the Indian Cricket team on for a match you know they have won. Because you know cricket can resolve feuds between friends. That it can magically paper over religious fissures. You pray the ending doesn’t enter the territory, you know it’s heading for, when a dazed Omi finds his Mama injured by Ali’s dad. And when the fatal shot hits, you hold back tears, wishing that Ishan and Govind could sort it all out, Omi and Ishan could sort it all out.

If only Bolly-wood can now come up with an ode to female friendship. One that preferably does not involve two pretty girls falling for the same guy.

Pujo.

I remember reading somewhere in the context of Dwarkanath Tagore, about how the protestant ethic of Bengalis helped them succeed in business. That theory doesn’t quite explain the subsequent shrinking of the list of pre-eminent Bengali owned businesses. And I don’t quite know whether ‘protestant’ is the right word. But in no other Indian community, is religion such a matter of convenience. My mother, who considers herself to be quite religious, has forever had a scientific aversion to fasting. My grandmother is considerably more devout, having observed Shiv Ratri since she was twelve. She once told me not to say out loud the prayers that the priest calls out during pushpanjali since the Sanskrit words often hide behind them, quite regressive ideas. She encouraged me instead, to make up my own prayers in any language I preferred.  And it’s not just a family. Our main festival, Durga Pujo, is essentially an excuse to overhaul wardrobes, dig into non-vegetarian food (to the consternation of the Navratri-observing, abstemious ‘non-bengalis’), and bond with old friends over aadda.  Saraswati Pujo, unofficially Bengal’s own Valentines’ Day, is another one of those occasions when we mix pleasure with piety.

Saraswati in Hindu Mythology is the goddess of learning. This time it ‘fell on’ 15 February, though in the past, and especially in my board years had the tendency to be right in the middle of exams. Yet, I remember devotedly giving up all my books to lay at the feet of the Goddess and solemnly observe the ritual of not studying. To make up for that, I would concentrate on the prayers a little harder (notwithstanding my grandmom’s advice) and sometimes also offer to distribute the bhog- all to curry favour with Maa. Now of course things have changed. I no longer attend the pujo that the Bengalis of the middle-class colony I grew up in, conduct. We have a small pujo at home. Which my mom performs. Unlike in my old colony, where the priest had a day-job as a scientist. And there is no gaggle of gossiping women chopping fruits for the prasad. Only me, grudgingly carrying out the errands my mother sets out for me. We have the bhog at our dining table. Earlier, I would squat on the floor with my friends while an adult would dump khichdi and labra on our Styrofoam plates. And the celebrations would take all day. Now we are through by noon.

One thing remains the same though.

No studying.

Valentines' Day 2011

Overheard at the Damdami Mai Celebrations at the Hindu College Virgin Tree, Valentines’ Day 2011

…

Valentines' Day at Virgin Tree, Hindu College
Photo Credit: Shubhda

Short, curly haired girl (G): You know this would never be allowed in any other college?

Tall Boy (B): Yeah…but you know colleges like SRCC and Hansraj don’t really have a sense of history…

G: Stephen’s does…

B (laughs): They are too high-brow for this. Plus didn’t one of their principals ban hugging or something?

G: Yup. And girls’ colleges are too squeamish.

B: What about Ramjas? They are just the right-level-of-brow. Also liberal enough.

B: Yeah. Ramjas is the poor man’s Hindu.

Ouch.

Happy Valentines’ Day.