Are you like me? Do you miss Calcutta, the city that is no more? 

Now who the hell am I? I am one of the14.3 million faces living in this so called ‘City of joy’. But the identity I cherish more is – I am one of an endangered species. The ‘Moddhobitto Bangali Bhodrolok’. You see, class is temporary but middle class is permanent. It’s in our DNA, something that doesn’t necessarily change with the upward or downward revision of one’s bank balance. There are things that we cherish and want to hold on to,forever. Some of these things are not even tangible, they’re just an abstract idea. An idea of a city that once was, Calcutta.

Yes there is still Kolkata, a mere imitation of another metropolis we all loved. Today’s Kolkata is trapped in a dichotomy  between the uncertain future and a rose tinted past. However the demise of Calcutta has nothing to do with nomenclature. Rather it has everything to do with mass amnesia. We as a race, have chosen to forget our own identity and become followers. Question is who or what do we blindly follow. We follow progress, we follow change and all it’s agents while conveniently forgetting what made us who we really are. We never question whether change is for the good. Does it take us a step or two forward or does it set us back quite a bit? The city with new coats of paint everyday, sports this progress with a hitherto unseen fervour, while making me wish I was colour-blind.The brilliant mansions of the colonial past is seen crumbling down while ugly face of pseudo modern architecture rears up it’s head in every nook and corner. Yes, the realtors are doing quite well in Kolkata. A few lanes and by lanes in the old parts of town have become the sole custodians of what once were childhood memories. Those ‘Bonedi baris’ with their ‘Thakur dalans’, ‘Khorkhoriwala jalnas’ and spiral steps are soon to find a place of pride in museums. With the advent of social media we are so ashamed. We are ashamed of our ‘Bangaliana’, ashamed to be clichés. Yes we hold on to our past,  our rich cultural heritage and are iconoclastic.  But that is because we have so much to look up to. We are ashamed of our Bengali accents while we speak English or Hindi. It is as if we have to forget our own selves to slip seamlessly into our national identities. As if a Punjabi or a Maharashtrian is more Indian than a Bengali.

All this ranting and raving is because I miss Calcutta of the old. I miss the book fairs at the lush Maidan. I miss the yellow black Ambassador taxis. I miss the roads without the overwhelming shadows of the overhead flyovers. I miss those hand painted ice-cream carts selling local varieties of ice-cream before the advent of Kwality Walls. Hell, I even miss those extended periods of load shedding in the evenings. To sum it up I miss those days when times were so much simpler. I miss that Calcutta of mine like crazy.

To be continued . . .