City of JOY!

Calcutta or as they now call it Kolkata - The City of Joy. Off late, I have been getting enough opportunities to visit the city very frequently, mostly on Business trips. This time though it felt like the Discovery's 'Journey to the end of the World'. Travelling in Mumbai-Howrah mail for almost 34 Hours on an RAC Ticket was altogether a 'different' experience. You get to know railway stations of Maharashtra, MP, Chhattisgarh (my bro's birth place - Rajnandgaon was a high point!), Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand & finally West Bengal. As long as I can remember, I last visited the city some 26-27 years back. The city has 'preserved' itself to quite an extent- to my suprise & shock! The roads, streets, chawls, bazaars, traffic, buildings ... may be even people have almost retained their respective characters despite the change of name from Calcutta to Kolkata... I am, though, still figuring out whether to complement them or contain my shock? Without any offense meant, the bengali-lives still revolve around mostly some 4-5 Cs - Cigarettes, Communists, Curry (a Curry means a Fish-Curry... Maachher Jhol, invariably), Cricket, Colonial Kolkata et al...

Cigarettes are a definite part of most men folk in bengal, you can even meet a beggar on the streets begging एक रुपया दे दो साहिब, एक सिगरेट पी लेंगे... या एक सिगरेट ही दे दो साहिब... Communism literally runs thru blood-vessels in every Bong's body... an autowallah's demand of a rupee more than 'meter' may run into an 'Ondollon'... may sound funny, but I could encounter many such tiny 'Ondollons' during my every stay of 4-5 days... people will gather on the streets... shouting all sorts of slogans... and gradually you will find that 'ek-rupaya-ka-ondollon' getting linked to anti-poor Policies of the Central Govt or Roll-Back of supposed-to-be-hiked Petroleum prices... leading to demands of Withdrawal of CPM support from Central Govt...ooooohhhh.... all such shouting of slogans is certainly followed by 'Bondey-Mautaram'... and suddenly as a bystander you feel proud being a part of Indian Freedom-Struggle (the chorus and aggression will give you an adrenalin rush for sure!). Coming down to Curry (Fish Curry)... any eatery that doesn't serve a Good fish curry (Remember Good means - Good taste, Price and Quantity) doesn't serve anything worth mentioning. People will go into details, inquiring about the kind of fish used in the preparation - and it has to be a Bhetki fish preferably... food does motivate Bongs, still!... Cricket - Combination of SRK & Dada (Ganguly) to form Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL sort of gave Bongs another reason to live... they are talking about it at Workplaces, Restaurants, Theaters, Bazaars, Streets and wherever possible. Everybody is suddenly acting as a team selector and is out to advise Buchanan (the official coach of the team).... another C that strikes is Kolkata's attachment with its colonial past, strangely most the middle-aged Kolkatans take special pride in describing about the Colonial/ British era... most people will 'behave' so nostalgic talking about it that you tend to get an impression that most of them were born before India got its independence and they have really lived through that period. Unlike other Indian cities, Kolkatans are still happily living with English streets - Park Street, Camac Street, Townshend Road, Shakespeare Sarani, Elgin Road et al.... Bongs are way too passionate to handle... all the above Cs will endorse my point probably!

For the past 4-5 trips though, which have happened in too quick succession, I have been trying to find the 'City of Joy'. I never knew where to start from and started from the streets... let me admit plainly - Kolkata streets are NO joy... you don't know what you will get to see... surprises every where... suddenly a man-pulled rickshaw is running parallel to a tram and many a times overtaking it!!...whew!!... Most Mithai shops are still run by names of their Founders and they only keep adding 'families' & 'generations' to the name.... Bhim Chandra Naag, K C Das & Sons, Girish Chandra Dey & Grandsons, Debadutta Sarkar & Brothers... all these names may sound like Chartered Accountancy firms but they are in fact sweet-meat shops. Moreover, they still serve sweets in those 'दोना' and 'कुल्ल्हद' (the small clay pots) and I bet, you can relish these fabulous sweets in such packagings ONLY. Kolkata is heaven for a person like me who has all the 32 sweet teeth!!... One thing exceptional about Kolkatans is they are way too kind when it comes to guiding you in streets, they are, in fact extremely helpful to strangers in the town and I think that's one of the reasons that make Kolkata so tourist-friendly... At times you tend to think that the person might take a half-day off from his office to drop you to the place you are enquiring about!... the city may be too congested but people have really large hearts when it comes to helping others and charity. Mother Teresa was an apt representative of the City...but... Man I am still looking for 'Joy'... after searching for days in all the possible places - finally whatever little JOY I could find was mostly in names - Joy Biswas, Joy Banerjee, Joy Goswami (some theater personality from Kolkata), Joydeep Chatterjee, Joyeeta Biswas, Joy Sengupta (a TV Presenter), Joy Mukherjee (famous bollywood actor).... Bongs seem to have a lot of Joy in name itself....and ...and...finally... Joy Bijoy Sweets (its actually a small sweet shop near Howrah Station which belongs to some Pandit Ram Shankar Dubey and is founded after the names of his two sons Jai & Vijay ...but see the Bangla transformation!)... I think one of our politicians - Jai Pal Reddy will have to change his name to Joy Paul Reddy if he moves to Kolkata... at last I can remember a famous Hemant Kumar song - Joyein toh Joyein Kahaan... ... Joy Bengal... Joy Hind.