Vir Sanghvi on the pujos...

This was the first thing my eyes rested on when I checked my email this morning, shrouded in the poignant pathos of Bijoya Dashami...thank you Rahul Da...I can't elaborate enough on the extent to which it moved me, a girl who is away from her parents, parents-in-law and all other friends and relatives on the occasion of her very first pujo after marriage. I myself only know what I have missed this year. Even Maa Durga made it to her baaper baadi. I couldn't. Some day, I hope, K would appreciate how much I value him to reconcile myself with such circumstances at an age and point of time in life when the absence of all these still makes a difference.

What 'Pujo' means to a Bengali

Vir Sanghvi

"Most modern Indian cities strive to rise above ethnicity. Tell anybody who lives in Bombay that he lives in a Maharashtrian city and (unless of course, you are speaking to Bal Thackeray) he will take immediate offence. We are cosmopolitan, he will say indigenously.Tell a Delhiwalla that his is a Punjabi city (which, in many ways, it is) and he will respond with much self-righteous nonsense about being the nation's capital, about the international composition of the city's elite etc. And tell a Bangalorean that he lives in a Kannadiga city and you'll get lots of techno-gaff about the internet revolution and about how Bangalore is even more cosmopolitan than Bombay.But, the only way to understand what Calcutta is about is recognize that the city is essentially Bengali. What's more, no Bengali minds you saying that. Rather, he is proud of the fact. Calcutta's strengths and weaknesses mirror those of the Bengali character. It has the drawbacks: the sudden passions, the cheerful chaos, the utter contempt for mere commerce, the fiery response to the smallest provocation. And it has the strengths (actually, I think ofthe drawbacks as strengths in their own way). Calcutta embodies theBengali love of culture; the triumph of intellectualism over greed;the complete transparency of all emotions, the disdain with which hypocrisy and insincerity are treated; the warmth of genuine humanity; and the supremacy of emotion over all other aspects of human existence.That's why Calcutta is not for everyone.You want your cities clean and green; stick to Delhi. You want your cities, rich and impersonal; go to Bombay. You want them high-tech and full of draught beer; Bangalore's your place. But if you want a city with a soul: come to Calcutta.When I look back on the years I've spent in Calcutta - and I come back so many times each year that I often feel I've never been away - I don't remember the things that people remember about cities.When I think of London, I think of the vast open spaces of Hyde Park.When I think of New York, I think of the frenzy of Times Square. When Ithink of Tokyo, I think of the bright lights of Shinjiku. And when I think of Paris, I think of the Champs Elysee. But when I think of Calcutta, I never think of any one place. I don't focus on the greenery of the maidan, the beauty of the Victoria Memorial, the bustle of Burra Bazar or the splendour of the new Howrah Bridge.I think of people. Because, finally, a city is more than bricks and mortars,street lights and tarred roads. A city is the sum of its people. And who can ever forget or replicate - the people of Calcutta? When I first came to live here, I was told that the city would grow on me. What nobody told me was that the city would change my life. It was in Calcutta that I learnt about true warmth; about simple human decency; about love and friendship; about emotions and caring; about truth and honesty. I learnt other things too. Coming from Bombay as Idid, it was a revelation to live in a city where people judged each other on the things that really mattered; where they recognized that being rich did not make you a better person - in fact, it might have the opposite effect. I learnt also that if life is about more than just money, it is about the things that other cities ignore; about culture,about ideas, about art, and about passion.

In Bombay, a man with a relatively low income will salt some of it away for the day when he gets a stock market tip. In Calcutta, a man with exactly the same income will not know the difference between a debenture and a dividend. But he will spend his money on the things that matter. Each morning, he will read at least two newspapers and develop sharply etched views on the state of the world.Each evening, there will be fresh (ideally, fresh-water or river) fish on his table. His children will be encouraged to learn to dance or sing. His family will appreciate the power of poetry. And for him,religion and culture will be in inextricably bound together. Ah religion! Tell outsiders about the importance of Puja in Calcutta and they'll scoff. Don't be silly, they'll say. Puja is a religiousf estival. And Bengal has voted for the CPM since 1977. How can godless Bengal be so hung up on a religions festival? I never know how to explain them that to a Bengali, religion consists of much more than shouting Jai Shri Ram or pulling down somebody's mosque. It has little to do with meaningless ritual or sinister political activity.The essence of Puja is that all the passions of Bengal converge:emotion, culture, the love of life, the warmth of being together, the joy of celebration, the pride in artistic expression and yes, the cult of the goddess. It may be about religion. But is about much more than just worship. In which other part of India would small, notparticularly well-off localities, vie with each other to produce the best pandals? Where else could puja pandals go beyond religion to draw inspiration from everything else? In the years I lived in Calcutta,the pandals featured Amitabh Bachchan, Princess Diana and even Saddam Hussain! Where else would children cry with the sheer emotional powerof Dashami, upset that the Goddess had left their homes? Where else would the whole city gooseflesh when the dhakis first begin to beat their drums? Which other Indian festival - in any part of the country- is so much about food, about going from one roadside stall to another, following your nose as it trails the smells of cooking? To understand Puja, you must understand Calcutta. And to understand Calcutta, you must understand the Bengali. It's not easy. Certainly,you can't do it till you come and live here, till you let Calcutta suffuse your being, invade your bloodstream and steal your soul. But once you have, you'll love Calcutta forever.Wherever you go, a bit of Calcutta will go with you. I know, because it's happened to me. And every Puja, I am overcome by the magic of Bengal.It's a feeling that'll never go away."

Democracy of Devastation...

Kolkata is going through an intensely bad time. And that too, not due to any natural calamity, but an artificial one. The monsoons are in full force and heavy rains lashed the city on the night of 2nd July, 2007 and in fits and starts throughout 3rd July. The result - a waterlogged city, exposing all the municipal torpor that has caused routine life to come to a dead halt since yesterday morning. I, for one, could not go to office yesterday. But that was initially cause for celebration and I did take it in the spirit of an unexpected holiday. Or, as we used to term them in school life, it was just another ‘rainy day’ I found occasion to catch up on my reading ,watched one and a half films, listened to Big FM and enjoyed an afternoon nap. In fact, I even went out in the evening yesterday to buy a cashcard, which was actually just an excuse for a leisurely walk through the freshly bathed streets.

But. Yes, but. The enormity of the situation that had engulfed the rest of the city dawned on me when I woke up this morning, peered outside with sleepy eyes and suffered a mini-hallucination. Which was actually reality. Yes, a murky river had sprung up overnight just in front of my house, which disappointed any latent hopes of turning up at office today. And the worst part is that no one believes that my locality could actually be flooded because it is studded with residences of state ministers and MLAs. But I realized that my plight was nothing when compared with the miseries of other Kolkatans. From 9.30-11.30 am, I have been squatting in front of the TV, watching Star Ananda live coverages of the current misery of citizens both of the city proper and the suburbs. Celebrities like Suchitra Bhattacharya and Bani Basu the authors, Tridib Chattopadhyay the publisher and Bibhas Chakraborty the theatre artist spoke animatedly of the fear and suffering they have witnessed or been a part of since yesterday. Numerous people called up to report first-hand their terrible predicament due to lack of drainage facilities, loadshedding, lack of drinking water supplies and even food. At the Sukhia locality of APC Road, people cannot even come to collect the drinking water being provided on an emergency basis due to the waterlogging in their area. The photos being broadcast, still and video, of the spectacle in suffering that is Kolkata at the moment, seems unbelievable.

Amaresh Chatterjee, a senior citizen hailing from Baranagar, deserves special mention. The entire ground floor of his home was under 1 and a half feet of water yesterday. He and his aged wife removed almost 600 bucketfuls of water to make it somewhat more habitable. He even did some thing that should put us young and inert citizens to shame. With his own tired hands, he cleaned out the open drain that spans the area surrounding his place. The local councillor was unabashed by his efforts and his surprised queries regarding the absence of municipal workers on this day of need generated the curious interpretation that he was speaking in a ‘motivated’ tone. So much for democracy and freedom of speech or for that matter, right to information.

The Mayor has been presented with numerous bouquets on this (un) eventful occasion. Don’t be surprised. The opposition councilors have been enterprising enough to capitalize on the success and popularity engendered by the message of Gandhigiri upheld in ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’. They are not really doing anything very original.

The Asian Development Bank is helping Kolkata Municipal Corporation out with a loan of 1800 crore rupees to better its civic necessities. But don’t feel elated about it. The money is to be channelised into pumping stations that will filter the sewerage water from the city and ensure that the river Ganges does not suffer more pollution than it is already facing. Which means that we will remain as worse off as we were formerly with this antedated drainage system or the lack of it.

And yes, it seems that in a city which will soon house more shopping malls than hospitals or blood banks, the ravages wrought by the intermittent rains has driven home a picture of the ‘democracy of devastation’ ( in Bani Basu’s words). The general picture that came across from the phone calls, video stills and live reports on the channel was that - the more we progress, the more things remain the same. An NGO in northern Kolkata has helped the local slum residents to move into a vacant school building in the area and has been providing them with ‘chnire and gud’. Kolkata it seems, is receding into prehistoric primitivity.

And oh, one last thing, for the moment at least. The honourable Mayor has taken the liberty of comparing our beloved city to London. But you will feel more stunned than ecstatic when I inform you that he was talking about the crisis that that celebrated city also has to undergo throughout the year. ‘We should be happy that the monsoons don’t last forever’ is what he seems to be trying to say, albeit in a rather tangential way. Well, then, let us raise some funds and undertake the liberty of exporting him to London. Pronto. I’m sure the Londoners will be less happy to see him there than we are to get rid of him. And his lesson in lethargy.