India’s nostalgia capital, totally

Whatrsquos it about a city that no matter who you meet whatever their age or whether they live within it anymore the conversation inevitably centres on what it used to be Thatrsquos been Kolkata for me including its former name Calcutta lsquoCalrsquo for what it wasOf course itrsquos the capital of West Bengal which should only be called Bengal since East Bengal is merely an old football club that Calcuttans have habitually loved along with Mohun Bagan Mohammedan SportingThe Eastmdashfirst split off from its western part by the British in 1905 and reunited in 1911mdashis now a bustling economy Bangladesh formerly East Pakistan with a much higher percapita income than Indiarsquos Itrsquos a country looking aheadWhat one doesnrsquot recognise enough about Cal is that in many ways it is also the capitalhub of the eastern states Bihar Odisha Jharkhand even those further northeast Assam Manipur Tripura etc You sense it on the streetsairport Which is also true for the four traditional metropolitan citiesmdashDelhi North Madras South Bombay WestBesides longer histories as cities are traditional metros hugely different from the rest of India Letrsquos just put it this way as we speak in 2022 all these four metropolises have state governments different from the one in the political Centre which appears an anomalyoutlier given a common perception that India is heading towards some sorta oneparty BJP ruleMaybe larger populations hinged on massive cities of their own prefer local chieftains with more independent persuasionsmdashMamata in Cal post Buddhadeb and Jyoti Basu for the longest before both Kejriwal in Delhi with Sheila Dixit for a decade and half before him Thackerays in Mumbai for way longer Stalin in Chennai after KarunanidhiJayalalitha currentlyCompared to these metros how cosmopolitan is Cal A strong memory of my kindergarten years living in the city is being asked quite often ldquoTumi Bangali ki Hindustanirdquo Which I realise decades later didnrsquot mean whether Irsquom Indian or secessionist Bengali Merely the language that came naturally to me Bangla or Hindustani HindiUrduldquoAami bhalo kore Bangla bujhi bolte pari na I understand Bangla just canrsquot speak it wellrdquo I say often in the company of Bongs which has rarely stopped them from continuing to talk in Bangla still even if Irsquom the only nonBong in the room Also itrsquos common among pedestrians in Cal to assume you speak Bangla They automatically start off To be fair itrsquos the sweetest language I knowThat the past generation upperclass Bongs spoke fluent English with a pucca British accentmdashldquoOxfordonHooghlyrdquo as Vir Sanghvi derisively described Satyajit Rayrsquos twangmdashhas much to do with Cal being British Indiarsquos capital until 1911Whatever else that did access to quality English education has certainly helped Cal produce some of the finest nationalglobal academicprofessional successes even up till now All of them emote forever on their love for Cal Just that they donrsquot live there anymore Maybe melancholy remains at the core of the Bengali mindPeering at Calrsquos future writer Amitav Ghosh told me in an interview in the early 2000s that itrsquos a city with maximum potential to regain its place under the sun because East Asia had risen As the crow flies Cal was closest to the global East to benefit from richescommercetrade But thatrsquos not happened yetWhy the British moved the Indian capital to a spanking New Delhi in 1911 Irsquom sure is a 10mark question in a modern Indian history paper My local friend over a long lsquoaddarsquo involving Darjeeling tea descending to whiskey tells me it mustrsquove had to do with the upsurge of gigantic revolts against the Empire in Bengal with Cal as its centre New Delhi wouldrsquove been safer to issue distant diktats fromItrsquos the same strong resistance led by the Left around the 1970s80s that made corporates headquartered in Cal flee to other cities The advertising industry moved too Along with them the educated looking for plum jobsAround then my friend tells me Cal had neighbourhoods dedicated to multiple communities Punjabis Gujaratis lsquoSouthiesrsquohellip You barely find them anymore You see Hindi speaking Biharis running the streets stillmdashhardcore hajaams cutting hair vendors selling jamun cabbies in sweetly khatara yellow Ambassadors Prices are cheap Rents are low Bargains are hard It feels like the lovely rsquo70s alrightHerersquos what unites the Calcuttan regardless of where theyrsquore originally frommdashtheir love for popular art music in particular Both seem internal to Bengali homes Itrsquos not a surprise that the best desi coverband Irsquove heard is the one performing in front of me at Someplace Else on Park Street Itrsquos called Urban Monkz with the brilliant Bucha on vocals Tutul Da on drums love these Bong lsquopet namesrsquoSpeaking of which over two decades that Irsquove been visiting Cal as an adult places to remake memories together remain the samemdashSomeplace Else Oly pub Roxy nightclub Peter Cat Kusumrsquos rolls BarBQ ChinesehellipFor once nostalgia is not an exaggeration It is live and real And yet after a night of the best band Irsquove witnessed in sometime I hear patrons complain to the manager at Someplace Else smoking room ldquoKi hocche dada Bollywood cholchhe This was a lsquorock placersquo MLTR Michael Learns To Rock sat on this seat in the good old days no no okhane na right herehelliprdquo OhoMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper