[BITList] Writer visits Calcutta 40 years later

[John Feltham]

From the Chowringhi List
 
 
 
A lovely article by a Hungarian, Mike Hruska, originally published in ‘the telegraph’ in 2006.

He writes with tenderness about his growing up days in that lovely old decaying but still vibrant city. for us who also grew up there, this will bring a lump to your throat…  his visit to the new market and meeting the old porters is so true !  

Calcutta contradictions

When my wife attended a conference in Calcutta in January 2006, I took the opportunity to visit the city of my birth and where I had lived for over 20 years. I was extremely excited about returning to Calcutta and sharing this wonderful city with her.

At Dum Dum, my welcome home sign was a monumental pollution haze reeking of diesel and autorickshaw fumes. Perhaps the thousands of coal or dung-fired outdoor chulhas made a contribution as well. I remembered these pollution hazes but not on this scale or intensity.

What can I say about the city? There are now so many elevated roads and flyovers that the once-familiar scene of downtown Calcutta and Chowringhee is unrecognisable. The streets are packed with yellow-roofed taxis at the end of their economic life, all jockeying for position. The roads are replete with well-intentioned cautionary traffic slogans like “Respect the traffic rules”, but nobody cares.

The traffic congestion is horrendous. Cars creak slowly forward; the noisy symphony of horns is inescapable. Cars constantly look for an emerging gap and inch into it with kamikaze-like precision so that you could pass a knife between each one. The one saving grace is that the average traffic speed is about 20 kmph.

Nevertheless, crossing the road is a nightmare. No one respects pedestrians at street crossings at all.

My parents came to India from Czechoslovakia shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe. They were the only members of my family who left. They worked for the Bata Corporation, which had its headquarters in Batanagar — a shoe factory and residential complex — on the outskirts of Calcutta.

I was born in 1940 at the Elgin Nursing Home, at 6 Elgin Road, Calcutta. After a few years, my father left Bata, moved to Calcutta and started a hurricane lantern business. We lived on Chowringhee Road, opposite St Paul’s Cathedral; this was to be our family home for the next 45 years.

The fortunate circumstance of being Calcutta-born gave me an incredible inheritance, which I grew to appreciate as the years passed. In my childhood, Calcutta offered a glimpse into the declining days of the Raj; it was a city full of the symbols of empire: imposing architecture, the bronze statuary of Curzon, Canning, Mayo, etc, and the magnificent Victoria Memorial.

After Independence, the Calcutta I knew was transformed into a vibrant Bengali city. The dominant British culture ebbed with the departing expatriates: their symbols have been gradually removed to be replaced by Bengali cultural symbols. But, mercifully the Victoria Memorial survived all this transformation: today it still embraces those who wish to enjoy its imposing grandeur and its peaceful setting.
 
Old school of thought
 
What can I say about Calcutta? Nobody can be indifferent to it, nor can its cultural, intellectual, commercial or political importance to the rest of India be denied. At the same time one needs to acknowledge the poverty, the human suffering and the incredible lack of social support systems. From my perspective, this is just one of the paradoxes of Calcutta.

My earliest recollection is of going to Daphne Ross Kindergarten with my ayah at age 4 by hand-pulled rickshaw. The school was on Theatre Road (now re-named Shakespeare Sarani). I remember the rickshaw well because it was my very own open convertible. There was no meter; when we disembarked, the fare was 4 annas. The rickshaw wallah would give us an impoverished stare with an outstretched hand holding the money, asking whether this was adequate compensation for his effort and how was he going to feed his family on this miserly 4 annas. Everyday there was the same ritual theatre and disgruntled look, but everyday he was there waiting for us to go to kindergarten.

I have absolutely no recollection of what went on at the kindergarten but I still have the report cards. They describe how I played or sang or sculpted in the sand pit.

Sixty years ago these were the simple measures of childhood’s success. How gratified my parents would have been to know that “Little Miki sang like an angel” or “Miki was a good boy for most of the term.”

But how strange is this? Move forward half a century. When I was staying in Delhi in 2000, friends of mine were concerned that their 4-year-old daughter had not been studying sufficiently to pass an entrance examination for a highly recommended school. It seems that four-year-olds are still being assessed but that the degree of difficulty has changed. I came away from that trip grateful that I had been raised at a time when only my capacity to sing and play was of any interest to my teachers and parents.
 
Market magic
 
As a boy and later a young man, I often went to New Market with my mother when she did her shopping. She liked to pick the fresh produce, the meat and fish. As soon as we entered the Lindsay Street parking area and before our feet had touched the ground, we would be surrounded by a melee of porters with their wicker baskets all wanting to carry our purchases.

This was the Calcutta equivalent of the supermarket trolley but this one was self-steering, and would wait by the car on request. On each market visit, my mother chose the services of the same basket carrier, who would accompany us from the vegetables and fruit stalls to the meat and fish sections, the always fascinating visit to the unda (egg) merchant and to Babur Ali’s. Finally we would go the flower seller to buy my mother’s favourite gladiolas.

I loved going to the live poultry section. The chickens and ducks were kept in large wicker baskets. My mother made her choice, the poor bird was hung upside down and its feet were tied and handed to our porter. Then he deftly balanced the wicker basket on his head with one hand while he carried the live chickens in the other.

Nearby was the undawallah. He hand-picked each egg, flicking it through his fingers in front of a naked light rather like a magician who mesmerises you with finger-coin tricks. Making sure that no embryo had formed, he placed the eggs safely in a newspaper basket.

All of your senses were active in the market. There were both beautifully aromatic and less pleasant smells. It took a strong stomach to negotiate the optics of the meat stalls. Water was everywhere, as marble countertops were continuously hosed down after preparing meat or fish for the customer. The absence of refrigeration was noticeable and the meat was hung up by hooks that surrounded the stall front.

Around the fish stalls, one waded through a sea of fish scales, for part of the service included cleaning and scaling. This is where we bought my favourite fish, bekti, and when it was in season, a wonderful bony fish call mango fish, which was a particular favourite of my father’s.

At the rear end of New Market were all the specialty shops like Babur Ali, which sold imported and smuggled tinned goods. Elsewhere were delightful shops selling Bengali and other Indian specialties and sweets like rasogollas, jalebis, gulab jamuns, and delectable cheese and palm sugar-based sweets.

My family shopped at Babur Ali’s for over 30 years and a visit was always accompanied with a chat with Babur Ali Senior, while his sons assisted him. There was a wonderful trust between Babur ally and my mother. If she was short of money to pay her bill, Babur Ali said: “It’s okay memsahib, pay me next week.”

This is one of my most abiding memories. Trust and a handshake were more important than a piece of paper. Later on in life, I realised that this was the best way of getting to know people, by developing trust. It was a respectful practice from an earlier time that we missed when we left India.

When I revisited the New Market in 2006, I had a most remarkable experience. The porter who had carried my mother’s shopping recognised me after well over 40 years and asked after my mother by name. I was absolutely flabbergasted that his memory was so keen.

But more was to come. The flower seller, the undawallah, the staff at Babur Ali and at a Tibetan curio shop all recognised me and asked after my mother’s health: they were truly saddened on hearing that she had long since died. I was utterly humbled by the high regard they held for my mother. And I was pleased to note that shopping at New Market in 2006 did not seem to be any different than it was in my mother’s time.



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