The Non resident Bengali's adventures in Kolkata- Part 1

Most Probashi Bangalis or the Non Resident Bengalis (henceforth known as NRBs) are a strange specimen in Kolkata. They are meant to be treated with utter disdain because of the horrendously Punjufied Bengali accents. But if you are a NRB from CR Park you might save yourself some of the disgrace. If you are a woman NRB from CR Park you will score some brownie points because Delhi women give the gossipy men at tea stalls something to talk about. And if you are a NRB woman from CR Park with a camera crew in tow- well, you can be assured that the whole town will be following you AND think of you as nothing less than Sushmita Sen- who cares if she hasn't produced a single hit film in her life and you are a lowly producer for an Indian version of a American TV muppet show that Indians kids don't even like watching. Here are some funny anecdotal moments that the the muppet show would never dare to tell (yes, funny only in retrospect). I am going to try and recall them as distinctly as possible. But as it happens with memory, any resemblance to characters (dead, alive or barely alive) and events is not coincidental- it is completely intentional, but with a dash of good humor and the tricks that my memory decided to play in the moment of writing.
In 2007, as a part of the Sesame Street India team, I was asked to shoot a series of short films in Kolkata.My boss said, “You have to capture the flavor of Calcutta, OK? Who else would know the city but a Bengali?” I hated to break it to him that people speaking the language “Bengali” and people who have grown up in Calcutta as “Bengalis” were completely diverse. And that I was a Bengali who had grown up in Delhi. The last time I had been to Calcutta was twenty years back. My knowledge of the city, its history and culture was perhaps as superficial as his.
“It is not easy being a Live Action film producer,” my boss said with an air of certainty at one of our pre-departure meetings, as he glanced at my notes for probable stories in Calcutta:

Probable ideas for shooting:
1.Jogesh Dutta Mime Academy---- Ballygunge Circular Road.
2. Painting- Patachitra at the Kalighat Temple
3. Find a mansion near North Calcutta- organize a treasure hunt.
4. Shadow show by Geyon Theater- They make shadow puppets from cardboard, colour papers and waste materials. (no address in directory)
5. Clock towers of Calcutta: a family maintains the clock tower of St. Paul's Cathedral. The child of the family travels up the winding stairs to see his grandfather at work. **
6. Football match in the Maidan.
7. Horse ride/ Tram ride/ Boat ride in the city- show Victoria Memorial/ Princep Ghat
8. A trip to the flower market.
9. Food:
It was a humble beginning. In a tiny, obscure corner of Bagbazar in North Kolkata, Nobin Chandra set up a sweet shop in 1866, but the last thing he wanted was to run a mere sales counter. The passion to create something of his very own haunted him. His ambition was to create a completely original sweet, that would bring new excitement to the Bengali palate. There was in him an intense desire to create a sweetmeat that was never there before... the ultimate delicacy. He toiled for months, armed with imagination, skill and tenacity, and sometime in the year 1868, his labours paid off. He made small balls of casein (cottage cheese) and boiled them in hot sugar syrup. The result was a succulent, spongy sweet with a unique, distinctive taste. Nobin Das christened it the “Rossogolla” and a legend
was born.- http://originofrasgulla.blogspot.com/
10. Learning Katha embroidery
11. Trip to the science city
**(Refer to Indian Express news- the grandfather was 80 years old in 1997!- no phone number or contact information)

My boss sighed and then after a moment of silence, his red face looked at me with irritation to say-“Well...Sukanya. These are all so overdone!” He used the word overdone with great frequency. “Science City will be boring! What will the child do there? He can't stand just stand there and watch.And music is super overdone on Sesame...” His voice started to grow louder and his face redder- “Painting is overdone too. And wait..you actually thought of football. The cameraman is lazy and bulky. Do you think he will actually run around and fall with a child on a football field? The clock tower story is your best bet...I want that one!” He was on the verge
of standing up now, sweat beginning to break out on his plump face as he said, “ But even then, where is the story and the drive, the motivation for the child! What is the take-away factor for the child? I repeat-look for the flavor of Calcutta...Kolkata..whatever!”
The tirade stopped as he fixed me with a hard stare. “Oh..and by the way, the budget has been slashed down. You need to take a look at your hotel booking again. It is 1000 rupees a day now for the hotel..Calcutta is cheap right?”, he said with nonchalance. “ And take the early morning or late night flight...!” he added.

Monalisa Guesthouse~
An uncle of mine, on returning from one of his trips remarked to me, “ You know
all sorts of strange things happen to me when I travel”. I stared at him, not quite sure what to make of this statement. And he went on, “ You know.. there will be water splattered on my seat or it wont have a seat number...or worst still, my berth might have been taken by someone else.” He added almost gleefully that this time while on his trip to Darjeeling, someone stole his slippers on the train, and I pictured him walking around bare feet in the town. My plane got ready to land in Calcutta's Netaji Subhash Airport, and the big rain drops smeared on the tiny window. I wondered if strange things happening on travels ran in the family. The night before I was to leave, the airline's ground staff had gone on a strike and Calcutta had recorded its maximum rainfall for the season.
As I stepped out from the air-conditioned dome on to the damp earth of the city, I felt swamped by the tide of taxi drivers and auto-rickshaw drivers,standing at the side rails calling out to hassled travelers. My father, a veteran traveler to this city, had given me a set of instructions to follow and one of them had been to make a beeline for the prepaid taxi stand. The drivers in the city are rogues he had warned. My driver however had a half smile playing on his face as he helped me with my luggage, but remembering my father's warning I didn't smile back. An overpowering smell of petroleum clung on to the hot, blackened interior of the Ambassador car. I sat on the edge of the grimy seat, sweat now beginning to break out on my face.
We sped in to the city with swaying coconut tress, past billboards and past signs of familiar cell phone companies, but the rounded shape of the Bengali alphabets that dotted the skyline, made me realize how different this city was from mine. I had never learnt to read the Bengali alphabets and my city-guide map with the English words strewn across, seemed strangely out of place.
The maniacal car veered, and the loud sounds of the city crept in, as we went from the suburban Eastern Metropolitan Bypass in to the dense territory of South Calcutta. The drive yelled and asked me, “Didi...first time in our Kolkata?”. Not wanting to make conversation I replied, “Can I get breakfast somewhere?”. Too happy to comply and be of some assistance, he said that he would take me to his favourite eating joint.
The car stopped in a narrow jumble of bikes and other cars. A bazaar of paranoia greeted me. The driver's lanky frame with the hollow cheeks kept getting swallowed by the crowd, emerging a couple of times and then his long strides fell back in the giant's mouth yet again. Yelling out his name would do no good, still I called out “Pintuda..wait!!”. He didn't wait and several men standing at the grey and brown tea stall snickered. And I followed like a detective on a criminal's trail.
Sweet tea in small brown earthen cups, orange lozenges wrapped in slightly blackened
plastic, Lays chips in bright yellow bags that had gathered dust, deep fried fish rolls and mutton cutlets, scrambled eggs and omelette with extra chillies, plastic yo-yo balls that gave out a blue light, pirated DVDs of “KING KOG” and “STAR WAS”, bright red night gowns with polka dots and crochet at the hem, fake silk batik kurtas with wooden buttons and pink fishnet vests all stood united in one place- on the streets of Gariahat Bazaar in Calcutta.
A black and yellow taxi skidded to hit the side rails of the footpath as it just about missed the bus which had no place demarcated as its stop. The angry, irritated honking continued as the sweaty bodies descending from the bus, filled up the moist air, trying to avoid the open drain, the beggars pleading for alms, vociferous college kids and the hassled women with shopping bags who had hitched up their cotton saris to their ankles revealing plain sandals falling soundlessly on the city grime. People fought for every inch and gap and hole. The excess, it seemed was sacred for the city.
Being a finicky person didn't really help in this situation, as I shriveled up my body and pressed my arms at my sides, and watched helplessly as my blue slippers got caught between people and rain puddles. In a fit of frustration, I abandoned the careful gait, and ran behind the driver, who had stopped in front of the restaurant “Bhojohori Manna”. “He was a world conquering hero-chef”, my driver said, rightly gauging my befuddled expression and happy to pass on this trivia.
I didn't remember inviting him for breakfast. I scanned the menu to realize that he really had gotten me to his favorite restaurant. The place had no eggs and toast that I wanted, but specialized in kebabs, Biriyani, fish curries and chicken dishes. He ate a whole plate of Biriyani- which I would later realize is a favorite with Calcuttans while I fiddled on a glass of fresh lime soda. He asked me if I ate and drank only this much for breakfast. I replied, “Sometimes..”. From then on we shifted topics quickly. He asked me where I stayed in Delhi. “Chittaranjan Park”, I said. He looked as if he found a long lost friend as he said “That is where all Bengalis of Delhi stay right..! That is why your Bengali is so good..!” he concluded, slapping his thighs with the oily hands, pleased to have finally completed the jigsaw puzzle. I gave a weak smile, as the frayed menu card stared back at me with its incomprehensible letters. The child like excitement spread further across his face when he got to know that I had come to Calcutta to make films. “Didi..have you gone to Bombay and met any of the superstars?”, he asked me expectantly. I just replied in a plain no, not wanting to elucidate details that I made only documentary films, thinking he would not understand them anyway.
While going back to the car, he decided to take me through a shortcut and we walked through a dingy back lane. Hawkers cooked in the open. Their pots and pans stood tilted and skewed, bending under the weight of the gathering rain water. Men bathed openly from a community tap, and children played with pebbles on the moss covered ground. My house had always had a back lane but I had forgotten what it looked like,always having been forbidden to play there as a child. “It is dangerous for a girl to be there alone", everyone would say. The rusty door remained shut for years till someone remembered to open the massive lock and sweep away the brittle leaves gathered at the corners, during a spring cleaning session. I felt adventurous and delight in walking and watching this locked up world after so many years. But shooting in this rough margin would be out of question. The ideology of Sesame Street was different.
The humidity seemed to be on the rise as we walked through the lane. Some women stopped washing the clothes and men standing at tea stalls stared at this odd couple go by. I kept my eyes down and walked quickly, not noticing a man pulling a rickshaw running towards me. Being stared at is common in Indian towns and cities. Men stare at women and women stare away in to nothing.
I suddenly felt a jerk on my arms as Pintuda pulled me aside, screeching “Didi..”, his voice getting hammered by the noisy wheels of the rickshaw on the unpaved road. He hollered at the receeding back of the rickshaw puller who had not bothered to stop.. “Be careful...didi has come here to make a film ok!!”.
Perhaps, feeling that this incident had brought us closer, he turned on some Bengali music in the car, composed by a well-known pop musician, Bappi Lahiri. Pintuda seemed pleased to know that I had recognized the composer. Jhoom jhoom jhoom baba “Bappida stays in Bombay right..?”, he asked me from the rear view mirror. I nodded and started to give a set of vague directions to Monalisa Guest House. Next to the Rowing Club. Close to Marco Polo Restaurant.
Without any hesitation, the taxi turned and merrily threw water on the hassled pedestrians. It sped past a road named Ballygunge Circular Road and I remembered reading the name somewhere.
I kept trying to locate the place in my mind as I fished around for my diary in my bag. The taxi screeched to a halt. I hit on my head on the front seat. A disgusting smell filled my nostrils.
A decayed monster with cracked green walls and a clogged driveway floating in knee deep water stared back. “Monalisa Guest House..Didi”, Pintuda said somewhat apologetically. I couldn't really have expected a boutique hotel in thousand rupees a day.
I was annoyed not knowing how I would navigate this driveway, and asked the driver to pull up to the front door. I tiptoed on to the ground, not wanting to get my feet muddy. A man sitting at the reception desk, wearing a brown safari suit stared at me with interest, his gaze challenging me to find the dry spots. Behind him, I could see through an alcove, a tiny, smoky kitchen at work.
He yelled “Ayeee...Gopal...Gopaaal!!”. His shout cut through the dim noise of the street and the kitchen, and I toppled over. My knees sank in the murk. A small scrawny boy came running out of the door, wearing a thin T-shirt over a cloth wrapped around his thighs, the hem high enough to avoid the water. He splashed his way towards the car, and with ease carried my suitcase back to the front desk. The water dripped from my jeans, as I managed to smile at the man in the safari suit. He introduced himself as Mr. Bimal Ghosh- CEO of the guest house.
In a moment of anxiety and fear of facing an unknown city, I asked Pintuda to return the next day and take me around. He would be only too glad he said, and promised to reach the guest house at 10 am sharp.
I sat in the quiet of the small room of the same green shade. A thin bed had a lumpy
mattress and a dowdy bed cover with brown flowers that matched the curtains hanging from the window. There was no shower in the bathroom, but pink plastic buckets, with broken handles and scratched bodies. An enormous task stood before me. The crew from Delhi would arrive soon and I had to find those children in this eccentric city.
For no particular reason, Ballygunge Circular Road came back to mind. I referred to the Lonely Planet Guide and then my diary which mentioned the Mime Academy on the same road.
The Lonely Planet guide was clearly not meant for a film producer, hunting for children. Needless to say the “Places to Visit” section had no mention of this Academy or its whereabouts. Instead it listed botanical gardens, art museums and buildings that were the glorious remnants of the British Empire.
My father had remarked in the passing about Jogesh Dutta as being a famous mime artist. However, my boss had seemed skeptical on hearing this information, and said that he had never heard of this “man” before. “Bengalis have a way of making everybody famous”, he had added.
Historically, Bengal had always been a mecca for intellectual renaissance and artistic practices, boasting of geniuses such as the poet Rabindranath Tagore, the first Asian Nobel laureate and Satyajit Ray, who gave India a privileged position in world cinema. Though there are many more who can be recounted, these two figures have remained much revered and a common love- tying together the Bengalis of the home and the world. A film made by Satyajit Ray once encapsulated the three great loves of the Bengali community- eating great food, traveling around the world and lastly, engaging in culture and the arts. It is almost a rite of passage for children of Bengali descent, no matter which part of the world they are in, to learn music and especially Rabindra Sangeet. I remembered learning music from someone whose name I can never remember, but we called him the grandfather who teaches music. At the age of seven, I never quite understood what the grandiose words meant and ran away from the class once. Sitting in the room that day, I regretted not having gone back. Perhaps the songs would have helped me understand the city and its people better.
A wishful picture came to mind. A shiny, wooden auditorium. Children with faces painted white, practicing the art of mime. That would be my first stop the next morning.

Will keep the stories rolling, dear readers!It is night for now..
Cheers (aka Ullash in Bengali since we are in the thick of Bong land and spirit)
Travel Bee