My City... Used To Be
Friday evening was spent at Flury's with two old chums — The Filmmaker and The Intellectual. It was a nice evening — filled with saxophone and titbits on The Filmmaker's new scripts over nice Darjeeling. (Very filling, too, with a BIG omlett stuffed with ham and mushroom). It was adda and after a long time it felt nice. Felt like old times. Felt like the old city was still alive — like it used to be.
Right? Wrong!
A few kilometres away from Flury's, around 80,000 Calcuttans had gathered at the Eden Gardens. India was playing S Africa. It was a pretty expensive affair. Tickets for the match had exceeded a grand. (For Cal that's quite a lot — A Bryan Adams show was once cancelled as the organisers feared a low turnout.) They had come to cheer the home team or to enjoy a good game, I'd guess. But, apparently, they had a different agenda. To boo and barrack the Indian team.
Now, i have serious reservations about this whole 'Indian team' business. For me it's a pack of few good/not so good men owned by a 'company' — a very rich one — which is focussed on a single thing — PROFIT. Like other companies.
Anyways, 'Team India' has always been OWNED by the people. We get passionate, nationalistic, heck even jingoistic.
But the way 'WE' reacted this time beats me. People had actually bought tickets, sacrificed work and gathered to boo their own team. This 'people' included the ex-mayor of the city who, a daily reported, wanted India to loose, "For Saurav's sake". Wow! Not only those present in the stadium, but the whole city (and perhaps the whole state), wanted the tea to lose. Why? They wanted 'proof' that The Men In Blues will always be in the blues if The Prince don't come to their rescue. People bursted crackers. People in general. Most of these 'People' used to scorn at Muslims, and all Muslims, when a certain section at Khidderpore bursted crackers after a Pak win.
It hurt. It did. The next morning The Intellectual justified the reaction... "For years have we ben subjected to Onyay Bonchona. Now we have Jagoed. And Everybody should know that we can hit back too"... as if he was off to fight the British, or the burgeoise or whomever. "Why not? The Marathis root for Maharashtra, why not we for Bengal?" reasoned Baba. Well, I can't remember Mumbaikars praying for an Indian defeat when Sunny was out of the team. Neither can I forsee Delhiites at Ferozshah Kotla barraking because Shehwag has been kept out ofd the team. (Now, they might, and claim to follow the famous What Bengal thinks today...).
Perhaps that's why these cities will call themselves the Capital, financial capital, tech capital... Kolkatans used to refer her as the Cultural Capital.
Culture? What Culture?
Friday evening was spent at Flury's with two old chums — The Filmmaker and The Intellectual. It was a nice evening — filled with saxophone and titbits on The Filmmaker's new scripts over nice Darjeeling. (Very filling, too, with a BIG omlett stuffed with ham and mushroom). It was adda and after a long time it felt nice. Felt like old times. Felt like the old city was still alive — like it used to be.
Right? Wrong!
A few kilometres away from Flury's, around 80,000 Calcuttans had gathered at the Eden Gardens. India was playing S Africa. It was a pretty expensive affair. Tickets for the match had exceeded a grand. (For Cal that's quite a lot — A Bryan Adams show was once cancelled as the organisers feared a low turnout.) They had come to cheer the home team or to enjoy a good game, I'd guess. But, apparently, they had a different agenda. To boo and barrack the Indian team.
Now, i have serious reservations about this whole 'Indian team' business. For me it's a pack of few good/not so good men owned by a 'company' — a very rich one — which is focussed on a single thing — PROFIT. Like other companies.
Anyways, 'Team India' has always been OWNED by the people. We get passionate, nationalistic, heck even jingoistic.
But the way 'WE' reacted this time beats me. People had actually bought tickets, sacrificed work and gathered to boo their own team. This 'people' included the ex-mayor of the city who, a daily reported, wanted India to loose, "For Saurav's sake". Wow! Not only those present in the stadium, but the whole city (and perhaps the whole state), wanted the tea to lose. Why? They wanted 'proof' that The Men In Blues will always be in the blues if The Prince don't come to their rescue. People bursted crackers. People in general. Most of these 'People' used to scorn at Muslims, and all Muslims, when a certain section at Khidderpore bursted crackers after a Pak win.
It hurt. It did. The next morning The Intellectual justified the reaction... "For years have we ben subjected to Onyay Bonchona. Now we have Jagoed. And Everybody should know that we can hit back too"... as if he was off to fight the British, or the burgeoise or whomever. "Why not? The Marathis root for Maharashtra, why not we for Bengal?" reasoned Baba. Well, I can't remember Mumbaikars praying for an Indian defeat when Sunny was out of the team. Neither can I forsee Delhiites at Ferozshah Kotla barraking because Shehwag has been kept out ofd the team. (Now, they might, and claim to follow the famous What Bengal thinks today...).
Perhaps that's why these cities will call themselves the Capital, financial capital, tech capital... Kolkatans used to refer her as the Cultural Capital.
Culture? What Culture?
posted by Chaila Bihari at 4:17 pm
3 Comments:
as a bengali, i am angry, saurov was insulted so much, as an indian i am ashamed that my country was insulted beyond redemption.
how can we bengalis, who live so far away from bengal celebrate when india win the world cup next year, if ganguly is not there?
we will be left high and dry for any cricket achievement india bags.
our own family has left us betrayed.
thanks bihari, for that note.
if bengal is sourav first and india next, well, i am better off not being identified as bengali.
p.s. toins published an article about different thum gestures, and it described thumbs down as what romans used to show whether a gladiator would be killed, now, it said, calcuttans do this to greet indian cricket team.
and about that ex-mayor, he is a cheap bastard, you can know from his political career. how he has carved a great piece of cake while standing afloat in two boats.
Flury's er ham cheese omlette ta ki ekhono omni aache? Really lusty. Heard that they have renovated the restaurant?
Omlette ta bapok chilo. And Flury's really renovated hoyeche. It's under Park's Pauls. The old furnitures have been used for a new start-up: T3 just actross the corner. Try it out the next time u r in cal — Real old Park St charm
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