Sunil Sethi: A city shedding its chrysalis

AL FRESCO

Kolkata: "Surely it must be the most cinematic city in India," said my cameraperson colleague, as we rolled through the early winter fog into the cramped confines of Chitpur, the oldest part of the colonial city. I suppose he had a point.

All that crumbling baroque, the battered and perpetually peeling old townhouses, the falling plaster and wrought iron balconies surrounding Mullick bari and the Oriental Seminary (established 1829), where Tagore went to school, are a bit a rich for my taste. But as a throwback to Ray's classic black-and-white cinema, I sentimentally found entire sequences of Charulata running in my head.

Gunter Grass, who was guest of honour at the Kolkata Book Fair this week, loves the bylanes of north Kolkata, too, but he takes a dim view of the way Bengalis cling to colonial remnants.

"I find too many Indians much too well versed in 19th century English literature. Why are they not equally knowledgeable in Tamil or Marathi poetry or the diverse literatures of their own country?" he admonished a packed house at Kala Mandir this week.

Participating in the lively, superbly mounted stage discussion were the likes of Amitav Ghosh, Girish Karnad, and Pakistani publisher Najam Sethi.

But the involvement of the audience bordered on hero-worshipping on a mass scale. In which other city in India, I wondered, would autograph-seekers line the pavements for a glimpse of Grass and Ghosh or travel down from Jamshedpur to engage with Sethi?

Kolkata takes culture very seriously, even though, the city's landscape and priorities have undergone a change more radical than in any other metropolis. Until recently it was the sort of rundown place where people were afraid to flaunt money and even rich Marwaris played it low key, using Ambassador cars for loyalty and preference.

This week there was not a hotel room available owing to a flush of Marwari weddings. The restaurants of Park Street were chock-a-block, with Flury's, the famous confectionery, standing out like Cinderella after a glamorous pink-and-white makeover.

Round the corner on Middleton Row, crowds streamed in and out of Sourav's, the food court run by the cricketer. And everywhere malls and chic lifestyle stores have sprouted like unchecked monsoon foliage.

The city's established clubs""the Bengal Club, the Calcutta Club, and the Tollygunge Club""are old hat compared to the clubs in the new suburban estates. At a place called Ibiza in Garia, the city's southernmost suburban development, there is a go-carting facility and the ice rink turns into a dance floor on happening nights.

Like other urban centres, Kolkata's building boom has spread like wildfire. But where is the money coming from ? "From the benefits of rural Bengal," says an informed resident.

"There are thousands of steel foundries now in Durgapur feeding the markets of China. The new entrepreneurs of Burdwan, Siliguri and Durgapur feel they need to be part of Kolkata's new life. Everyone wants to be here, from IT giants like Wipro, Cognizant and TCS to Aishwarya Rai."

The poet chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya has turned out to be a pragmatist. Building tycoon Harsh Neotia of Gujarat Ambuja, who helped usher in the construction boom, is considered the ruling party's blue-eyed boy for doing his bit for the city by refurbishing the town hall.

Some of the CPM's best friends include the Bajorias, Mohtas, and other building magnates. Delhi's construction companies are flooding the proposed township at Rajaghat, northeast of the city.

Flyovers are going up apace""a hideous new one disfigures Chowringhee's heritage frontage and five more are planned. The Metro has slowed down but is expected to reach Garia by 2008. Kolkata's sarcastic denizens have begun referring to their CPM rulers as a private construction company.

Of course the state coffers are empty. In 2003, government employees received only 50 per cent of their puja bonus but, with a more tolerant dispensation at the Centre, things are a bit better. Schoolteachers do get paid, even if a month late.

Half a dozen state PSUs have been shut down, causing resentment among the unions. But when Philips shut down its large TV-manufacturing unit in Salt Lake , Videocon took over and has turned round the set-up magnificently. The message has gone out to the proletariat: better to hang on to the job than join the protest march; if you don't produce, you're dead.

Between Chitpur's crumbling facades and go-carting clubs in the suburbs, Kolkata feels like a city shedding its chrysalis. The capital of radical chic has come into its own.