Archive for the 'Calcutta' Category

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The Dying Traits of the Bangali

Published on July 7, 2009 in Bengal and Calcutta. 105 Comments

[Warning: long post]

On a lazy Sunday, Misses (or as the traditional Bengali bhodrolok would say “songsar” or the more bourgeois would say “phemily”) and I were discussing the dying traits of the traditional Bangali and his culture (pronounced kaalture), traits that would be lost in a generation or two as he becomes globalized into that mythical beast known as the “Bong”, assailed by the integrating and homogenizing influences of cosmopolitanism.

Here are few that we identified.

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The Return Of Apu

Published on June 12, 2009 in Bengal and Calcutta. 36 Comments

[Picture from this movie]

That’s Claudia Ciesla, the lady in the news recently. No that’s not why I posted the picture.

It’s seldom that in a picture with 2 ladies and that too when one of them is as fantabulous as Claudia that my eyes wonder over to the gentleman in the center, playing the role of a don.

But in this case, what else can one do?

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The New London

Published on March 24, 2009 in Bengal, Calcutta and Silly. 135 Comments

March, Year of the Lord 2009. [Link]

“If Trinamool Congress comes to power, we’ll show what is called development. Tell me why East Midnapore’s vast coastline, Digha, cannot be turned into Goa? Or northern Bengal cannot be developed like Asia’s Switzerland, when we’ve all resources available in these regions?” Mamata told a press conference in Kolkata.

“Kolkata is an international place and it will be transformed into London, if Trinamool Congress comes to power,” added Mamata.

March, Year of the Lord 2013.

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The Flight of the Beauties

Published on January 25, 2009 in Calcutta. 48 Comments

Sudarshana, tumi aaj mrito. [Oh beautiful lady, today you are dead]

–Jibanananda Das

Are beautiful women, like industries and jobs, migrating away from Calcutta ? Is female beauty, in its most pristine Bong form, dead and dying in the city of Joy? This article in the Telegraph argues it does.

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Durga Durga

Published on September 16, 2008 in Calcutta. 49 Comments

[Inspired by this article in the Telegraph about sponsorship strategies of Durga Pujas including a Puja committee that has sold all branding rights to an US company and another that has a promotional music video and about Zee Bangla coming up with the ultimate business plan, telecasting live the beautiful people at Maddox Square, my field of Pujo dreams.]

Setting: A Puja committee meeting, somewhere in Kolkata. Circa 2010.

Sujit-da (Mamata-fan and president of Puja committee) : Nontu, so have the people from Sheyal TV Bangla (Fox TV’s Bangla venture) sent in the 30 lac check for the Pujo sponsorship?

Nontu, secretary: Sujit-da this year we decided to do things a little bit differently. Do you remember Habla?

Sujit-da: Of course how can I not remember Habla? A Jadavpur engineer but still so committed to the cause. During the Singur andolon, he was a front-line warrior with us, beating up the people who tried to enter the plant. I still remember Habla standing in the afternoon sun, throwing stones at the Nano plant and shouting Tata-Bye Bye. So what about him?

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