Rat-kill

There was a time in school when advertisement chants, pedlar cries, and bus-conductor calls were the most popular means to disrupt class. (Yes, we were a notorious lot.) These would range from the shrill-voiced "E, Chai boley, Kuffee boley, Chai-Kuffee, Chai-Kuffee", and the monotonous but rhythmic drone of "Sōn Papdi...Sōn Papdi...Sōn Papdi", to the highly enigmatic "Khelei morbe!" Now, translated, going by the common logic of consumerism this seems to mean "If you eat, you die." But in the Bangla sentence "morbe", "will die", is without subject. Who is doomed is uncertain, and for a very long time many of us wondered how this could possibly be the selling-point of a product. Those who had brought this chant into the classroom from the local trains by which they travelled, never offered an explanation - not to me at least. I learnt later that the product being sold was in fact rat-poison. Most appropriate, then, I thought.

An old friend of mine, and one of the best-behaved in class, Atri, recently shared on Facebook a photograph he has clicked of a rat-kill seller at the Dum-Dum railway station. With his kind permission, I share it. If with time the rat-poison cottage industry does disappear, this may even be one for the archives. On the poster, in red, bold letters, it says "Rat-killer". Along the sides it describes the different kinds of pests that one may justifiably hope to kill off using the product.

De La Grandi Mephistopheles

Pataldanga was once ruled by Teni-da. No, to be honest, Calcutta cult-figures are too cool to rule. But that doesn't suit my dramatic purpose. Taking a couple of friends around College Street today, we passed through Teni-da territory.

It was Arshdeep's idea to proceed straight down Mahatma Gandhi Road (we were coming from Central Avenue), rather than turning right at College Street. We took the right at Shyama Charan Dey Street (no, I didn't know the name of the lane before today), past a shop displaying a variety of invitation cards - very colourful and glittery, needless to say, and a few not-so-famous book-shops, mostly selling text-books. This is the lane that runs roughly parallel to College Street, and joins what is known as Tamer Lane (I believe there is no pun intended there). Turning right from Tamer Lane one enters Bankim Chatterjee Street, on which stands the justly legendary Paramount. And that was our destination.

Anyone who has taken a walk through these lanes (roads, if you will) at prime-time will know the kind of chaos that grips them. One has virtually no control over the trajectory they wish to trace to get from point 'A' to point 'B', and it is impossible to be sure of where your foot will land with the next step that you take. While Arshdeep and Anushka had gone on ahead, with Kevin following closely, I found myself at the rear-guard, walking with Upasana and Arnab. Chandrima, Deeptesh and Olivia were somewhere in between. A van-gari carrying a load of paper (I think) was following us closely down Shyama Charan Dey Street. The van-puller was, of course, shouting out to pedestrians, cyclists, aakher rosh sellers, ill-advisedly parked cars, and self-cursing taxi drivers, instructions on how precisely he wanted them to move. His intended audience, paying no heed to his recommendations, were shouting out what they would like him to do. I can bet that several knocks or scratches, of varying degree, are delivered to one another on these daily lanes. I couldn't help recalling Patrick Geddes's (oft unheeded town-planner) idea that a lane can be understood to be a pavement without a road beside it. It's a beautiful way of putting it, I think, although I don't remember Geddes's exact words. Many thanks to Partho Datta for sharing this with us!

College Street - including Presidency College, Sanskrit College, Coffee House, College Square, and so on - have celebrated many heroes through the decades, through the centuries. But today the person who ruled College Street was this little girl in red, who was riding with nothing short of regal charisma her father's van-gari. The load it was carrying was urgently needed somewhere, as a result of which the van had its own fore-runner, and some other kid pushing it with all his might from behind. The little girl cared neither for where her chariot took her, nor for those who were brushed aside. She cared even less for those who tried to brush them aside. With none to dispute her right, she sat as a monarch of all she surveyed. I barely managed to take a couple of hasty shots with the mobile phone camera.

Balwant Singh's Dhaba

I am not a big fan of their doodh-Cola, although I understand why it would be on any list of things to eat/drink in Kolkata. Their tea, however, is a favourite of mine. A couple of days back my cousin sister drove us around town after midnight for a cup of tea at Balwant Singh's Dhaba. I am not sure what it is they do that makes the tea different, but I really, really like it. Their aloo-paratha is also very good. Here are a few photographs I clicked at and around the Dhaba.

And while we are on the subject of road-side tea, let me also share a couple of photographs taken at Shyamol's tea-stall, that is just outside Gate 4, Jadavpur University. My good friend, Lav Kanoi, was leaving town in a few days' time, and while I don't usually carry my camera to the University regularly, on this occasion it just happened to be there somehow. I took the photograph from his "platform". I asked him for permission. He looked baffled and said "এটা তো তোমাদের সবাইকার দোকান" ("This shop is for all of you."). It is true that occasionally we pour tea for ourselves, even though the making of things is always his department. Once when he had run out of Maggi, and I was feeling particularly desperate, I offered to get the raw material for him, and he happily cooked it for me.

Shyamol's tea stall has become something of a permanent fixture in our lives. He couldn't have set his shop up that long ago. It's been a couple of years may be. But in the short time he has won many hearts. He never counts the number of cups or ভাঁড় of tea that we drink, or the money we hand over. On festive occasions one can find his shop lit up with disco-lights, and his playlist never ceases to amaze. Apart from tea, he has a number of other things on his menu-card. There is a real menu-card, by the way, one which he got printed on the same day as these photographs were taken. The aforementioned Maggi at Shyamol is truly special, but he does a great variety of things with eggs. The peculiar thing about Shyamol is that he is very unpredictable. On a perfectly good day, he may choose not to open simply because he doesn't feel like it. This is accepted gracefully on the whole, even if with momentary and immediate disgrunt.