Bongs and Communism

For some both these two words would be synonymous... To an extent this would be true. Intellectually 90 per cent of Bongs are socialists and politically at least 47 per cent of them are Communists of different hues. Even the formidable Congress leader Subrata Mukherjee was branded by his own partyman as a melon.... Green outside but actually Red inside... Such is the influence of Marxist thought in Bengal...
But I think that is only on the surface.... Bongs are certainly not defined by their left thinking but by great intellectual confusion at best and blatant hypocrisy at worst. To give two example: Bengal has ove rthe last 100 years sent most widows to Vrindavan [how these young women were taken to Vrindavan and abanadoned is the subject of many a Nengali classic]. Nearer my time, in a place where my grandfather settled down after partition [a small town in 24 Parganas about 40 Kms from Calcutta], since 1972 every one in the mohalla has voted for CPI or CPM, but I have seen with my own eyes a "guru" visiting each house in winter and some of the housewives washing the feet of the guru and drinking that water....
But I guess there was a time when Bengalis called themselves rational and did not accept anything that did not pass the test of dry rationality... One of the biggest literary figures and proponents to cut and dried rationality was Syed Mujtaba Ali, a true renaissance man. His stories could make you cry and his anti-Nazin and anit-Communist jokes which he claimed to have collected as a student in Germany are real gems of Bengali rational thinking and humourous writing.
Here is a sample: A Russian Citizen was punished for 50 years for publicly calling a Cabinet Minister "Insane".... The judge although a communist was liberal and took the pain to explain to the "offender" the quantum of punishment: 10 years for insulting a government servant and 40 years for leaking out a state secret.....
If you are interested, you can read one of Mujtaba Ali's classic collection of hilarious stories "HasyaMadhur"
Sadly, rationality and laughter are almost dead in Bengal, little wonder that most Bengali look either bloated with self-importance or shrunken with constipation

Beggars as Choosers?

If you live in Delhi or Mumbai beggars at traffic junctions are a common site. In South Delhi and in the western suburbs it is pretty common to see young kids playing on the kerb, mothers with babies in arms begging for food, Children playing small tricks on the roadside to earn a fe rupees. But of late you would not have failed to notice a new phenomenon.... beggar are increasingly being engaged as salespersons and the line between street side begging and street side selling is getting blurred.
Initially, at least in Delhi small time vendors used to compete with full time beggars for space and mindshare on the traffic junctions.... not small time vendors are jostling for space with full time beggars turned out as part-time salespersons of recognised brands. There are the usual children's toys, agarbattis, chinese stuff etc that these people have been selling to shore up their incomes from begging, but more recently they have been selling well recognised branded stuff.
And I would like to out on record the fact that the worst offenders are newspapers and branded international society magazines.... the names of Mid Day, Hello, Cosmopolitan among others come to mind immediately. Also in the race are pirated book sellers.
These beggars turned salespersons represent a massive pressure on you..... first with their blatant knock [all beggars in India have the right to draw your attention by any means]; then by appealing to your consumer side by showing the goodies they want you to buy and if that fails then by telling you on your face "buy something, I haven't had my morning cup of tea"....
Nothing wrong with these people, they behave just as some of the corporate types that visit your office from Airtel, ICICI Bank or some such do. But everything is wrong with people who engage their services.... First of all no one knows what is their term of engagement, secondly and especially if it is a child's toy why do you get a filthy beggar to sell it to a child [I never buy ballloons from beggars on streets]? thirdly, those sitting in board rooms are clearly not aware of what this means for the erosion of their brand.... I have stopped reading Mid Day sometime back and do not even look at the magazines sold by beggar/salespersons... finally, I find it strange that print media one of the most virulent critics of social exploitation engaging this practice openly... Just imagine buying a copy of a leading newpaper froma beggar and a report inside read "beggars are exploited in our country". That would be a real irony...

Ratan Tata and Tata Salt

To ordinary middle class people like me, Tatas have been the most honest and transparent industry groupo in India even before Ratan Tata took over the group some 15 years back. Lots have been written by famous people like Vir Sanghvi and Tarun Das and Swaminathan Aiyer about the famous turnaround that RNT managed in the Tata Group.... How he cut down and finally threw out the shatraps, how he broght about speed and efficiency, hired and empowered younger people, how he nurtures talent etc. etc.... But I have a different take on RNT......

Tata group have been famous for low cost Indian product and some of us recall the fact that they always targetted the lower half of the pyramid.... Remember Tata Hair Oil? Tata Shampoo, very popular products of Tata Chemicals? Incidentally both of them came is the same bottle and in the toilet those days, it was difficult to differentiate which was the oil and which was the shampoo..... as a young boy I made the mistake several times. Again take the case of Tata Tea, it makes tea which before the takeover of Tetley was consumed either by people who did not know what tea was or used in Chai shops... the cheapest in the market... Same with their trucks.. which are responsible for spoiling the respiratory system of half the country..... same with TCS... the largest unforcussed body shopping company country. RNT continued which these products till very recently..... and he added one very significant priduct to it... Tata Indica, the worst but most economical pasenger car in the Indian market....
It is only recently tha the Tata Group has realised that people do not necessarily want to but outdated technology just because they are slightly cheaper and made in India... People are increasingly going for expensive teas, Tata Shampoos and Oils have long disappeared from the market, Nobody is keen on buying lowest cost steel from India, Indica has been a hit only among taxi companies and Tata buses were being abandoned for the more expensive Volvos even by the captive state transports...
So the need of the hour was to make state of the art products and only then low cost would make sense.... the result so far as Telco is concerned are first the low floor hi tech buses running as Starbuses in Mumbai or their more expensive Marco Polo version in Delhi and the Tata Nano, what could not be made in India was bought... Corus, Natsteel, Tetley, Jag etc etc.... My guess is there would be something similar for TCS and with a very brilliant FMCG man sitting on the helm of Tata Sons, we may soon see some movement in that space as well.
My take on Tatas is simple..... they have given us the best product that any good honest and transparent company give to it country.... You can't even guess what it is.... Yes ladies and gentlemen, the best tata Product which has and will stand the test of time is Tata Salt......

Oh Calcutta!

No, I am not referring to the famous restaurant which claims to sell Calcutta cuisine in Mumbai and Delhi. In fact, if you are planning to be there, please drop the plan, it is the worst and most expensive restaurant for bengali food in the whole world even if you include the seedy bangladeshi joins in London. Not that... I am referring to Oh! Calcutta with an emphasis on the exclamation marks and the way the city was referred to when the first strands of hair appeared on my upper lip...
In winter, most expat Bengali from Delhi to Djibouti would, I guess fo that. Winter is the time when Bongs fatten up on some of the best foods that Calcutta has to offer whether it is Marco Polo in Park Street or Amber further up or Bhajahori Manna further down in the city, Calcutta is the place to be in in winter. Does not matter what is your choice of food, Calcutta can take care of you.. Does not matter if you are from down south, up north further west or extreme east.. it does not even matter if you are from Southampton of from South Pole. Calcutta has something for everyone in terms of food.
My memory fades and I have heard that there are new and much fancier places coming up every day in Park Street and other locations... But, my guess is that none can beat the old haunts of mine, Royale in Chitpur, Nizam and Amini near New Market, the chinese food at Tangra, the hilsa in Ballygunge Market, the sweetmeats in BowBazar, Mouchak and the telebhaja shops on Surya Sen Street, the punjabi food near Krishna Cinema, Continental food at Skyroom, sattu, the quintessential Bihari food in any of the streets, Sindhi food at Sindhi Society in Bhowanipur.... whatever you want you will not be disappointed. Any if you are a brown sahib you could visit Nahoums, Flurys or any of the Clubs, Calcutta, Saturday or the Tollygunge.....
The best part of the food in Calcutta some would tell you is its authenticity, others would tell u is the service, yet others would tell you is the taste... all of which would be true.... In fact, I can personally vouch that the best Mughlai food is available in Calcutta and not in Delhi or in Dakhan...... But at the end of the day, the best part of the food in Calcutta for an expat Calcuttan is the part when you pay your bills..... If you are not shocked at the prices...... you would be really below poverty line or mentally challenged....
In case you believe only in liquid diet.... Calcutta is the place for you... in case you believe like is a smoke Calcutta is still the place for you..... I used to buy my liquid diet past midnight from Kola Bagan and my smoke right on the pavement adjcent to my hostel on Peary Charan Sircar Street - a much renowned street between the side entrace to the University of Calcutta and my alma mater, the Presidency College....
So every winter, whereever I am, my thoughts go back to Calcutta... Ask any Bongs, they would agree with me.....

That was my city of joy....... all other cities have been cities of pleasure but never of joy:)

Sweet Memories

Benazir Bhutto's death was very much like Mrs Gandhi's... no one dreamt that it would happen [except perhaps those who plotted them]. So most of us were stunned into silence rather than agitated with shock.
It was in 2001 [most probably] that I met her at the Taj Mahal Hotel in New Delhi, when she had come visiting. The wonderful opportunity was ceated for me by Mr Tarun Das, who more than anyone else of his age knows how technolgy can be used to reach out to people. He and my then boss Mr Ajay Khanna insisted that I accompany them to the august meeting and show Madam the wondeful website that we had created [among many other initiatives] to take care of her "track II" diplomacy.
The meeting was at the Taj Chambers in a small meeting room. Soon after entering the room, I powered up my laptop and got ready with the site which we were to show her. The machine was set on the "head" side of the table where Madam was supposed to sit.
I think it was around 12 noon when she walked in. She at that time for some strange reason had taken to wearing brightly coloured jackets over her shalwar kameez... that morning she was wearing a bottle green silk jacket which I thought was hideous...
She walked into the room greeted Mr Das and us and went straight to the laptop with Mr Das explaining what the website was all about.... By the time Mr Das has finished, she has started navigating the site and called me over to her side to explain what was what. I was quite amazed by her skills with surfing, but more than that amazment, standing next to her and bending down to speak to her, I was completely mermerised by her looks, her complexion and the way she spoke. Of course, the whiff of her expensive perfume added to the effect. I am sure, the other two gents who had met her on many occasions before, were similarly enhanted. She was fourteen years older than me.... Never mind.
On hearing the news of her death, only one thought stuck me. She came from the most dysfunctional political family in the sub-continent where no two members of the family spoke to each other. She could have decided to marry a man who really loved her, migrated permanently to London and spent the rest of her raising her lovely kids... But none of these happened to her....
She was a destiny's child and went where her destiny took her. May her soul rest in peace.