Kolkatans

Crowds at Kolkata BookFair2012

The most amazing things can happen only in Kolkata. The butt of all jokes , the most ridiculed species on earth a babu from Writers Building gives me a solid briefing on Western Classical music. I was initially dumbstruck. I gradually realised the man was genuinely fond of this genre of music. He used to follow   Adi Gazder ,the  pianist and music critic’s  columns in The Statesman earlier . He did not give up  his passion though the finance department at Writer’s buildings where he was working had everything in it to dampen his romantic spirit. He had initially joined the library for his daughter .He wanted his daughter to grow up with a culturally and intellectually rich mind . Now he has become a fan of BBC Music the journal on classical music which he has discovered after scanning the journals on display on the library racks. He regularly follows the programme schedule published in the magazine and enjoys listening to classical music programmes online. His wife has also picked up his interest and has started learning western classical instrumental music. This reminded me of Vir Sanghvi’s article on Kolkata which has been a hit with Kolkatans for quite sometime now. Kolkatans like everyone love adulation and such adulation coming from a non-resident Kolkatan is even more cherished. So the article has generated tremendous viral publicity

 http://www.itimes.com/public/groups/Tilottama-Kolkata/topic/Vir-Sanghvi-on-Kolkata

I was attending a panel discussion few months back .I forget the exact topic which was something to do with reviving the city of Kolkata. The panellists fortunately were not condemning the city which is what you normally you get to here from illustrious sons of the soil when they are asked to comment on the future of the city or about the future of Bengal. This story was narrated by a lady who came from one of the top business families of the city. Years back a French film personality was caught in a street fight/sudden strike while attending a film festival in Kolkata. The Frenchman had lost his way while wandering around the city for a while .The person was eventually rescued by a police constable on duty who recognised him by his name .The constable had actually read about this person and seen some of his films. What the lady said in conclusion was exactly what Vir Sanghvi mentioned in his mushy article on Kolkata.

Even after spending over two decades working in libraries and meeting scholars of every shape and size, I still wonder what drives an amateur historian  of over seventy-five years of age, completely computer –illiterate, to  delve into volumes of historical data with a distant dream of publishing a book sometime in the near(distant?) future? He is a quintessential Kolkatan who, post-retirement spends hours at libraries, bookshops, book  fairs hunting for material for his research and who if necessary even goes to the extreme of getting material from the  British Library UK  by paying in GBP through the local branch of an  Indian Bank in his locality. Vir Sanghvi’s article makes sense.