[DRIVOBLOG|➨]™

Ignored Opportunities

When I set foot in Kolkata in 1998, the economic resurgence was yet to happen. Here I was waiting for things to happen while my peers in Delhi had started off already.

I feel bad for people of my Dad’s generation who could not do much due to the Naxalite movement in the 1970′s. But weren’t they the deranged youth at that time who patronised it?

The more I hate the city, newer opportunities emerge on the horizon and the more challenged I get to continue and I decide staying back. I guess there lies the reward of patience and endurance, in gaining the first mover advantage in a land of opportunities.

Over-cosmopolitization & Social Benchmarking

India is a secular, socialist, sovereign republic. Ethnic diversity is what we are proud of. Calcutta is losing its Bengali character altogether. Day by day it is becoming over-cosmopolitised. Bengalis are becoming a minority in their own place. India might be free from the Britishers but Kolkata has been taken over by Non-Bengalis. These Non-Bengalis think the Bengalis (the unfortunates who could not become NRIs) are fools and can be exploited by paying them low salaries and preventing them from doing local businesses.

In Calcutta you actually command respect from the number of people you employ than the number of cars you own. Here all classes of people are addressed with equal respect unlike other places. Economic benchmarking seems to be absent here among most people.

Low Cost of Living?

False. It actually takes much more cost to maintain the contemporary Indian lifestyle, as you would lead in other metros. That’s why people scale down their standards here. Add to that the plethora of sub-standard goods and merchandise that the local businesses offer at the largest pavement retail in the world.

Business Outlook

But the way things have hapenned in the recent past, not a single business plan, not a sustainable business model seems promising to me in Kolkata.

Kolkata will always remain a sub-market atleast for the good part of my career life. No matter how many businesses set up there, other cities will beat it and no company will make Kolkata its Head Office.

Attitude

Kolkata is gaining pace in economic development but the ‘mindset’ of people here will never change (atleast in 100 years) Its not the Bengali but the people living here from all ethnicities that share the common laid-back narrow mentality. You approach a shop-keeper, he is careless of your presence and if you fail to select the product within a short time he makes you feel that you are a disturbing element.

In Delhi, if you go to buy something and dont like what is offered, you get a money back guarantee (atleast verbally)

The city is springing back to life. Sure but something is still wrong. Kolkata is in a stretched dimension of time. The pulse of a city is the speed of its traffic movement, be it public or private transport. Everything moves here at 20 kmph! I’d say this city lives in a different dimension of time.

Socialist Ideologies?

Here people talk a lot about socialism but care the least about social responsibility.

This is a place of Sleepy Intellectuals. Rebels without a valid cause.

Though I am based out of Kolkata presently, I never grew up here. So I always see the contrast that Kolkata has with every other place. What is a glaring reality is that the whole state is infested with militant public all in the name of politics, be it festival donations, car parking, land ownership or other issues.

The public are the most careless when crossing roads and any small or major accident happens due to someones stupidity, they burn down the whole thing.

Governance

Why does not the Government realise that the main cause of pollution are the antiquated diesel engined vehicles right from buses, Taxis, private taxis and the roaring thee wheeler LCVs (I am not considering trucks here as they are officially off the roads for 12 hrs)

The main reason for traffic congestion are the old generation vehicles that are slow moving and difficult to maneuver. Like the abundant and omnipresent Ambassadors. These vehicles are unsafe, noisy, polluting, uncomfortable and lack precision handling to avert disasters and generally cause traffic impediments behind them.

The irony is that they are just as expensive to maintain and run (all because they run through multiple lifecycles of endless reconditioning every 2-3 years)

Forget reforms here, as everybody has vested interests. A city is not about its buildings and structures. Unless Kolkata gets a road and a truly modern transportation facelift, it will never be attractive.

Retirement Paradise?

It’s not nostalgia exactly, but whenever I have returned to Kolkata from elsewhere, I have felt nice because of things that can’t be expressed completely in words. I still hate Kolkata for the rowdy public and lethargic attitude etc., but there is nothing like laid a back relaxed evening elsewhere than in Kolkata, or the lazy afternoons which make you get an experience of true retirement.(which is harmful at the same time)

Bengali NRIs

They fled the city decades ago when the naxalites striked and now proudly serving other nations, only to return every winter to Kolkata to ask silly questions and discuss their useless wealth and second-class citizen lifestyle with their hapless relatives here. Neither they do anything worthwhile for the city nor they take initiatives to improve it. The fact is they are selfish cowards and their intellect only extends as far as choice of fish and age-old literature is concerned.

Many of them also make dud real estate investments before scramming for cooler pastures before the humidity sets in the spring. If you find my statements politically incorrect, please watch the critically acclaimed Movie – “The Bong Connection”.

People Centric?

What makes Kolkata different is that this is a very ‘people centric’ city. And the amazing concentration of people in one area though chaotic, has its underlying synergies.

Everybody wants things to their conveniences, at their doorstep like the STD Booth, Pan wala, domestic help, janitor or even the vegetable hawker. And this has what created such a complex social network among them that they are resistant to change.

Try removing hawkers, or widen roads or remove encroachments and the whole thing roars up. Why? because everybody has vested interests, caused by the complex social network, mentioned just now.

If all of them (people & services) were located far apart as it ideally would in a planned urban sprawl, what would happen is that ‘costs’ may increase. Costs of commuting, Costs of people’s time. Costs of transportation. Cost of physical space. Perhaps this is what brought people so close together, nevermind the inconveniences and kept certain goods and services cheaper than elsewhere.

And it though does applies to many Indian towns, this phenomenon is unique to a Kolkata as it falls under Metro Category. Now one may wonder why a bustling metro could not expand horizontally like other cities? One reason (apart from its geographical limitations) is surely the weak economic situation of the masses – the lower middle class & the BPL category. Kolkata has been the respite of lakhs of migrants from the surrounding geography. And they remain poor, generations to generations.

Refer to to the Maslow’s theory of Needs here. Once the basic needs are fulfilled, humans don’t want to egg further. Yes there are voids somewhere in each of the stages in the Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy as far as the people of this city is considered, but what the city actually provides is fulfilment of most of those needs.

Perhaps that’s why they call it the City of Joy, isnpite of the shabbiness, fadedness, discomfort, chaos, imperfections it may offer. They are happy their own way after all, so what if they are ‘monetarily poor’. As someone rightly said – ‘poverty breeds poverty’.