![]() ![]() A disciple of Sushobhan Sarkar and Bishnu Dey, he even started a magazine, in Bengali needless to add, in the fag end of his life. Making free-flowing conversation an impossibility.Īsok Sen tried to keep the spirit of the earlier addas alive till the last days of life. It is a selling point for art fairs and lit fests and tea festivals and TV shows – where “organised” addas, a contradiction in terms, are conducted, often anchored by some celeb or other, a formal get-together of random strangers with little in common. Maybe Calcutta is too busy playing catch-up, trying to be purposeful and focussed and “just doing it”.Īdda today is a matter of academic discourse, finding pride of place in weighty essays on ‘Post-colonial Thought and Historical Difference’. Maybe it’s because most of its talent has escaped to greener pastures. Maybe it’s the stultifying effect of decades of Left rule making protest a heresy. Maybe the age of the generalist intellectual is over. Maybe life is far too competitive today, specialisation the order of the day. Calcutta still talks, a lot, but it’s not the same. That is what lubricated the creative juices of this city, made its dingy, smoke-filled coffee houses and tea shops so vibrant, enriched its language, earned for itself the reputation of being the nation’s cultural hub.Ĭalcutta continued with adda throughout the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties and lingered on even in the Nineties. The magazine was incidental, the talk was foremost. “In sharp contrast to the demonic energy shown in rushing to the rendezvous, the languor of the actual proceedings was startling,” he ridiculed.īut even he admitted that perhaps this was “the only disinterested thing in Calcutta society.” Because that is what it was – wholly unselfish, conducted not for any material gain or even with any grand objective in mind. Ironically, Nirad rubbished such addas in his renowned book The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, as symptomatic of a deep and continuing malaise in the Bengali psyche. Once, while Britain’s preparedness for the war was being discussed, someone said the best person to ask is Nirad Chaudhuri, “he has all this information at his fingertips”. Rather, there was much laughter, an eagerness to be back for the next meeting and the next. Fervent communists clashed with inflexible red-baiters, Gandhi was reviled by some, worshipped by others, tempers flared, sharp words exchanged, but nothing turned into unseemly brawls or even ungentlemanly behaviour. The war, the Second World War that is, figured prominently in their discussions, as did literature and politics, art and aesthetics, religion and national character, even cricket and the behaviour of animals and insects. Poets like Sudhin Datta, Bishnu Dey, Samar Sen, historians like Sushobhan Sarkar, professors like Dhurjati Prasad Mukherjee and Kiran Shankar Mukherjee, committed communists like Hiren Mukhopadhyay, art historians like Abu Sayyed Ayub, artists like Jamini Roy and Atul Bose, khadi-clad Congressmen like Anil Chanda, journalists like Lindsay Emerson, causal visitors like Sarojini Naidu, the best and the brightest of pre-partition Bengal argued, explained, opined, even poked gentle fun at icons like Rabindranath Tagore. One of its lesser but more regular members, Shyamal Krishna Ghosh, kept a diary of the weekly meetings which has been brought out recently. Its founder editor and leading light, poet Sundhindranath Datta, used to hold what came to be known as “Parichay’s adda” in the 1930s and 40s in his north Calcutta home. Take, for instance, Parichay, a magazine that used to command enormous respect amongst the Bengali intelligentsia in its heydays. Often it centred around the publication of a magazine drawing together its contributors on a regular basis but it was never merely an editorial meeting restricted to the contents of the magazine. In its highest form, adda is erudite people getting together to share their knowledge and increase their understanding in an informal, non-structured setting. ![]() The Calcutta adda is not just about a few like-minded people gathering together to shoot the breeze as they do in some parts of the world. 101 million Indians are likely diabetic: Why the silent-killing disease is on an alarming rise Why anti-cow slaughter law in Karnataka has sparked political slugfest ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |