GOT A GLIMPSE OF THE 70s

Have often heard from my papa that the 70s were different from today's Bengal..he always tells us about the chayer dokan, the crowds of telebhaja shops, the old songs in the transistor of the shops etc..The culture that Kolkata is losing rapidly over the years...

Today’s Kolkata is far more different than it used to be during the years of 70s or 80s.People were more fond of enjoying adda sessions in tea shops than taking a sip of coffee lonely and silently in a well furnished coffee shop...the discrimination between the rich and poor was less prominent than as it is today...

That day mom was ill..She wasn’t able to make the dinner and thus I was told to bring tandoori roti and tarka from the market as my dad was busy with some office work..And my bro as usual busy on the phone (he is unavailable exactly at the times when he is most needed) so, I finally had to move to the market..the clock showed 9.15 or so..I went to our nearest market but couldn’t find tandoori roti so had to move to the Ichapur market to bring the same....

As I went to the shop where I had never been to ,I felt like I have suddenly moved into a different world...it was a shanty shop...with its walls painted with faded blue color and black spider web s tingling around...six or seven old wooden benches (which seemed to have served innumerable customers over 30 years or more), that same transistor radio tuning into an old Bangla song, two old men (nearly of 70-75).. one of them packing the parcels of rotis with tarka in small paper sacks and the other making rotis in the big tandoor situated in front of the shop...some people sat on those bences to have dinner there only and others were like me who took parcels...i sat one of those benches (till my order was served) and observed the crowd infront of the shops for buying the rotis ....and some people quarrelling about who ordered first...

The whole scenario seemed to me just like the same of the 70s as told by my dad...but I was astonished to see that there were so many people still who buy from such shops that too at the time of 9.30 at night...though there was a well furnished restaurant on the opposite...

But the fact is that Kolkata is losing these small small moments of bangaliyana...amidst of mall culture and high living standards...such glimpses are very few nowadays while it used to be a regular thing some 20-30 years back...but I want to see that Bengal which papa tells about..i want to be a Bengali...a true one..i want to hold back my fast eroding roots which I know is tough..