Also known as: Niladri’s Sunday Morning/Monsoon Walking Tour

Also known as “Art, Culture & Niladri”

Kolkatamorous: (adjective) the state of being in love with Kolkata. In French, Kolkatamoureux. This word can be traced back to Monday, 8th August 2011, when a certain Niladri R….*

Okay, I’m a fan. I knew I loved him our first full day here when he presented to us and pointed out that one of the gods was clearly gay. I’ll have to go back and review the evidence with him, (and even get reminded as to who the fortunate young god is!) but I loved it. I was laughing through my jet-lagged eyelids as I learned about the history & culture of Niladri Chatterji’s beloved Kolkata. He gave us a chronology of the city, an obsessive work of love (did we have the latest version? And when we took the walking tour, did we have the newest latest version?) which ranged from “the Portuguese traders come to Bengal from Goa” in 1535, to May 13, 2011: “Trinamul-Congress alliance comes to power, ending 33-year Left Front rule. New Govt. sworn in on 20 May.”

He was putting together a walking tour, trying it out on another group, but would not have time to take us on the tour. Those of us who were developing an intellectual crush on him were very disappointed. So when he presented himself at a dinner with the other group of teachers with whom he had clearly bonded, we jealously pounced. Where was our tour? And the endlessly generous-hearted Niladri agreed to take us on the tour on Sunday morning. The streets of Kolkata are at their quietest (a relative term in this city) on Sunday mornings.

We would leave at 6. Moans and groans. 7. Complaints. 8? Okay, we would leave at 8. Our troops were being depleted—the dreaded “Delhi belly” had hit us—hard. To the point where the doctor made house calls (hotel calls?) for three of us. So we were fading fast. Several decided that sleeping in outweighed either cultural excursion or bonding with Niladri, and a drizzle-cum-monsoon (although we knew it only as a steady drizzle as we left the hotel that morning) brought us down to four. So the hard-core among us (Keturah, Audra, Lena and me) went forth and lifted our eyes.

This, mind you, is no small feat. The streets here are teeming. From the knees down, there are dogs, goats, the occasional rodent, uneven sidewalks, bricks everywhere—some from new construction, some crumbling and uneven…there are the innumerable feet of others. A pedestrian must be ever-attentive to the below-the-knee fracas, as well as to all the activity from eye-level down. Vendors, beggars, people, people, people… when crossing the street, do not forget the cars that KEEP MOVING as they approach you in an intersection… colors, sounds, smells…. Developing the skill set necessary to negotiate the streets of Kolkata had been a new learning curve for many of us, and it kept our five senses firmly locked into a claustrophobic gaze tilted downward. Niladri raised our gazes skyward.

On that rainy Sunday, protecting our cameras from the drizzle while trying to shoot some of the first non-overexposed film of the trip, we looked at the buildings as we walked down the street beginning at Shyambazar 5-point crossing, down Bidhan Sarani to the ancestral home of Swami Vivekananda. We looked up—at art, architecture and history. We saw, in Kolkata, the Raj era, Kolkata’s original “Miracle Mile” ala Chicago, New Orleans-style balconies and ironwork, Art Deco…under the grime and soot of an over-populated and polluted city that also suffers from the mold and dampness of monsoon season. On top of all that—is a gorgeous panoply of culture, history and design. Niladri lifted our eyes and, through the raindrops (which you will note on the photos) we were delighted.

Freedom fighter’s snack shop (freedom fighteres have to eat too!):

After shooting what FELT like a ton of shots, I don’t seem to have one of all of the art deco touches. Shoot. More details to follow, but on my last morning in Kolkata, this is all I have time for. A few pix from the walking tour that ended on a tram as the monsoon gained force. We were going to have breakfast with Niladri and his delightful friends who share our enthusiasm for both the city and the guide, a group of intellectuals who also lifted their eyes skyward with Niladri and asked and answered thoughtful questions. Unfortunately, survival meant leaving them early, trudging through 6-inches of rain in a gulley-washer that made it a challenge to keep the camera dry and juggle the umbrella, and not slip!

Nomoshkar, Kolkata. Final blog entries will be constructed in Cleveland, Ohio–beautiful, aging, Midwest, rust-belt city.

*Full definition:
This word can be traced back to Monday, 8th August 2011, when a certain Niladri R. Chatterjee coined it in the course of a chat he was conducting on facebook, a social networking site, with a certain Cindy Sabik. They had been on a short, but very wet, walk of a street in north Kolkata the day before and were musing about how one tries to use words to impose order on this formless thing called life. At first Chatterjee called himself a Kolkatactivist, but soon realized that that would not be entirely accurate. Yet. So, he came up with a word that would better suit what had been slowly taking shape in his heart for a year or so, but had now appeared to him fully-grown, powerful and compelling – his love for the city he was born and raised in. Yes, he realized, he had fallen in love with a city that he had always lived in but had never paid any attention to. He had moaned about its chaotic roads, its water-logged monsoons, its punishing heat, its casual approach to filth, its lack of public transport after 10 pm, but had never stopped to look at the buildings. He had never considered looking at buildings and streets as silent story-tellers. He had never considered that a street can be synecdochic of a city, a crystallization of its history and character.
And then, something happened on 23 July 2010. He found himself introducing a delegation of American academics to Kolkata. As he talked the visitors through an abbreviated history of the city, he thought, “This is odd! My city is actually interesting!! It has a fascinating bunch of stories to tell!!!” And thus began his exploration of the known (as phrased by his friend Zaid Al Baset). Only Chatterjee would put the known within inverted commas, because he hardly knew Kolkata. Not that he knows the city much now. But at least now he knows that he does not know. He wants to. He is a man in love. In love with Kolkata. He is Kolkatamorous.

Citation: Niladri’s facebook page. See—don’t you have an intellectual crush on him now, too?