By Shevlin Sebastian
Kochi: During the years I lived in Calcutta, I would frequently travel through Free School Street on my way to work at the Sportsworld office, near Chittaranjan Avenue. And always, I would go past a huge garbage dump. Expectedly, I took a deep breath moments before, pushed a handkerchief against my nose, and went past.
I always wondered about the group of people who lived in huts right next to the dump. How did they stay next to such filth? Did they get used to the smell? Did it make them sick? It seemed like torture to me.
When I began reading ‘Requiem for Calcutta,’ a book of short stories by the Calcutta-born and Bangkok-based journalist Ivan Fernandes, I got some of the answers. In a short story titled, ‘The Sex-Crazed Hijra,’ Ivan highlights the life of Kiran Mausi, a Bihari eunuch, who stayed next to a rubbish dump in Howrah.
Here is his description:
‘Here at least 1,000 tons of garbage is heaped daily…
‘An NGO has reported that 80 percent of the approximate 10,000 strong squatter community had inhabited the place for at least five generations.
‘Without going into details, one can imagine the quality of life here with its inhuman living conditions, unbelievable poverty, crime, vice and exploitation. This dumpsite is also home to a group of hijras, for whom Kiran Mausi is their undisputed reigning monarch. And so, this is where I first met her, in a stiflingly hot and vomit-smelling tin shed.’
In this memorable collection, Ivan has focused on a wide variety of characters, which is what makes Calcutta such a fascinating place. So, there is Abhra Mazoomder, a fanatic Marxist Bengali, who gets disillusioned as party members gradually lose their idealism and become drunk on power and corruption. The Left Front ruled Bengal for seven consecutive terms, from 1977 to 2011. And they did this by keeping an iron grip on the electorate. So, even if the party workers could not see the way the actual voting took place, they devised ways to figure it out.
As Ivan writes: ‘The telephone booth-style cubicles were only half-curtained off from the top, to hide the way a person stamped the ballot. But you could see the person’s legs. The CPI(M), in the long roll of the ballot paper, was listed at the top. If your poll paper was seen touching the floor, you must have voted Communist, because you let the roll drop to mark X, besides the hammer and sickle at the top.
‘If you voted for the Congress Party, which was towards the bottom of the roll, your ballot paper was seen not touching the floor as you would raise the roll with one hand to stamp it with the other. Then, of course, you were given a sound thrashing on your way home, irrespective of being male or female, young or old.’
In another story, Ivan writes about Colleen Rachael Houghtin, who spent her life looking after dogs. The tale focuses on the Anglo-Indian community. Sadly, this community has dwindled because of constant migration and inter-marriage. But who can forget their zest for life, their simplicity and their God-given talents in so many fields, but most notably in music and sports. Many of my close friends in school were Anglo-Indians.
Some famous Anglo-Indians, who had their origins in Calcutta, include the the singers Cliff Richards and the late Pam Crain, and the hockey player Leslie Claudius, among many others.
Ivan has also written about the Chinese through the life story of — hold your breath —
Will Lim Fang Shung Zhangzhao Kan Phin Wun. It’s an unforgettable story with a sad ending. And there is the tale of Raqesh Dalpat Prahladka, a Marwari doctor, who was so inspired by Mother Teresa that he worked for the poor full time. For the Marwari community, which has such prodigious business acumen, to have a member do something like that as his only profession and not make money as the primary occupation, it would have been amazing, to say the least.
‘This time we saw Inderjit Singh, the elderly Bank of India durwan from across the street, kneeling in the middle of the road, his clothes torn, and without his turban, his long hair all over the place, his face bloodied, an eye as big as a potato, hands folded begging for his life as a mob of about 50 people pulled at his hair, kicked and beat him to an inch of his death shouting, (f…..g treacherous Sikh, born from a rotten c…t)”
Asked about the title, ‘Requiem for Calcutta’ Ivan said, “It’s a past that I yearn for. It’s a past that I cherished. It’s a past that cannot be replicated.”
The diaspora, which tends to be nostalgic about their homeland, has been enthusiastic about the book. Copies have been sold in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, but also in lesser-known countries like Cyprus and Malta, as well as in France, Spain, and Italy. “It got a mention in ‘The Telegraph’, Calcutta, by a reader who described it as ‘a must read book that takes you back in time,’” said Ivan.
The writing is so vivid that one got the impression these people are real-life figures. Ivan said he wanted to tell a story not only about a single person but also about the particular culture from where he or she came from. “These are ordinary people doing ordinary things in an extraordinary way,” said Ivan.
The book, however, has a drawback. The publisher missed doing the final proofreading corrections. So, readers will have to overlook a few errors. Ivan promises to make it error-free in the next edition.
This is galling for Ivan because he has been a journalist for over two decades. For the past 20 years Ivan has lived in Bangkok, where he is currently the Managing Editor of the online English edition of La Croix, a Paris-based French daily newspaper. It provides content on politics, society, religion, culture, education and ethics.
Asked to compare Bangkok and Calcutta, Ivan said, “Both Calcutta and Bangkok are old cities, with Bangkok tracing its roots to the 15th century. Although never colonized by a European power, Bangkok has powerful European cultural influences. Being a tourist hub, Bangkok has a strong cosmopolitan appeal. Tourists come from all over the world.”
Bangkok also has a large Indian-origin population who are Thai citizens but have kept alive their cultural traditions. “So it’s easy to get Indian food or feel like being part of the local population,” he said. “In both cities, the local people are proud of their language and culture.”
The biggest dissimilarity is development. “While Calcutta and Bangkok can be similarly chaotic with large crowds, street vendors, neighborhood markets, monsoon flooding, and traffic jams, it’s the social indicators that make Bangkok superior,” said Ivan. “In Bangkok, there is much more development in city infrastructure, transportation, health services, civic amenities, and cleanliness. It has a greater sense of a positive appeal to human dignity that shields poverty rather than wearing it like a badge of honor as done in Calcutta.”
His first book has whetted his appetite. Ivan is now working on a novel that is also set in Calcutta. “I am still grappling with a proper plot structure, characters, the beginning, middle and an end, even though I have already written 50,000 words!” he said, with a winning smile.
(Shevlin Sebastian is a Calcutta-born veteran journalist now based in Kochi, Kerala.)