Tala Bridge, the lifeline of North Kolkata, to reopen before the Pujas

The Tala Bridge, built in 1983, was designed to carry a load of 150 tons. In view of the need to carry more load, a new cable-stayed bridge is ready to be reopened before the forthcoming Durga Pujas. The carrying capacity of the new 650 meter long bridge will increase to nearly 365 tons. A stretch of 240 meters of the new bridge will hang in the air above the cable. The design of this railway bridge will be in the Majherhat style. Moreover, the new bridge will be a four-lane one with sidewalk on both sides. Earlier it was a three-lane bridge. Once thrown open to the public the speed of traffic will increase and improve the link between North Kolkata and portions of South Bengal. The demolition of the old bridge began from the night of January 31, 2020. New Tala bridge will be ready before Puja. The Railway Board approved the new design on 22 December of that year, and construction began in January 2021.

After the construction of the bridge, the safety commissioner of the railways will have to carry out inspection. In view of the length of the bridge which is nearly 650 meters, there will be steps to get own at Shyambazar, Chitpur and Sinthi. Incidentally, there are no pillars and the bridge hangs on cables. The Public Works Department is working to complete the drainage infrastructure in the area below the bridge. The authorities have plans to present the new Tala Bridge to the people of South Bengal before the Pujas.

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Bengalis and the hawkers’ corners in Kolkata

It was at some point of time in the mid-1950s that the first ever hawker’s corner came up in North Kolkata at Shyambazar. It was located in the area of cinema halls and the famous Hatibagan bazar. As the name suggests, it was meant exclusively for hawkers who were allotted one unit of space in which the owner could set up shop and sell his wares.
It was a sprawling covered space and the shops were mostly of clothes, sarees, blouses, handicrafts, artificial jewelry, toys etcetera. And, the advantage of having it in an area frequented by people was good for business. There were no overheads as such and usually, the owners were jack-of-all-trades from being the salesman to the helper boy.

At times they were assisted by their wives or sisters because the clientele was usually women and girls.
Later, more hawkers’ corners were set up in Kalighat and in the Maidan. The concept was to rehabilitate the refugees who had come over from Bangladesh and the government of the day rose to the occasion to set up these hawkers’ corners.
However, in South Kolkata, the picture was different. Here also refugees had settled in the suburbs and they also wanted to find out methods of earning their livelihood. Most of them put up cottages on forcibly acquired land and took up hawking goods from footpaths. And, over a period of time, they joined hands, formed groups, obtained the blessings of political parties and began to set up shops on the footpaths of the busy crossing at Gariahat.
Right now, it is impossible for pedestrians to use the footpath due to the encroachment.
The bottom line is that these hawkers are officially categorized as unemployed, their names ae registered in the employment exchanges but the amount of money that the take home at the end of the day can never be imagined. It is all tax-free. (to be continued…)

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Trip to Kolkata for Durga Pujas by Mumbai-Howrah mail via Nagpur

I had joined HAL Nashik in April and decided to visit Kolkata during October for the Durga Puja celebrations. Yes, I was getting a bit homesick and felt that a trip to Kolkata would act as a booster and be just what the doctors would have ordered.
The year was 1967 and railway reservations could be had 10 days in advance – the quota from Nashik Road was six, if I remember correctly. I had to be in queue at the railway station in time. I was staying in Deolali and getting a bus early in the morning was difficult because people of Deolali were late risers – hence, I went to the station the previous night and stayed at the station till the reservation counter opened at 8am.
I was fortunate enough to get one of the six berths and, on the scheduled day, I boarded the Mumbai-Howrah Mail via Nagpur at around 11.30pm. The compartment was reserved and meant for 75 passengers only. When I woke up in the morning and, whenever the train stopped at the scheduled stops, the people waiting on the platform would not dare to board the reserved compartments. It was taboo.
The train had a dining car attached to it and the waiters kept coming at regular intervals with their wares - tea, crispy snacks, breakfast (bread-butter-omelet) followed by lunch, more tea, more snacks and finally dinner. Since most of the waiters in this train were Bengalis, they took special care of me and other Bengalis like me who were traveling to Kolkata for the Pujas. I ordered for a plate of chicken curry and chapatis – and, thanks to my waiter, there was the leg of a chicken.
By the time I woke up next morning, the train was arriving in Kharagpur and one look out of the window revealed that I was in Bengal – the people milling around on the platform talking in Bengali, the posters of Bengali movies, the advertisements on the walls in Bengali.
And, then, the local vendors got up with their unique Bengali products like vegetable chops, shingara, sweets, jhal-muri and, of course, green coconuts.
As the train left Kharagpur and proceeded on its journey towards Kolkata, a distance of around two hours, the dining car waiter came over to collect the money towards the meals. After he finished collecting from the passengers, he came over to me and confided that he, like most young Bengalis, was a poet in his spare time. He also said that he stayed in north Kolkata, in Shyambazar and gave me his address. He wanted to meet me and exchange thoughts as man to man and not as a passenger and a waiter.
Well – as the train rolled into Howrah station, my eyes began to search for my brothers who had promised to be at the station to receive me and I began to dream of how I would spend the holidays. (to be continued…)

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Depression grips me because my future appeared bleak

Within a few days of joining ATTI and starting to go to Moitra & Co at the airport for practical classes, I began to suffer from depression. The future began to look bleak because the number of opportunities for regular employment in the profession was very restricted. From discussions it became clear that unless one had suitable contacts, one could not aspire to become a ground engineer in any major airline. The discouragement came from old hands at the game who we would meet in a makeshift tea shop outside the airport boundary. They worked in Indian Airlines and were elderly persons who still struggled to acquire an AME license. They made fun of us and explained how each of them were frustrated persons.
Looking at their plight, I began to wonder whether I had made the right choice or had made a big blunder in opting for this institute but, then, I gathered confidence when I met another gentleman who stayed in my neighborhood. He was a ground engineer in Indian Airlines and every morning the car would come to pick him up. He had worked his way up.
He and the men I met in the tea shop were two sides of the same coin.
Anyway, to boost my morale, after classes I would walk down the tarmac, peeping into the hangars where people were at work and go into the lounge of Kolkata Airport. I could see the huge aircraft of international airlines like BOAC, Lufthansa, Japan Air Lines, and KLM lined up at the far end of the runway. Most of them were Boeing-707 which had at that time been inducted into service.
After spending some time in the lounge browsing through magazines and, once in a while, purchasing a copy of some magazine, I would take a bus to Shyambazar to take in a Bengali movie just to get my mind away from unwanted thoughts. (to be continued …)

Growing up days – I begin to go to the daily market

This was a job that I took up for selfish motives. The motive was to make some easy money on the side to take care of my extra monetary needs. Nothing much but, since I had entered college, it was but natural that my need for money had grown and I had to discover ways and means to bridge the gap.

It was a tough job no doubt because the daily budget earmarked was just two rupees and that was supposed to cover the cost of vegetable and fish needed for our six-member family. Plus bus fare to go to the market and back plus, you guessed it, at least one cigarette.
How I managed to keep aside a few paise everyday was my very own idea – one of these was to take shortcuts to go to the market and avoid the paying of bus fare. I never felt any shame in this because I had not stolen any money, I had only transferred it from the bus account to my pocket account.

The bus fare was eight paise one way and, for comparison, sixty paise was the price of a ticket in any cinema hall in the lower stall. Therefore, in a week I was able to generate finance for at least one ticket to a movie. (to be continued …)

Growing up days – exposed to the outside world

My joining college coincided with a new phase of my life. We had shifted to our newly constructed house in Lake Town which was, at that time, a gradually emerging township. It was situated on Jessore Road and was not too far from Shyambazar where we stayed earlier. There were any number of private buses that plied – these were long distance buses and many of the conductors were not even aware of the location of Lake Town.

Anyway, the fact remains that the distance from my house to my college in Park Street was long – it would take at least one hour to reach. Moreover, I would be getting hardly two rupees for daily expenses from my mother and that had to take care of not just my bus fares but also snacks in the college canteen.

And – in addition to these I had to have some money for going to movies plus a few cigarettes.
Yes, by that time I had got addicted to smoking – because others smoked and, there used to be impressive slogans like ‘live life king size’ or ‘good to the last puff’ or ‘made for each other’. Moreover, dangling a cigarette in between your lips used to look good on the cinema screen and appeared to be impressive. (to be continued …)

School days – my Chinese connections

I have been close to the Chinese ever since my school days – as I have mentioned earlier, my school was on Bowbazar Street and the road was lined with Chinese shoemakers. Hence, on the way to school I had to pass through the stench of raw hide as the craftsmen converted the raw leather into shoes.
Notwithstanding this experience, I had the pleasure of more Chinese company when a Chinese dry cleaning outlet set up shop in the building where I lived in Shyambazar. The name of the shop was Lee Wah and it was run by a man named Victor.
He had an assistant, a Muslim, who drove the three wheeler cycle van to take away the clothes that would come for dry-cleaning to a central location. On his return journey, he would bring back the clothes that had been dry cleaned – then the two of them would arrange the clothes on the hangers for delivery to the customers.
Suddenly, one day, he installed a pair of stuffed animals in the showcase – a mongoose and a snake engaged in a fight. Obviously, it drew the people and they would stop to stare and enjoy – of course, Lee Wah got talked about and that was good for business.
Of course, later, he replaced the stuffed figures with lively ones in the form of a huge aquarium. It became an instant hit.
Another Chinese connection was of cheap books on the footpath – the books came dirt cheap and I still remember the name of one. It was ‘Dadur Dastana’ which, when translated, means the Glove of Grandfather. The story was of a glove that could accommodate any number of living beings – anyone who wanted an entry had to just ask!! (to be continued…)
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School days – morning shows of Laurel-Hardy movies

Another activity that was kept reserved for Sundays was the special morning cinema shows in the halls – these halls in Shyambazar used to have Bengali movies in the regular 3pm, 6pm and 9pm slots as regular schedules but would have English movies on Sunday mornings.
The attractions were the Laurel and Hardy series, Abbot and Costello, Charlie Chaplin and other such comedies and one of the favorite halls was Talkie Show House.

The morning shows would usually begin from 10am or 10.30 am and, since English movies usually finished within an hour or so, we brothers under the watchful eyes of my father, would return home in time for lunch.
The dose of slapstick comedy would keep us invigorated and would be a talking point during lunch hour among my class friends.
Our visits to the main cinema halls located in the Esplanade area were restricted and I remember a few movies that were wonderful ones – ‘The Greatest show on Earth’, ‘the Ten Commandants’ and ‘20000 Leagues under the Sea’. We enjoyed the movies no end.

Then there were other movies that showed Nature in all her glory and beauty from flowers, gradually blooming in the desert, to animals roaming freely in the wild. These have today been taken over by TV channels like National Geographic. Such exposure to western cultures and the world around us went a long way in shaping my outlook on life. (to be continued …)
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School days – travel from North to South by double decker bus

We used to stay in a rented flat in Shyambazar situated in North Kolkata and the terminus of the bus No 2 was right in front of my house. The buses were all double-deckers and the route was right through the city and on to Ballygunge in South Kolkata.

The travel time was nearly an hour and the fare was an unthinkable 2-annas or 12-paise at today’s level.
North Kolkata was and still is conservative with houses that date back in time to the days of Tagore. South Kolkata, on the other hand, developed gradually much later and the people who lived there suffered from a superiority complex.
Traditionally, the North boasted of ex-Zamindars who were born with the golden spoon and the South was the haunt of the nouveau-riche. It was all evident in the dress codes of the day and the way they behaved with not just others but also among themselves. The great divide still exists!!

Anyway – on some Sundays, I would get permission from my parents to travel by the bus No 2 to Ballygunge and return – I would be accompanied by my three brothers and we would rush to the upper deck of the bus to occupy the two front seats. That way, we had a full uninterrupted view of Kolkata as the bus weaved through the streets unraveling newer sights all the time.
Being Sunday, the roads would not be crowded and the bus would have few passengers and the breathtaking views of Kolkata as it moved along Chowringhee Road with the huge expanse of green known as the Maidan on one side, the journey was always memorable.

Once the bus reached the terminus at Ballygunge, we would not get down but wait in the bus itself to begin the return journey. (to be continued…)
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