Travelling back home -- from Chetla to Lalitpur

Chetla, the place where I live and largely grew up, has had a huge influence in developing my worldview and identity. It's situated on Adi Ganga's west-bank. I  returned to Chetla after spending almost a decade outside Bengal, across the seas. While Chetla is very much within Kolkata's municipal jurisdiction, its specific complexities, beauties and life-lessons are different from generic Kolkata and are for there to absorb for anyone who would care. This 'care' isnt that the high-flyer sometimes feels about the downtrodden, but what comes automatically when one chooses to walk on the ground while engaging with the ground and its textures, thorns, smells and infectiousness.  The rootless fly. Hence they are faster and more successful at certain kinds of tournaments. The host cities of such tournaments cannot have the very poor living alongside the relatively affluent as neighbours. These places have to have a public culture that's like a third rate photocopy of Anglo-Americana, with adequate amount of 'Indian' garnishing thrown in for that authentic feel. 'Cultures' should be available here as cafetaria flavours to chose from – clothes, cuisine, 'art', partners. Indoors of Bengaluru should 'feel' culturally closer to Seattle than Mandya and Hassan and the high-flyers should certainly be able to indefinitely continue their bizarre exclusionary cosmopolitanism party  without learning Kannada. Kolkata isn't adequately such. Chetla is most certainly not.

I work in Baranagar, a municipal town separate from Kolkata. Most people of Baranagar are aware that they aren't from Kolkata. Its a positive identity mixed up with the Hooghly river's proximity, jute-mill settlements, links to towns across the river. However, Kolkata as a concept has been encroaching -- a sad outcome of an unequal struggle. Baranagar finds it increasingly difficult to resist the all-pervasive ideology – where origins, rooted divinities, neighbours, old parents and obligations – none  matter. What matters is one's distance from the tournament cities. Hence, to belong to Baranagar is not cool. Except for the fact that the yuppie high-flyers are typically not culturally literate nor ecologically sensitive enough to appreciate Baranagar's coolness. Those who do, don't dominate the unpresentative Anglophone 'public opinion' circles of a subcontinent where English is less of a language and more of lubricant of social ascendency. It's a scandal that most 'national-level' 'public intellectuals' of this unfortunate subcontinent cannot express 'deep thoughts' in their mother-tongue. Cheerleaders of urban autonomy (a code-word for delinking from the host region and local culture) for Mumbai and Bengaluru have arisen exactly from this class. 

It's in this backdrop that my recent visit to Lalitpur in Nepal, gave me hope and inspiration. Most of the people from Lalitpur that I met were very upfront in mentioning that they aren't from Kathmandu, which is literally across the river. Like much of Nepal, Lalitpur isn't very rich in money, but is very rich in culture. The Newari tradition, faith, architecture, identity and lifestyle provides a vessel around which other things have brewed – taking and giving liberally. Architecture has a 'this is how we like to live' feel about it, Nepali and Newar are spoken on the streets. Newari foods and brews are available widely. There is vibrant cultural expression and  commercial activity. It's a place that didn't feel weighed down by tradition but has managed to proudly celebrate it as a natural, evolving way of life. It's happening, in a very intimate word-of-mouth sense. It's very cool, in a way the rootless can't even imagine this coolness. Many expats from Lalitpur have travelled continents, only to come back home. Rabi Thapa, a writer friend of mine, edits a Nepali-English bilingual literature and fine-arts magazine out of Lalitpur. It's called La.Lit.

The author was in Lalitpur, Nepal, five days before the tragic earthquake