In Delhi politics, where you're from is all that matters

Ki bol-lo, Mamata? I tentatively approach one group standing outside Sonia Gandhi’s house, where Mamata Banerjee was just about to toss the Congress leadership into the scariest roller-coaster ride they had ever seen.

It wasn’t that I was shy or didn’t know them, it was just that I have never been able to figure out if I could ever belong to this particular group of journalists — the Bengal club, the most sought after pack among the lot in Delhi these days.

They had the ear of both Pranab Mukherjee and Mamata Banerjee and I, like other non-Bengali journalists, was fishing for information from them. I am a legitimate fish-eating, sandesh-quaffing, winter-fearing-interfering Bengali but it has taken me the entire three-and-a-half decades of my life to discover that’s who I truly am. And for that I have no one else to thank but the quintessentially parochial breed of politicians.

Before I became a journalist, I was just a Delhi girl. I was born in Shillong, which was often mistaken by North Indians for Ceylon, and my parents travelled around for work. We didn’t have many relatives in Kolkata either, so my connection, like my accent, was a bit dodgy especially if you throw in the fact that my grandparents moved in from East Bengal.

But none of this really mattered till I started covering politics. ‘Where are you from?’ is usually the first question they ask when they are sizing you up. People’s surnames are usually a giveaway but with mine, they don’t know whether I’m from Haryana or Howrah or somewhere else altogether. And so they pry, some of the more earthy ones even ask our caste, and it took me a while to figure out just why.

When I’d tell them I was from Delhi, they didn’t really know what that meant. They thought, and rightly so, that no one can be originally from Delhi, it’s just this dog-eat-dog place where people came for work, out of necessity. For them, the capital city was all about wily bureaucrats, power brokers and fat cats who weren’t to be trusted. And when they looked for people they could really talk to, journalists who could be trusted, who’d present their perspective, it had to be people who knew where they came from — who’d get their private jokes, who’d understand the sentiments of their people. If they weren’t from the same village, they’d at least have to speak the same language.

And that’s when I looked around and saw the various regional packs that were at work in Parliament. You had the Thakur and the Bihar gang, which extends not just to politicians but also to powerful bureaucrats. You have the South Indian journalists, with the Mallu lobby being especially useful, but none of these can come close at this moment to the much-hyped importance of the Bengali brigade.

‘Arre you are also a Bengali, why don’t you go and find out for us what Pranabda is saying?’ ‘I wish I was a Bengali so that I could also understand what Didi keeps telling these Kolkata journalists’ That’s the kind of prodding that actually made me bravely indulge in some Bongo banter and just try to merge with their crowd. It didn’t take me long to realise that I really enjoyed it — it was fun being part of the ‘it’ gang, the jokes sounded warm, wicked and familiar at the same time and the food, the food, the food. I once followed the posse into a hospitable minister’s room where his staff laid out a regular lunch for the B-Club — ghee-filled khicdi, fish fry and chicken fry. I almost had tears in my eyes while eating it because it felt like I was back in my Guwahati aunt’s kitchen.

The feel-good factor was strong and my Bengaliness was also getting kosher by the day but I am not sure whether I was getting better stories because of it. I have made many new friends, some of them even good political sources, but I haven’t scored a scoop yet because of my linguistic advantage. It could be because I’m not Bengali-enough yet. For example, a day before the West Bengal election results were announced, I was part of the group that hung around in Mamata’s room while she painted. There was tea, moori (puffed rice) and pakora, and suddenly they all started nudging each other to start singing. Mamata affectionately told one male reporter — ‘You sing so well, sing something for us now.’ And we witnessed an impromptu Tagore song session during which I cowered fearing a test of my Tagore knowledge.

I doubt I’d have gotten an exclusive from her had I sung that day, but I keep working at my roots. My family was surprised to find Youtube videos of Rabindra sangeet on my phone, which I use to soothe my son. And just in case my Bengali connections run out, I plan to also work on my Northeast, Bangladesh and Haryana links.

Sunetra Choudhury is an anchor/
reporter for NDTV and is the author of the
election travelogue Braking News