The old time grandeur of Cuttack
Cuttack was just too inconspicuous, too backward to register in a Mumbaikar’s consciousness.
Two decades ago in the IIT campus at Mumbai, I was a starry-eyed young bride and something of an ingénue. I remember the blank looks I drew when I said I came from Cuttack in Orissa. Cuttack was just too inconspicuous, too backward to register in a Mumbaikar’s consciousness. Years later reading Suketu Mehta’s paean to Bombay, I was drawn back to the moment, for Cuttack is a 1000 years old, truly a millennium city.
The great Barbati fort whose ancient stone ramparts encircle the city in a broken embrace was built around 989 AD by the Keshari dynasty. Since then Cuttack like the great courtesans of all time has known many lovers, the imperial Gangas, the martial Marathas, mighty Mughals and the wily British. But conversely the city that courted and was courted by so many never lost its character.
Squeezed on a tongue of land between the two great rivers, Mahanadi and Kathjodi, like any city worth its salt Cuttack soon outgrew its location and acquired a unique ethos. As a child I remember during the rains how Katakis would plunge in to evacuate bastis in the low lying areas that were inundated without fail. By evening both volunteers and victims would be out by the embankment feasting on gup chup and watching the raging floodwaters!
Cuttack is in the realm of the soul. Cuttack to Katakis is what Mumbai is to Mumbaikars. Cuttack is its Sahis and Gallis, its babulok and its rickshaws, its lingo with the tangy undercurrent of irony, its Durga Puja and Bali Jatra, kite flying on the sands of Kathjodi, and mouthwatering Dahi Vada Alu Dum. Cuttack is where Subhash Bose was born, where Hari Prasad tuned his flute and Mayadhar Mansingh found his romantic muse. Its moonlight on the Mahanadi, packed houses to Annapurna theatre and 20-20 at Barbati stadium.
The culture of Cuttack is manifest in the intense bonding, the bonhomie that holds people of an area together. It’s a very territorial city — every lane, every chowk, every house is mapped out in a complicated system of loyalties and rivalries. Last year a budding romance between a boy from our Sahi in Odia Bazaar and a girl from Ganga Mandir had knives out and warring factions on the streets. An hour later the two groups were back at their adda. Katakis are like that!
A Mumbai chawl might be an equivalent of the Kataki Sahi but unlike its mammoth big sister, Cuttack knows no riots. Cuttack Chandi, the city’s patron goddess coexists with Qadam-e-Rasool, the seat of political authority of the Moslems of Orissa in centuries of harmony.
Somewhere in the mists of history, Cuttack ran a flourishing maritime trade. Those who browse the detergent and FMCG stalls of the Bali Jatra might not guess the genesis of this sprawling fair but once upon a time, great sailing boats from Cuttack roamed the seven seas and came back laden with riches. The other great festival, Dussehra, shows off Cuttack at its artistic best as splendid tableaus interweaving an exquisite filigree of music, dance and spectacle spill out on the streets.
In crisp December afternoons during Makar Sankranti, Katakis indulge their other great passion, kite flying. With the sandy Kathjodi riverbed underfoot and the limitless sky above, its pure joy to send one’s kite soaring while cutting down others to size with some nifty wrist work. That is why Cuttack’s best known songster Akhshay Mohanty sang “Udi udi gala mo gudi...” (My kite goes soaring)
They say that whoever has not gorged on Raghu’s Dahi Vada Aloo Dum has not yet sampled Cuttack . For these urad dal fritters in yogurt sauce with spicy gravy potatoes can tempt the taste buds to distraction. Come evening cars from around a fifty kilometer radius line up for his fare. Raghu is now the stuff of business school curricula like Mumbai’s dabbawallahs!
After years of political and economic dominance, Cuttack has graciously made way for the new capital Bhubaneswar but the true Kataki will not desert his long love for all the riches of the world. Ask venerable poet Jayant Mohapatra who still indulges in Raghu’s culinary delight and chooses to live in a cul-de-sac in Tinkonia Bagicha!
The great Barbati fort whose ancient stone ramparts encircle the city in a broken embrace was built around 989 AD by the Keshari dynasty. Since then Cuttack like the great courtesans of all time has known many lovers, the imperial Gangas, the martial Marathas, mighty Mughals and the wily British. But conversely the city that courted and was courted by so many never lost its character.
Squeezed on a tongue of land between the two great rivers, Mahanadi and Kathjodi, like any city worth its salt Cuttack soon outgrew its location and acquired a unique ethos. As a child I remember during the rains how Katakis would plunge in to evacuate bastis in the low lying areas that were inundated without fail. By evening both volunteers and victims would be out by the embankment feasting on gup chup and watching the raging floodwaters!
Cuttack is in the realm of the soul. Cuttack to Katakis is what Mumbai is to Mumbaikars. Cuttack is its Sahis and Gallis, its babulok and its rickshaws, its lingo with the tangy undercurrent of irony, its Durga Puja and Bali Jatra, kite flying on the sands of Kathjodi, and mouthwatering Dahi Vada Alu Dum. Cuttack is where Subhash Bose was born, where Hari Prasad tuned his flute and Mayadhar Mansingh found his romantic muse. Its moonlight on the Mahanadi, packed houses to Annapurna theatre and 20-20 at Barbati stadium.
The culture of Cuttack is manifest in the intense bonding, the bonhomie that holds people of an area together. It’s a very territorial city — every lane, every chowk, every house is mapped out in a complicated system of loyalties and rivalries. Last year a budding romance between a boy from our Sahi in Odia Bazaar and a girl from Ganga Mandir had knives out and warring factions on the streets. An hour later the two groups were back at their adda. Katakis are like that!
A Mumbai chawl might be an equivalent of the Kataki Sahi but unlike its mammoth big sister, Cuttack knows no riots. Cuttack Chandi, the city’s patron goddess coexists with Qadam-e-Rasool, the seat of political authority of the Moslems of Orissa in centuries of harmony.
Somewhere in the mists of history, Cuttack ran a flourishing maritime trade. Those who browse the detergent and FMCG stalls of the Bali Jatra might not guess the genesis of this sprawling fair but once upon a time, great sailing boats from Cuttack roamed the seven seas and came back laden with riches. The other great festival, Dussehra, shows off Cuttack at its artistic best as splendid tableaus interweaving an exquisite filigree of music, dance and spectacle spill out on the streets.
In crisp December afternoons during Makar Sankranti, Katakis indulge their other great passion, kite flying. With the sandy Kathjodi riverbed underfoot and the limitless sky above, its pure joy to send one’s kite soaring while cutting down others to size with some nifty wrist work. That is why Cuttack’s best known songster Akhshay Mohanty sang “Udi udi gala mo gudi...” (My kite goes soaring)
They say that whoever has not gorged on Raghu’s Dahi Vada Aloo Dum has not yet sampled Cuttack . For these urad dal fritters in yogurt sauce with spicy gravy potatoes can tempt the taste buds to distraction. Come evening cars from around a fifty kilometer radius line up for his fare. Raghu is now the stuff of business school curricula like Mumbai’s dabbawallahs!
After years of political and economic dominance, Cuttack has graciously made way for the new capital Bhubaneswar but the true Kataki will not desert his long love for all the riches of the world. Ask venerable poet Jayant Mohapatra who still indulges in Raghu’s culinary delight and chooses to live in a cul-de-sac in Tinkonia Bagicha!