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I saw my growing up going up in flames

Stephen Court as it was on March 22, 2010 and as it was on March 23, 2010 when the fire spread. Pic Coutesey: Arin Paul

Abhijit da of India Today was keeping his followers updated on Twitter. The television screen was setting the Ananda Bazar newsroom on fire, And I was watching helplessly as a piece of me was being blown apart, consumed, shredded, charred, in front of my eyes.

Stephen Court, on Park Street was burning. 40 fire engines had to be deployed. 16 dead at the time of posting. 40 missing. Many injured. And God only knows how many, who managed to escape or get rescued, traumatised... for life.

Kunal-da of The Telegraph had seen the New Market fire. He had been drinking at the Kolkata Press Club, when the Firpo's Market went up in flames. Kunal-da used to work for The Statesman in those days. During those days-- the good old days-- when print journos were not that challenged, and news channels were a concept that sounded confined to Orwellian novels, Statesman veterans used to virtually conduct their night duties from the Press Club, just across the road. Pages used to be coordinaed over snacks and late night stories edited over tipsy glasses of whiskey or rum. But the paper would show none of the hangover the next morning.

And on such days, it was the duty of the telephone operator to keep a tab on 'stories'. So one day, the operator calls up Kunalda at the Press Club, and informs him that there's a fire at Burrabazar. The obvious question to this was 'How many engines?'

Ans: Four.

Decision: Not important. A fire that can be doused by four fire tenders is not worthy of a copy.

And here there were forty.

Even Kunal-da was summarily agreeing that Stephen Court's fire was huge, perhaps the biggest in Kolkata after the New Market one.

Yes, for all you know, there will be one less piece of heritage on Park Street very soon. Because chances are, in the name of rebuilding it, all those neo-gothic pillars will fade out, the facade will be used up and chances are one may as well get another glass abomination in return on the happiest stretch in Kolkata.

After all, if there is one stress buster in the city, it is Park Street. It's not about Flury's, Peter Cat, A N John, Olypub or anything. It's just the street. The lights, the sounds, the bustle, the colour, the billboards, the shades that are created as evening descends into late evening and late evening into night-- that's what makes up Park Street.

And Stephen Court was part of it. Not that one ever noticed it, or cared to. But it was under its facade that the iconic Flury's, Peter Cat, Magnolia, A N John-- the first hair salon of Kolkata-- were sheltered. It was as if under its patronage that they florished. Stephen Court was like that old, balding monarch, whom nobody listened to, but without whose existence everybody's place would become wobbly.

I gather that none of these establishments have been affected. Which is good. But the upper two floors of Stephen Court have been reduced to rubble. And people had died, trying to flee the heat, desperately jumping out of the British era fourth floor windows, which would be by today's standards something like six floors tall at least.

Fire engines, according to eyewitness accounts, apparently took two solid hours to reach the place. By the way, the closest fire station is situated less than a kilometere from the . And all this while the minister in charge of the fire fighting department in the state, was untraceable by journos. It was well past seven in the evening before the fire, which started at about 1:30 in the afternoon could be controlled. By eyewitness accounts, and judging by the enormity of the fire, the firemen had reached only around 3:30. I was personally witness to the rescue operation they carried out after that-- patchy not because of any lack of intent but because of the lack of proper infrastructure-- and then started fighting the flames. And Pratim Chatterjee, the minister in charge of the department comes on air in his own sweet time and says that the engines were late in reaching because of traffic snarls.

People are being burnt, they are jumping to their deaths, and you have the gumption of giving the excuse of traffic snarls, Mr. Chatterjee?

Was it too much for you to pick up the phone and talk to the police commissioner of the city so that he could ensure the smooth passage of your department's vehicles to the spot?

You never forget to inform the respective quarters when you, yourself are on road, to clear the traffic. Then what happened this time around?

You raise a hue and cry and file FIRs against Shah Rukh Khan's company for the super comfort enclosure they have erected at Eden Gardens for IPL. Granted, it's made of wood, it's dangerous and it can catch fire. If you are so worried about that, how could you not be worried about the numerous electric cables that hung all over Stephen Court for all these years? How could you have turned a blind eye to private kitchens of anonymous caterers springing up on the un-ventilated ground floor rooms of the buildings and allowed their hoarding of LPG cylinders by the dozens to ensure smooth running of business? Stephen Court was actually a virtual fireplace all this while!

Or were you busy reading a new script of a film?

It's good that Pratim had been asked to give an explanation for the debacle at the Legistative Assembly. At least he will be forced to make a public statement, if not a full-fledged apology.

But given the ways of Alimuddin Street and the CPI (M) office-bearers in Bengal, that would soon be dusted under the carpet, as long as Pratim manages to be on the right side of the leftist leaders.

And like New Market, Park Street may never get back a part of its face.

That would be the truth even after the Left have left.

The classical disconnect

My colleagues, being journalists, are characteristically cynical. So, in cubicle talk, they have this chronic tendency of turning the most humane story inside-out. That is exactly what happened to this story of mine, which was shared with them in the general adda session that one indulges in on rejoining office after a long break, especially if the break was used in travelling to -- what habitual urbanites like my colleagues will call 'god-forsaken places'.
The story in question, is about Amit Karmakar.
But before I tell his story, I need to tell you about the place where I met him. The place is called Bermiok, or Hee-Bermiok, in West Sikkim. Hee and Bermiok are actually two villages about 150 kilometres from Siliguri, but the catch is in the altitude. The place is about 3500 feet from the sea-level and during winter months, can greet you with night temperatures going well below minus 4 degrees celsius. Nothing unsusual for the area, but it can be absolutely killing for somebody like me, whose acquaintance with low temperature ranges around the 12 degree celsius mark, and is regarded as biting cold.
So, I was here at a hotel in Bermiok. Dibyendu Ghose from Kolkata has taken a hotel on lease and has been sending hoards of 'offbeat destination seekers' from Kolkata like me. Hoards, because that's the only 'Bengali' place to stay at least in Bermiok, though there are quite a few home-stay facilities in the two villages. You see, Bengali 'offbeat destinations seekers', even in modern times, are a different species altogether. They can trek for hours with a rucksack or a backpack, they are capable of appreciating anything from the jungles of Arunachal to the sweeping lines of Ladakh, and not be daunted by the absence of urban facilities, they can, once the travel bug bites hard, even travel RAC -- which in Indian Railway terms means travelling on a sleeper coach without managing a wink because you may be sitting cramped in between two other such badnasibs the whole night, while the rest of the compartment thunders away to snoring glory.
But, the modern Bengali tourist, he and especially she, still cannot travel without two necessities-- 1. A good toilet at the place of stay and 2. Bhaat, daal and torkari, if not maacher jhol. And it is on both these counts that the Kanchan View hotel in Bermiok scores. You get WC, 24x7 running hot and ice-cold (alternatively) water, and you get not just bhaat-daal-torkaari but also maacher jhol and chicken curry for lunch and dinner. Naturally, that's the only spot in the whole of Hee-Bermiok where you also get to hear such endearing expressions as 'arektu jhol de to' (some more curry here, please) and 'breakfast-ey luchibhaaja hobey bhai?' (can one expect luchis-- a fried pancake made out of white flour-- for breakfast if you may).
Dibyendu, as his surname suggests, is not a Kundu (as in Kundu Travels, estd:1933) and therefore, according to Bengali folklore, is not born with the inherent talent of achieving the daunting task of providing luchibhaaja and macher jhol at a height of 3500 feet. So how did he manage the impossible, despite being surrounded by Lepchas, Gurkhas and Limboos, whose claims to the Bengali taste bud has been limited to the momo and thupka?
Because Dibyendu understood a simple business strategy of the Kundus. They just do conducted tours, and hence take all their staff from Bengal. So this guy, just like his tourists, has also imported his hotel staff, like Amit, from Bengal.
The catch is, he has imported Amit and his other colleagues from near the villages of the Sundarbans, where temperatures at their lowest are just about 13 degrees. In search of a living, Amit and his friends are braving temperatures of -4 degrees. You will say, so what's the big deal, it happens. One has to survive. But that's not the point. Because survival in this way wasn't exactly necessary for Amit, if Hurricane Aila hadn't happened.
Amit is 16. He has reached the heights of Sikkim for the first time in his life. In fact, it is for the first time in his life that he has left his village, leaving his family-- dad, mom, elder brother and younger sister under a roadside tarpauline-- the version of the West Bengal government's rehabilitation package or refugee camp, whatever way you describe it, for the Aila victims of Sundarbans.
I met Amit shivering under a jacket and a sweater at the doorway to my room one December night last year. The room, in contrast, had a nice warm interior, thanks to the electric room-heater. It was 9 in the night, the air outside was blowing in straight from the Kanchenjunga, and it was as cold as a mommy . Naturally, Amit lingered at my room, trying to get some warmth out of it I suppose. And because he chose to linger, and I had yet not finished by regulation rum for the day (which considering the cold, combined with first day fatigue, had long exceeded the so-called 'regulation' mark), I got chatty with him. It was then, that I came to know of all the things that I have said till now.
"So how long have you been here?"
"Six weeks, sir."
"And how does it feel?"
"Cold, very cold."
"That's natural. But don't you miss your family?"
"I do sir"
"So why did you take up this job? Didn't you know you will have to live without them?"
"I knew. But I had to take this job. I will survive. And one day I will no more feel bad. They also wanted me to take this job."
"Who?"
"My dad, mom. elder brother."
"Why?"
"The fields are all salty. Can't grow anyhthing there. So many months have passed. How long will they give relief? We have to eat."
"But then, your elder brother could have come here?"
"He stayed back to farm and fish, once the salt recedes. He has a family, kids."
So that's about the truth. A 16-year-old, being sent out by the family, all seniors of the family conceding to the decision, miles away from home, in an entirely different climate, because survival is much more important than bonds. For Amit. For the family.
Survival, in the face of natural odds-- how deeply it can affect our accepted norms of relationships, giving rise to an almost new perception of what I would term as 'evolved disconnect'.
On hindsight, I had wondered, was I actually interested in Amit's story, had it not been as 'humane?' If it had not had the potential for a good 'cpy'? Wasn't I getting an almost voyeristic satisfaction out of talking him of his misery-- a misery, which Amit himself was unable to realise.
If that is true, then I have almost chiselled my senses to the 'evolved disconnect'.
And, as a matter-of-fact, isn't Amit also suffering from an evolved sense of disconnect with his self?
But then, my colleagues, after hearing all this had just one thing to say, "Oh, you always end up with some Swapan Saha brand-of-story. So who's going to play the hero? Prosenjit?"
Swapan Saha, by the way, was even a couple of years back, the master of melodramatic potboilers of the Bengali film industry, and his most favourite hero had been Prosenjit, who apparently was the 'king' of that industry, around the same time.
My colleagues, like me, and Amit, were 'evolved' in their sense of 'disconnect'. But then, we are surving on our own terms, and it feels good.

Publish and/or perish

Been out of touch for a long time. Actually, couldn't quite guage what exactly was the point of writing away into cyberspace with no trace of anyone who may have even passingly taken a glance at Turnstile. And then something happened...

One of my former bosses, a journalist himself, had been trying to get his first major internationally-published-novel kick for close to six years. He first tried his hand at the 'click and publish' mode, and found out that it did reach to quite a few... in the sense that he got enough impetus to actually start writing a full fledged novel, simultaneously looking for a literary agent abroad to get his manuscript through to the table of a publisher.

He did get his manuscript through to quite a few agents, who showed interest. Then a few backed out, a few sat on the soft copies while one generally got super-excited and kept in touch with him. And then the ordeal started. The agent liked the story, but wanted certain 'elements' (whatever that may mean) in it. Which, obviously the author was obliged to add. And then the agent came back with yet another request-- this time, wanting a little 'tweaking' in the plot. Which was also adhered to. Actually, my boss was (and still is) a first-time-author yet to be published on a mass scale, so he had little choice I suppose. Then the agent went shut for a long time.

Meanwhile, another agent thought the manuscript was fantastic, as it was and wanted to go ahead with it. So here was my former boss, confused doubly -- first by whom to choose and second by what exactly to write. So he took a call and dumped both agents, and tried for a third, a fourth, a fifth and so on, selecting the names and sending the manuscript at random, all thanks to the internet. And almost overnight, he had more than one response, most of them positive. Believe that's how you operate in the days of call centres.

But his woes were far from over, since more responses meant more and varied suggestions, as well as various word limits. To cut the long story short, my boss, who had for the greater part of his life lectured others on how to approach a copy (we are all journos, you see) and make it crisp (because the word limit for all copies is invariably 600 words, though there is no guarantee that you won't receive a dressing down because you had used too few words for too important a subject, or too many for a too trivial one) was now being lectured around, night-in and night-out ( as most literary agents in the West naturally work at an hour when people in India are fast asleep) until he was sobered, objectified and eventually smartened up to pick the best deal and stick to it.

Thus he followed the course, and finally this year he is on the verge of getting published. Last heard, he was in the process of chopping off 20,000 words from the manuscript in which he had been previously asked to add some 50,000 words-- and he was absolutely cool about it, because he had to, since that is how according to him 'the professional publishing industry functions in the west'.

Uff... puff... and spare me God!

I have the internet, I have a blog, I have my space and I can write whatever crap I want and get it published-- albeit virtually.

So here I am, back on the blog, read or don't read, that's your headache.

Manas – 3: Villagers, farmers... poachers, loggers

This is how they live in Manas. Forest and human settlements matrixing with each other. The first picture was taken just outside the core area of the forest. It is self-explanatory. The second was taken in a seed farm near the village bordering the forest. And the buffalo bull in the picture is a wild one, which often meanders out of the forest to graze with domesticated cow buffaloes. The villagers say they encourage wild bulls to mate with the domesticated cows because that increases the chances of a calf being healthier and relatively free from diseases.

(Names of Bodo characters have been changed for obvious reasons)

The evening that I reached the Kokilabari resort in Manas, I was introduced to Tau (not his real name, that's what the others at the camp resort called this man). He drove a run-down Maruti Gypsy pick-up—one of the two vehicles at the disposal of the Manas Maozedongri Ecological Society (MMES). Middle-aged and pock-faced, he came across as an amiable man. The guys at MMES tell me that he is their only answer to snake bites in a roughly 200 sq km radius (if I remember the distance correctly).
And the reason is pretty confounding. He uses chicken to get rid of venom.
Chicken to get rid of venom!
This man, in urban terms is at best a haturey—the word Bengalis use for a hack. The difference is, this man, living in an area that is anything but conducive to human habitat especially during the summer and monsoon months, has developed a technique that is mind-bogglingly scientific and immensely simple.
When a snake bite victim comes to him, he first asks the relatives of the victim to gather at least eighty live chicken. He then cuts the tail off one, overlapping the cut with the anus. In a live chicken, it immediately sets off a suction process. Tau then holds the chicken with the cut-off portion covering the bite area. The natural suction process sucks in the venom. The chicken soon dies, with loss of blood and with the sucked-out venom rapidly spreading through its blood. The process is repeated, until the venom is totally sucked out. For the most poisonous of snakes found in the area— the cobra—Tau would need nothing less than 200 chickens.
Grotesque by urban standards. But to the average Bodo, grotesque is a concept they can ill-afford. You don't worry about grotesque, if you see your neighbour dying of malaria even before reaching the health centre, because there is none within 200 sq km. You don't think about grotesque, if you see your family being depleted year after year, falling prey, first to killer mosquitoes and then to snakes—not to speak of wild animals, scorpion bites and what not, all through the long months of summer and monsoon, when there is only the jungle to live with, sans smiling tourists and wide-eyed nature lovers bent upon finding the lost paradise or some such vague urban romantic dream in the whole stretch between October and February, when all things that crawl and hop go into hibernation and buzzers are depleted appreciably.
For the rest of the year, you need to survive, and survive the hard way. And the Bodos were never starngers to surviving the hard way.

In fact, living on the edge had become a habit during the Bodo movement (for more on Bodo movement, where else but to wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodoland), when the villagers failed to cope up with the heavy hand of the state machinery as it came down and, like the way the state has always dealt with underground secessive movements, punished those at hand when they could not reach those that mattered with the hope that if you hit the toes, the pain will be felt through the body.
In an attempt to live, the average Bodo of the Kokilabari area had turned with a vengeance on the very forest that had nourished them through generations. For almost two decades, almost every family housed a poacher or a logger. And there were eager buyers from Bhutan across the border, or even nearer home, in the state capital—Guwahati.

Manas-2: They, as usual came, after it was dark

(Names of Bodo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodo_people) characters have been changed for obvious reasons)
The answer came to me in front of a camp fire one evening, when my friend and guide Sunny told me his story.
It's been a few years since Help Tourism and Sabyasachi Chakraborty had put their respective resources together to transform a lot of what was lost. The same som plantation where Chakraborty and his family had stayed in a camp, now has four thatched huts—Bodo style. Built of bamboo and mud, and raised on stilts, they look pretty fragile from outside. Inside, there's a double bed, clean sheets, a bed side table, a centre table, carpeted wooden floors, solar powered lights, an attached toilet with a decent shower, tiled floors and a WC that actually flushes. You get warm fresh food at the canteen, run by the local youths.

The tourist huts at the Som plantation (pic courtesy: http://www.helptourism.com/)

You get warm water for your bath, delivered at your doorstep by the numerous other young men who have taken it to be their sacred duty to build every inch of this so-called resort in the heart of the jungle. "I built the room where you are staying. And the furniture too," Sunny tells me. There's a twinkle in his eyes.
The jungle lies on the edge of a fencing, doubly guarded by a trench. It doesn't stop the elephants though, from paying a visit to the kitchen especially. It's the December of 2007. Sunny is sitting with me in front of the fire. We are exchanging notes on our respective families. Sunny understands both Hindi and English. His spoken Hindi though, is pretty rusty. The fence and the trench are right behind us. And the forest is coming alive slowly as the hours of the night progresses.

A 23-year old, who works as a construction hand during the non-tourist season and as a jeep driver for the Manas Maozedongri Ecotourism Society between November and April, lives in the neighbouring village. He has a mom to look after and live with. He also lives with what to my urban mind is definitely a disturbing memory -- of seeing a dad killed by the wardiwallahs in front of one's own eyes. Sunny was 'just about eight... he can't quite remember.' But the way he says it, he sounds like the incident has been gone through, the emotions negotiated long back. He is stoic with his story.
-- Do you have to tell this story often?
-- No. You tell your father dying. You not there. I tell you how my father died.
Man to man talk.
-- Don't you have any anger left inside you? They killed your father...
-- No. What's the point? Can I fight the cops? No body can. They tried. They were killed.
--Who tried?
-- Villagers. Who stay back.
-- So many more were killed?
-- Yes. Cops show they killing terrorists. Terrorists retreat deep. Inside jungles. Drive forest guards out. Cops afraid to enter forest. They raid villages around jungle. Torture people. Ask information. We no know where leaders stay. My dad no know. He can't tell cops. They fire—bang, bang... dad finished. Dad become terrorist.
Father just sitting to dinner. They barge in. Father die before he eat food.

Sunny poured out in an unwavering voice.
Sunny spat on the ground.
Sunny was absolutely at peace with death. Because he, like all the others who live in the villages bordering the fringe area of the Manas Reserve see it at close quarters.
That's what I will dwell upon in my next post.