Ten things I hate about you, Kolkata

Now, I am not a very violent man. I am an enthusiast of choreographed action; but not the person who goes out and picks a fight on a daily basis. However, slapping is simultaneously a symbolic and a physical reproach. This city of joy that I have grown to love has so many great things about it. The top ten things about Kolkata will make it'z debut in this same space tomorrow. However, there are certain kinds of people, who hurt the city consistently in their narrowminded shenaniganary. Here is my list of the ten people in Kolkata that I want to slap.

10, The Cheap Bodhi. You have seen her haggling to the poorest of the poor over things you would never think anyone would bargain on. I remember this once where a bodhi got on a bus with two kids about 15 and 11 years of age. When the conductor asked for tickets, she actually bargained with him and refused to pay for the second child - who was occupying an adult seat in the bus (it was one of those Tolly-Airport a/c buses). Come on. The average Kolkatan is someone who puts in about an hour's commute everyday to do a job that would have paid him more anywhere else in the country. Stop being a cheap haggler. When you hand in the twenty unhesitantly at South City for parking, why do you fight over the 5 rupees parking on Rashbehari?

9, The one at a time shopkeeper. Have you ever stood at a shop counter in Kolkata and waited, just endlessly as this person next to you is THINKING of what to buy. The shopkeeper, just stands there, in awe of the capacity of the person to contemplate what (s)he wants. You cannot express annoyance, because you are next in line. I have seen shopkeepers handling upto four clients simultaneously while engaging in small talk with all of them in Madras. I am not expecting everyone to do the same; but someone needs to slap this shopkeeper to wake him up.

8, The happy Aantlamo. Ooohh yea... This is that person who has to have an opinion about everything and automatically assumes invitation to conversations when there were none. The idea of Adda or chatting for the sake of it is an age old custom in Calcutta. It is a healthy exercise of speaking about nothing, with passion. I like this. I don't have a problem with this. However, I have a problem when people barge into these conversations and kill the idea of private space (more on that later). You can identify this person by his/her disregard for popular bangla cinema, a pretentious know-all air about an obscure subculture and an acute awareness of their own pseudointellectualism.

7, The Lake-destroyers. I am not against Public Display of Affection. I think it is very sweet when couples share an awkward kiss or hold each other in public. However, what happens at the lake on Southern Avenue is NOT an innocent gesture of affection. It is almost often a case of horny people with no marked definitions of shame. Even when you go out for a walk in the morning, which is considered one of the safest timezones to visit the place wtihout being scandalized, you are bound to encounter couples who are walking around aimlessly, taking stock of the situation. The moment the clock strikes eight a.m, they grow bolder and stare at you as if YOU are invading their area. These people who take such joy in killing the lake for children and old people alike in the afternoons deserve a massive slap.

6, The jay-walker. My dad often says that drivers in Calcutta, except the bus drivers are so well behaved. They don't go too fast nor do they try killing others just to get ahead. However, some people constantly keep trying their luck, almost challenging the driver into running them over. These are people from ALL walks of life, young and old, who think that just putting a hand out gives them a right to cross the road, whenever and wherever it pleases them. It kills me that there is an automated voice message begging them not to cross the road when the walking sign is red. In a spree of collectve color blindness, the people continue to cross at will and it is better to slap them before they get run over.

5, The callous smoker. Probably I am being a little unkind to the smokers here, for I come from the world's first (and currently ONLY) smoke-free mega-city. But I simply cannot accept the degree of approval that smoking gets in the city. Smoking is NOT cool. It kills you and people around you. And people continue to have the least regard for this, smoking in public vehicles, parks, offices and even educational institution. Couple of days ago, I cornered and stopped another biker and shouted at him for tapping the ash of his cigarette while riding the bike. If the idiot wants to die, fine; let him not try killing others on the road.

4,The over sensational journalist. Have you ever felt that the newspapers in Kolkata (I take Times of India regularly and Telegraph, I read occasionally; don't know about the Statesman) over-sensationalize even the tiniest thing? Often, they behave like they live in a bubble that is outside the continuum of reality but also keep making comments that speak as if they are the only ones that know how to direct the course of the nation. I am not against strong, critical news-reporting; but I don't want to wake up to read fabrications and forced-stories. Maybe that is the trend world-wide now, but as long as I was in Chennai, The Hindu did not screw with news.

3, The Spitter/litterer. When I first reached Calcutta; I told my friend that the two disparate things that you notice, is the City's beauty and it's poverty. It is not just the poverty in an economical basis I am talking about; but a general sense of disrepair and a total disregard for the beauty of the city by many, MANY people. How often have you seen really rich people, in big houses, casting away their garbage BANG in the middle of the road here in Cal? The worst thing, however, is the constant pan-chewing spitter who makes EVERY corner stained and disgusting. The other day, I went to Kalighat and it hurt me to see that, right at the entrance of the temple, was a flowerpot kept exclusively for the purpose of spitting. One of the greatest temples in India spat over on a daily basis. It is a shame that I wish someone redresses.

2, The Kolkata Basher. We have all met one of these people. The pretentious snob who is either from a different place, grown up in this city or from the city, but grown up in a different place who has NOTHING else to talk about, except how "primitive", "boring" and "oldfashioned" Kolkata is. The constant bashing of the city for its values reveal a deep sense of disgruntlement with their own personality and it is plain pissing off to be around these people. These people never raise a finger to change anything even when they could, they pretend not to understand bangla and walk with a pout that makes them look like dead fish. Repeated slaps may help these people get their heads out of their asses.

1, The one who says, you can't change it; this is Calcutta culture. The one person who is worse than those who bash Kolkata, is the persn who does more damage to the city, by saying it cannot be changed. I once remember somone telling that Old Development cannot internalize new changes. I know that to be untrue but in Calcutta, that is accepted as the be-all and end-all of things. How many times have you seen punctuality going for a toss because it is Calcutta culture? I used to go to a college where classes started at 8.15, and we were expected to be in class by 8.05 (failing which, we are not allowed inside the class for the first hour). To be at the great JU where the first hour starts at 10.20 and see even professors taking it lightly and turning up only after 10.30 breaks my heart. It is not the culture of the city that changes people; but the people who can change the culture of a city. So the next time someone says that Calcutta cannot be improved because that is the way they have always been; give them a good healthy wallop.

Some honorable mentions that did not make it to the final list; The four decade no-gooder was kept out of the list because their decisions affected the whole of WB, not just Kolkata. The JUnkies were also kept out for being too specific/topical a group. Not to mention bus-drivers in the city and old people who just stare at you. And of course, there are always my security guards who have not perfected the art of doing just ONE thing that I have been asking them to do for the past two years - put my bike out so that it does not get caught behind three cars everytime I want to go out.