A city that killed its river!

Ashutosh Sharan
Sep 3, 2018 · 4 min read

“Kolkata is so congested and laid back and under developed” mentioned a colleague at the dinner table while relishing on some Luchi & Kosha Mangso at a popular restaurant in the south of Kolkata. Ballygunge 6 is a must visit if you happen to be in Kolkata. Others on the table nodded in agreement and mentioned — ‘everything is slow, and they still have the tram, and how shops are closed on Sundays, and the roads are poor’. And then brought up the comparison with Delhi — that how people in Delhi would never close their shop on Sunday — thats when the business comes, and then the remark that Kolkata people only do “indian idol” etc. etc… I disagreed and agreed with various arguments.

Flash forward, I am on the flight back to Delhi. The airplane has just taken off and we are still flying over Kolkata. I looked outside the window and I see the majestic Hoogly river. What a sight!

10 minutes later, i take out the newspaper to read. And interestingly there is a story about Yamuna (delhi’s river). In summary it said that Yamuna is dead for all practical puposes because of pollution.

Ok, first of all some disclosures — i am not from Kolkata/Bengal but i have lived there all my life, till I was 21. I am also not from Delhi, but have lived here ever since i started working/earning .. so 12+ years. So I have a very good first hand experience of both places and don’t have bias against one.

So, going back to the Delhi vs Kolkata debate : Delhi is the political capital of India, the power center of India. It has access to infinite funds, has very hard working and ambitious people obejctively focused on making more wealth for themselves… and their next generations .. and by any means (ethics is a big grey area in Delhi , more so due to the nexus of politicians and crony capitalists, and it boils down to an extent to the common people as well)

On the other hand, Kolkata (& Bengal in general) is not very industrialized, fewer companies, few MNCs etc. People there are more content, are happy with their simple life with rice and fish (both of which they produce a lot). But the average junta is better read, have more skills & hobbies than just their day jobs (that includes music, football, eating, traveling, reading).There are more inter-caste/inter-religion marriages happening (no they don’t kill people for these things), they have highest number of Nobel laureates (even CV Raman, originally from Madras, was a professor at University of Calcutta), they have been more modern era ‘thinkers’ from bengal than anywhere else — Vivekananda is a great example. There were and are more women going to college than anywhere else in India.

A nice story from an interview of one of the Bengal’s nobel laureates epitomizes this very well. Amartya Sen while releasing his book The Country of First Boys told his story from Santiniketan, where he studied — “… I have to say I became a relatively good student once I went to Santiniketan, where no one worried about grades, it was almost shameful to worry about them. One of my teachers described a classmate of mine: “She is quite an original thinker, even though her grades are very good.” I liked that aspect: there was no pressure to be a first boy. Not only were there girls with me (I was in school in the 1940s) but my mother was also schooled there earlier. She was proud of the fact that she did judo there, 90 years ago. She must have been one of the first Indian women to do judo… ”

This philosophy — of being an ‘original thinker’ is more important than running behind grades, or wealth — is one of the main reasons why bengal has produced such talented & successful people (be it in science, or music, or literature, or finance ... ).

Flash back, I am in the flight and thinking — the real comparison between the cities is of choices and priorities. One literally killed its river, while the other has it in quite a decent shape...

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