Year of the Monkey: Chinese New Year Enlivens Kolkata’s Chinatown
There is joyous celebration in the air at Kolkata’s Chinatown, the only one of its kind in India. The week-long celebration reaches a crescendo on 8 February, as the Chinese community celebrate their new year.
The community is poised to herald the year of the Monkey, a year that will bring vast opportunity. The festivity includes the Dragon dance that symbolizes good luck, fireworks on the ground and a grand feast, where the well-to-do contribute generously ensuring that each member of the community can enjoy the banquet.
Dwindling Numbers
While it is a time for joy, there is a twinge of sadness as members of the community are hugely conscious of their dwindling numbers. India has anything between 4000 to 5000 Chinese out of which, Kolkata alone has 3000.
With a strong presence in several sectors such as restaurants, leather, dentistry and beauty parlours, this industrious race has made a significant contribution. Sadly, there is a feeling that it hasn’t quite got its due.
In the last 5 decades, Kolkata has seen 20,000 from this community leave for Toronto alone.
A Chinese businessman, Dominic Lee, points out,
“Any community will go where they get better opportunities and a means of livelihood. And most important a sense of dignity.”
Kolkata’s much sought after hair stylist Polly Yu Bhorilal says,
“I was born in Kolkata. I have lived here for over 50 years. I am a proud Indian. I have an Indian passport. I pay tax. Yet we are seen as foreigners. We are treated like third class citizens. There is harassment when we visit tourism sites in the city or even when I get my daughter’s passport renewed.”
While Polly’s older daughter is settled in Canada, her younger one who is 20, has also followed to pursue higher studies.
Married to Arvind Bhorilal, a Marwari Jain businessman, Polly has successfully merged two cultures. Her husband celebrates Chinese New Year with as much excitement, as she wears an Indian attire for all family weddings and ceremonies.
“In spirit Jainism and Buddhism are very similar,” adds Polly.
“Despite being a truly minority community, the Chinese do not figure in any category of minorities. This is the reason why virtually all the Chinese in Kolkata have converted to Christianity.”
At home, they worship Chinese Gods. Like Indians, they too have a pantheon of Gods such as the Goddess of Wealth, God of Earth, God of Health and God of Death.
1962 Aggression
Polly shares the deep rooted fears that still haunt the community. The joy and promise of the coming year has not erased memories of a painful past. The Chinese Aggression of 1962 and in its wake the treatment meted out to the Chinese who were residing in India.
She recollects as a quiet anguish envelopes her,
“We can never forget what the Indian government did in 1962.The community grievously suffered. There was a knock on their doors, they were not even allowed to pack their personal clothing. They were made to stand in a queue and loaded on to trucks without their families and sent to a camp in Rajasthan.”
Her Kolkata-based father had a tearful reunion with his brother in Mumbai after 40 years.
Some years ago the government announced that those Chinese who had lost property or money would be compensated if they had documents to prove their claim. Polly Yu says,
“Do you think they were allowed to pack those documents? Today we keep our important documents in our hand. We don’t know what the future has in store.”
Singapore To Revive Chinatown
The community feels a decade later, they may be extinct in Calcutta. Ten years ago, there were almost 25 dragon dance troupes in Kolkata now there are barely five. An apathetic state government has little interest. However, there is a faint ray of hope. The community waits with bated breath. The Singapore government has firmed up plans to revive Kolkata’s Chinatown.
Time will tell if this curbs the exodus and gives this hardworking community the respect and dignity they truly deserve.
