An auto rickshaw ride from jadavpur 8B, towards Tollygaunge.
A gross total of 16 lanes and bylanes and some pathways so skinny that they are
outlawed from being called lanes, 2 major streets, Approximately 500+ families
live here.
The residents are mainly refugees departed from Bangladesh and Myanmar
after the great split of 1947 (people may raise their fingers that why I’m
demeaning our freedom, I choose not to answer them.), in the times of Bangladesh war
etc. It was a terrific picture of tragedy that how they left their homeland,
came down here, settled in Jhopries. Allan Ginsberg wrote ‘September on Jessore Road’, our
very own hungerialist poets wrote many books on this context. Ritwik Ghatak
made several films.
The entire young generation of that crowd spent their time
in poverty, dying of continental diseases due to constant rain and lack of
hygene and got carried away in the ecstasy of football and Nokshal Movement.
Many of them though managed to made their way into
Corporates, Government, Buisness and Education and structured their feet affirm
on the land allotted to them by the former Communist Government (which is, by
now, as dead as stone and slaughtered by the arrogant lady who eradicated
Communism from the world.) by replacing their Jhopries by multistoried
buildings.
From the second decade of the millennia students, musicians,
tattoo artist, painters, photographers, sluts, hippies, drug addicts started to
come down to kolkata in order to seek fate and earn more money and fame and
cheap pleasures (“Bright lights, Big city got to my baby’s head..” remember
that famous Animal’s song which inspired urban literature for years?) from
abandoned North Eastern states. They started staying in PG’s and Mess,
chummeries illegally (as my friend Nong said that there was no affidavit or
legal activities when they moved in here in their ‘Mother Superior’ where I
used to trip on marijuana and meditated while they practice their Progressive
Metal. It’s a good habit to set in your mind and concentrate in midst of so
much systematic disorder, I tell you.) and these places were the absolute
Zenith of modern day “Drug, sex and Rock n’ Roll”. The place is called ‘Naughty
Bikramgarh’, by the young inhabitants.
I mainly used to hang
out with two bands. One of them was Blues/R&B and the other one was
Progressive Metal. Kolkata’s very own Metal underground scene is mostly
overtaken by them, the north east people. They grow up with guitar. They grow
up listening good music.
Keeping in mind the latest trends in social networking
sites, Youtube channels, band competitions, it is evident that the music that
was hidden up their in the mountains are now coming in the actual scene and
getting their deserved recognition. Things are changing fast. Be it the
Hornbill Fest or Dying fetus, Aerosmith performing in Shillong, metal pit
happening secretly in the city, graffiti all around etc. Consider the massive
increase in number of Jamming Pads in this city from the nineties.
But still now, I wonder why no ones interested in making an
‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ or writing ‘The Dharma Bums’, as these massive changes
are similar to that of the Rock n’ Roll socio-cultural movement in America in
late sixties. Yes, we live in a third world country & the better part of
the world is 50 years ahead of us & to us, sixties are coming back in a new
way.
The years of self realization, purity in poetry, soul in
songs, creativity in arrangements, experiment with dresses and drugs and
everything you can put your finger into, new waves in your thoughts and opinions,
soda parlors, old books, depression -
out of capitalism, open source softwares, free downloads, marijuana, tyrants in
the throne, they are just making it happen. The years of explosive creativity,
which, by the course of time, will turn to brown and may be after 50 years
someone will be making a film or writing a story on us.
