Are We A Part of History?

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.