KKR’s IPL Victory celebrations – Mixed feelings….

Two weeks back, Kolkata Knight Riders won the fifth edition of the IPL. It was a proud moment for all Bengalis around the country and beyond. This was especially true after the Pune Warriors unit consisting of Bengal’s greatest cricketer and a few other budding ones crashed out of the competition in utter ignominy. Even the most emotional Bengali cricket fan including me had no other option but to pledge whole-hearted support for their home city team which was led by a fighter. We were ecstatic on the night of May 27, 2012. To me the joy of seeing KKR lifting the IPL was as good as MS Dhoni’s Men in Blue lifting the ICC Cricket World Cup on April 02, 2011. However, having said all this, what was baffling to me was the mid-afternoon euphoria that occurred in Kolkata a couple of days later. The city of joy was battling with its schizophrenia. An enthusiastic chief minister made a mockery of her austere chair and struck a devastating blow at the over-refined self-image of the Bengalis. To many, it was nothing short of heresy. At the same time, the apparent irrational over-exuberance also corresponded to the fact that Bengalis by nature are excitable. As a Bengali who has grown up and spent 25 years in Kolkata, I know that my community has a penchant for “Hujuk” – an evocative term that signifies infectious craziness. In the past, Kolkata has gone berserk for Lionel Messi, Diego Maradona, Pele, Nelson Mandela and even Princess Diana and Fidel Castro. When I used to stay in Kolkata, up to about 10 years back, I witnessed astonishingly that the Annual Book Fair in our “Maidan” saw more food consumed than books sold! Hence I believe that the spontaneous frenzy over SRK and his band of brave hearts was in keeping with a tradition of excitability. Middle class Kolkata is blessed with a diaspora larger than the resident population. The exiles, like me, look back wistfully at the city they abandoned, sometimes grudgingly and sometimes with a heavy heart. Good English-speaking successful Bengalis living outside Bengal have nurtured an image of Kolkata that corresponds to their own self-image – cultured, well-versed, romantic and well-rounded. I am sure that such a Kolkata has not ceased to exist, but it constitutes only a fragment of the many enclaves that make up the city right now. It is unfortunate that the “cream of the city” is not living there anymore. It is with a heavy heart that I must also admit that no other city in India has been the object of so much pitiable condescension as Kolkata, a city that has forgotten the taste of success. KKR’s victory gave them a reason to celebrate. Hence they filled up Eden gardens in thousands on a sultry and humid May afternoon. For India’s other metros preoccupied with life and business, a T20 victory would have been just one of those things. Still, I would love to go back to the city where I belong to and spend evenings in Victoria Memorial. I would love to throng the walkways alongside the Ganges with an egg-chicken roll in hand, I would love to view the sunset from Scoop, I would love to gorge on phuchkas on Garer Math and breathe in the fresh air of spring in Peace Park!! My heart still stays with the city I miss the most - Kolkata.