`City of Pride?'...

They must be grandparents, both grey. In slow movements they make themselves ready for another night. Seeing them together is a look into a long history. They live around the corner from the hotel I am staying. I have watched their evening rituals a few times, coming back from dinner in one of the down town eating places. That I am admitted to their intimacy is because they live on the street. They have marked part of the dirty black sidewalk with their few things. Around ten they make up their bed in silence. They do not look at me looking at them. It is as if there is a wall through which I can see. They do not want to be able to do that. Who will be surprised to know that this is Calcutta, the mega city in the East of India, in the state of West Bengal? It has the name of being hell on earth, a collection of all that is wrong in human enterprise. It is pictured by showing poverty, dirt, flooding, inefficiency. It is said to be helpless and forever a disaster. And indeed, the old people around the corner are two of the many poor who crowd the street. It is a shocking sight, grandparents making their home on the sidewalk, some of them caring for grandchildren while the parents try to earn the far less than a dollar per day. Its normality is hard to comprehend, and what can you say of a city where it is normality. "I live on the corner of Free School Street and Park Street," a man tells me after having discussed politics with me for a while. "Come and visit me," he asks and walks away. I realize I have forgotten to ask for the number. That evening I go to Free School and Park. I need not look for him because there he is, with his family, literally living on that corner. As he sees me coming, he points at the one blanket they have. Then he spreads out his arms. "This is our sitting room, kitchen and sleeping room," he says with a great smile. His twelve year old son is one of those street children who look as though they think they know Calcutta best. They probably do. His wife, small, dark, beautiful looks at me in the kindest of possible ways. Their pride is breathtaking, as is the story they tell, the way they assess their situation, their look on the future. Such in life in Calcutta. They come from far away hoping to have a better life here. Only a very few make it. You need the right papers, recommendations and some money to pay for the expenses' others make, the man told me. Many will spend a lifetime waiting, growing old in downtown dirt. This is where Calcutta reality starts; and it goes on all to the middle class neighbourhoods and posh apartments in the South of the city. All cliches about rich and poor are illustrated here, as are all other cliches.

It is not difficult to stick with this picture, which is certainly not just superficial. The immense problems Calcutta faces, the poverty, the failing infrastructure, the pollution, the fast growing population are very real. Then why is it that more and more people recognize the attractiveness of this backside of India, as Calcutta is sometimes called? There are two reasons that do not exclude each other. One is that many Westerners recognize the dynamics they miss in their own cities. Calcutta not only openly shows all aspects of life. It also demands to act continually. It expects that all stretch their street wisdom' to the limit. Compare it to a theme park in which the theme is not myth but all that life is and demands. For those who want life itself to be the adventure Calcutta is the theme park to visit. Walking the Calcutta streets is not pleasant in the sense of comfortable fun but it can have the pleasure being in a place that is the consequence of continual human activity. And because Calcutta life demands continual action the city streets change all the time. As they change they are the constant refection of human understanding, perception, talents and its limits. Where the city demands too much of its inhabitants, or its inhabitants demand too much of the city, it shows in clear consequences. Its appeal is that it openly shows not only how we fail but how we cope and how proud we can be in doing so. While in Western cities it is common to cover up the dark side and emphasize the great and good with much glitter, Calcutta balances itself between dark and bright, the wrong and right. Some find that attractive.

The second reason: it is a proud city and its pride is rooted in just that whole of aspects it so clearly presents. It seems that Calcuttans feel that in the end showing it all will be the basis of a sustainable city, rather that emphasizing one side of what city life is. The pride lies in the fact that Calcutta needs to be made each day. A lot does not work, but another lot does. One example is safety. At night the streets have that sleepy quietness that is so different from the frightful emptiness many other cities have. It is because life goes on in all its variety. On Park Street there are not only the nouveau riche leaving expensive restaurants and head for home but also the families on their card board mattresses who in soft voices discuss the day or make fun with neighbours. There are the guards in front of apartment blocs, the riksja men and the magazine seller who is late packing his things. A restful night after a hard days work is what all seem to want. Trouble is kept far away, as life itself it t rouble enough. The only thing the outsider might risk in Park Street is being made fun of.

Its pride is also rooted in its culture and history. It is the city of Rabindranath Tagore. It is said that Bengalis are the poets and artists of India. With Tagore continually present it is very hard not to be either a poet or artist, or both. His work is as immediate, honest and seductive as his city is. Born in 1861 he was the fourteenth child of Debendranath Tagore and member of one of the foremost families of Bengal. The family house in Calcutta was the centre point of Bengal cultural life. Recognized as the greatest of Indian writers it is the fact that he also was a painter, a musician and a dramatist that make him great. It is in this where Tagore and Calcutta meet, as both seem compelled to do all, and be all. Tagore had his Nobel prize. Calcutta is waiting for its award, not always sure it has the talent. It is not important to assess the objective truth in all the reasons for Calcuttan pride. Urban pride cannot only be grounded in facts. Myths, legend and festival form the foundation. It perhaps is the great annual festival of Durga, the mothergod, that acts as a generator of common belief. Great temporary temples are made for Durga and her offspring. Rich families, companies, neighbourhoods have them made and in a carnival Calcuttans walk about to see all. Afterwards the temples are dismanteled and the beautiful statues of the deities are taken to the river and set afloat. Again it is all there, the building and the breaking, the festival and the drama. The city seems to be circling and creating the seasons it needs to keep on going. But will Calcutta be eternally Calcutta?

The city can go two ways. It can be in the forefront of the development of a new urban culture, based on a dynamic and honest city. For those who look through all the superficial signs of urban disaster may see a social and cultural architecture that has elements that could very well help the urban developers elsewhere. On the other hand the picture the West gives of what a prosperous city should be is a very appealing one. Those who have the luxury to travel in and out can afford to demand from Calcutta to maintain its character. Those who must stay cannot be blamed for wanting to see more of the luxury and less of the congestion, floods, power failures. As the middle classes grow so does an urban pride that is much more materialistic. The shame for all that is wrong grows fast. It is no solution to try and convince them that covering up one aspect of in what we fail will highlight another. There is no danger in setting an example and following it, if only he example shows all. It is essential that the image of Western cities and Western urban culture as it is exported across the world reflects reality. It is not just comfort they give. Apart from all crime, anxiety, the lack sustainability, it should be stressed that because of the way their cities developed the inhabitants have turned their back on them.