Kolkata-Melbourne

Reading The Telegraph from Kolkata, I guess we have to see this below as good news - coming from Melbourne to work in the capital of West Bengal, I always thought there was a major similarity between both cities. Not obviously, but it was something to do with the same architects working for the East India Company and the big old merchant banking firms of Victoria. These two affable guys (pic) I spent part of New Years Eve 2005 with might not be 'youth' or 'students' but they had very positive views about the livability of Cal. I agree, place just needs a little less exhaust, and reparation payments for hundreds of years of colonial theft... (Ah yes, city links are also a reminder of the Tram Jatra - another good reasonfor twinning these two places - see here and - for the Karachi linkage - here)

From The Telegraph
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Students pitch for more liveable city

A STAFF REPORTER

The youth of Calcutta dream of making the city like Melbourne — recently judged the world’s most liveable city by an international agency — by 2020. Riding high on history and the information technology boom, the students of various city colleges also have the blueprint to achieve the goal.

The plans, to make Calcutta the “best living city” were presented at Youthcon 07, a convention organised by Concern for Calcutta at St Xavier’s College auditorium, which saw participation by several colleges and management institutes. The “best living city” is not just comfortable to live in but also full of life, according to the organisers.

The convention on September 1 and 2 was inaugurated by mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya and attended by the Union minister for youth affairs Mani Shankar Aiyar.

The minister lauded the students for their enthusiasm and faith but pointed out that any plan for the city should not leave out the economically backward. “You need to be more practical in your approach and include the less fortunate in your plans,” said Aiyar.

Concern for Calcutta, an autonomous, non-profit organisation formed in 1948, launched its youth cell last year to involve the younger generation in the mainstream of development.

“There are some who dream of making Calcutta the queen among cities but there are also those who don’t care,” said Bhattacharyya, who was the chief guest.

The mayor called for the participation of young people can help in maintaining the underground drainage system for reducing waterlogging in the city. “Youngsters can help spread awareness about how plastic bags clog up drains,” said Bhattacharyya.

Short coins

Some years ago, I wrote a piece about the coins Job Charnok used to buy the three villages that eventually became the city of Kolkata. These were pieces of silver arned from the slave trade, making an interesting if brutal link between the great british adventure of exploitation in India and across the Atlantic. Coins are of course the potent symbol of capitalism. And I guess of stereotypes about Calcutta too - that scene with the coin tricks in the Swayze film City of Joy. THere is much more to say (so dig out my chapter on Calcutta coinages in Bell and Haddour's book "City Visions" 2000), but this little item caught my eye today as I was perusing the northern press (as one does):

"Mysterious shortage of coins grips Calcutta

This is from The Scotsman 16 June 2007

A MYSTERIOUS coin shortage gripping Calcutta has shop-keepers begging for change from beggars and buying coins at prices above their face value.

No one knows exactly why there is no change in the eastern Indian city, but the situation has spurred the Reserve Bank of India to emergency measures, distributing millions of coins to try to satisfy the demand.

Since the coin shortage became acute in early June, the bank has distributed five mill-ion rupees ($121,950) worth of coins, including a million on Thursday alone, said Nilanjan Saha, the bank's treasurer in the city. But the emergency supplies have failed to stem the demand.

"There is no reason for it ," said Saha. "But I have heard reports that some unscrupulous traders are melting coins because the face value of the coins is lower than the metal value."
"

Sacred Media Cow

From Somnath over on on "Sacred Media Cow" [SACREDMEDIACOW is an independent postgraduate collective on Indian media research and production at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London]:

Oh Calcutta

Published by Somnath Batabyal February 26th, 2007 in Som's Blog.

Folks, been away from active blogging for a while. Apologies. The PhD writing and thinking alongwith other activities been taking its toll. Hopefully back now.

My thesis concerns itself with two urban news centres, Calcutta (I still cant bear to do away with the colonial imageries) and Mumbai. Been reading a bit about both the cities lately and a book by John Hutnyk called The Rumour of Calcutta is a quite fascinating account of the city and deconstructs the myths around this “city of extremes” created through the views and notions of representations, from foreign travellers on missions of mercy staying at a cheap tourist lodge to travel guides, books and films.

I have also been logging how the media in recent times has been portraying the city. By all accounts, Calcutta has finally come of age. It is the city on the mend. The government is being applauded, the Chief Minister felicitated. Right wing Conservative Shekhar Gupta in Indian Express speaks and applauds the Indian Left and its erudition, the Politburo and its concerns. Sagarika Ghose cant stop gushing in her interview with Buddha Babu. Protests by “nay sayers” are brushed aside as the crumbling city wakes up to a new dawn. These are not my metaphors. So what’s going on.

It is very much like the errant child who has come home. Give it it’s just rewards, bring it into the fold, hand out the sops and make sure it feels welcome. The media house, the corporate entities cant stop falling over each other to felicitate Buddhadev Bhattacharya’s “coming to sense” wisdom and merging Calcutta with the other metros; long live the Left, so long as it can be managed.

City Requiem, Calcutta: Gender and the Politics of Poverty

by Ananya Roy

Uni of Minnesota Press.

Roy she was paralysed by "Rumour", but went on to write her book anyway. Some pics too, and discussion of New Communism. "Roy shows how urban developmentalism, in its populist guise, reproduces the relations of masculinist patronage, and, in its entrepreneurial guise, seeks to reclaim a bourgeois Calcutta, gentlemanly in its nostalgias".
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Why I love Spivak

Not only is "Critique of Postcolonial Reason" a great book (for teaching, for method, for insight), but Gayatri is generous and committed, and she liked my rumour book:

'A case in point would be John Hutnyk’s brilliant book "The Rumour of Calcutta"...'

in Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty "Harlem" Social Text - 81 (Volume 22, Number 4), Winter 2004, pp. 113-139 Duke University Press
you need Athens access to get the whole thing..
http://muse.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/access.cgi?uri=/journals/social_text/v022/22.4spivak.html&session=8944196
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The Akha heritage Foundation

"Today, I'd like to present excerpts from a
thought-provoking book by John Hutnyk, entitled 'The
Rumour of Calcutta: tourism, charity and the poverty
of representation'. The book was already published in
1996, and some of you may remember that I mailed out a
summary at the time when tourism NGOs began to discuss
as to how to apply the 'fair trade' concept in
tourism. I'm now sharing this piece with you again
because I believe it is an excellent and highly
opportune contribution to the current debate on
tourism and poverty alleviation.

Yours truly,
Anita Pleumarom
Tourism Investigation & Monitoring Team (tim-team)"
http://www.akha.org/content-100.html
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New internationalist Rumour Notice

The Rumour of Calcutta:
Tourism, Charity and the Poverty of Representation

'.... John Hutnyk, in his fascinating study of Western interpretations of Calcutta, attempts to excavate the city from under the layers of accreted prejudices. He shows convincingly how, even before the traveller arrives, the reputation of Calcutta has laid down a sediment of ideas that acts as a modifier on subsequent experiences....'

Third World Network

Third World Network excerpts latter parts of The Rumour of Calcutta.

Vijay Prashad review of Rumour of Calcutta

In Light of Calcutta by Vijay Prashad
The Kathmandu Post Review of Books
30 November, 1997Vol. 2, No. 8

"John Hutnyk's book does not tell us of the visions of the city among its long-term inhabitants. His book introduces the people who travel to South Asia on a budget, mostly from North America, Europe and Australia. 'Budget travellers' come not to bask in the glory of the Raj, but to explore the underbelly of Asia and to do some volunteer work as a means to assuage their guilt or redeem themselves. Despite their best motives, Hutnyk explains, these travellers do not question how they see the city. They have heard the 'rumour of Calcutta, the imagery by which the city is known'..."

KWark review of Rumour of Calcutta

Against Mother Theresa

John Hutnyk's Rumour of Calcutta, reviewed byMcKenzie Wark
Wednesday, 10 September 1997

dead link above, but republished HERE.
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