Memoires of another day - by Arun Roy Mukherjee

XVII :. In between these periods we visited Calcutta a number of times. Calcutta, in those days, was not as happy a place to live in, as it is to day. There was no phantom of small screen culture. There were neither State Buses nor Mini Buses on the streets. Venom spewing Auto rickshaws did not take the people for a ride. Hawkers used to hawk on the lanes and by-lanes carrying their wares on their shoulders or heads. Only the pedestrians used the pavements on the thoroughfares. There were no co-ordination committees and no street-corner shops selling rolls and chowmins ; neither was Alimuddin nor blooming grass-root flowers. There was no craze for Rabindra Sangeet and Rabindra Nritya-natya. There were no "Sani" temples, "Tantra-Jyotish Karyalaya" and "Party Offices" thrown anywhere on the streets all around the city. Middle class educated Bengalis would not either sing or play Bollywood film songs in their homes and which could only be listened at the shops selling made betel leaf, "Bidi" and cigerattes and sung by the persons making biris. Songs blaring through loudspeakers chanting the names of Hari, Rama and Krishna, commonly known as "Nam-Sankirtan" for eight prahars (24 hours) or twentyfour prahars (72 hours) was not in vogue. Observations of community Siva-ratri were not organised; nor was there the Bangla Bands. Intellectuals were conspicuous by their absence. Whole night cultural programmes with great artists rendering Bollywood film songs were not organised by culture-conscious youths and backed by local political leaders and there was no early morning atrocities ("usha kaley utpat" in bengali) by the icon of modern culture. Girls and housewives of Bengal were deprived of showing their talents in Fashion Shows and Beauty contests; nor were there the hype on TV reality shows and talent hunts based on Bollywood’s hindi film music.