Ranna Bati
As the city's food and culture become more and more ephemeral, the pice hotels of the city feel like a frame frozen in time. This work presents a few of those frames and takes the liberty of going to the opposite side of the counters and the "ধার চাহিয়া লজ্জা দিবেন না" signboard.
.png)
1959’s food movement in Kolkata screamed slogans of “We won’t die hungry”. Around the similar time Pice Hotels started gaining popularity among people who craved no frills, bit just a simple home cooked platter. From hosting revolutionaries and independence activists to being featured in Bengali cinema, Pice Hotels have been the background to many stories of Calcutta and Kolkata alike.
Only now, when I prepare to leave this city in a few years, does it occur to me that I celebrated this city the first twenty years of my life without knowing it. Born in the central-west, raised in the south and finally living in the north gave me a moreover full experience of Kolkata. In the beginning years I knew nothing about it, and neither did I have any eagerness.
Only now, when I prepare to hand over this book, does it occur to me that I had started walking in this city, and have only walked here. I have witnessed the chaos of Khiderpore market to the quiet unnamed lanes of Sarsuna, Kultala to the puzzling islands of Salt Lake, Sector 3.
Only now, when I prepare to make the final folder of photographs for this book, does it occur to me that I have so much more to experience in my city. It’s not the yellow ambassadors which have now run it’s course, it’s not the Howrah Bridge, it’s not the maach bhaat, it’s not the relentless amounts of cliches about poetry and communism, that makes Kolkata, Kolkata.
Only now, when I prepare to look through the viewfinder of my freshly bought camera, does it occur to me that I had a difficult time gulping the reality. It’s the conch resounding every five minutes as soon as it’s evening, it’s the constant jokes about Behala roads, it’s the ease with which you can address anyone as a family member, it’s the old man’s city that I missed out on.
Only now, when I prepare to put my foot into these heritage hotels, that I chose to showcase, does it occur to me that how hauntingly charming it is to know them personally. The Adorsho Pice Hotel still wakes up at six - there is a steady flow of the city’s hungry blue-collar gig workers to feed after all. Their inflation-skeptic prices, and the now-ancient fixation on quality and efficiency are at odds with the more modern demands of ambience and social-media presence. Yet, the Pice Hotel marches on with pride, detesting our pitiful cappucino-infused, Instagram-coutured glances, towards their inevitable twilight in the cultural mindscape of the city - closing stall; joining the millions of freedom-fighters, struggling actors, hopeful couples, children once-incapable of molding rice with their fists, and the first two generations of workers of an Independent India, and myself, in being uprooted from this garden of Eden, perhaps until the next haata of alu bhaja comes around.
