I am writing this because I am angry and disgusted. Nowadays, I restrain my urge to be vocal about every single instance that perturbs my intellect and logical sense of being. I started accepting why a particular way of living makes sense for many, why capitalism is needed for the mass and why rationality and common sense are not abundant. Though I hardly subscribe to the worldview that people around me endorse, I simultaneously accepted that here is the essence of life – in diversity and in the difference of perspectives. You have a topic to ponder upon and question only when you are surrounded by people who think differently. Life offers you a myriad of mindful or even mindless exchanges that slowly make you a thinker and executor.
Such an approach, though empirically true, is nevertheless unacceptable when it collides with the truth that your idol or your dear people advocate. I have no qualms in acknowledging the difference between an individual or two, but any hegemonic endorsement of a dominant culture is perilous. Hence, when people go crazy on short videos and reels simply because our patience quotient is decreasing because of the opulence of accessibility to resources, it is communally hazardous.
Last night, this is what Someplace Else and #THEParkKolkata offered us. And they are no fool. They know why such a communal, cultural crisis is also a product. They are adept at how to turn our lack of sensibility into a perfect mercantile, intangible commodity.
Ironically, what they do not realise is that such commodities are transient; hence, you need to search continuously for the next day's sensation. You need a cumulative increase of your budget on your social media experts and sales professionals and hunt every day for organisers and new netizen idols. Contrarily, promoting unacknowledged talents of Indian and Western music - they are lucky to operate in a city where there is no such talent crunch- not only is cost-efficient because they would charge you low but also it is 'commercially prudent' to encourage what matters for a long run, in turn making the budgetary expenses much under control. There will be no recurrent cost on promotions, social media marketing (these musicians would feel fortunate enough and take care of the network effect of social media marketing themselves), talent search and no mindless brain-draining activities. And guess what? As a result, they can even become an icon of corporate social responsibility by significantly decreasing the brain drain in the domain of organic music.
This is my elegy to a place which stays so close to me since my boyhood: Park Street. As a teenager, I used to stand in front of The Park indulging in an indolent daydream that once I get a job, I would spend my evenings there. I kept my promise. Every weekend, in the morning you might find me at Allen Park with a notebook, or in the evening with a glass of draught beer at the Street, Park hotel or with a Bud magnum at Golden Dragon, Silver Grill or One Step Up. I grew up witnessing the materialisation of my dream. But Park Street is turning lacklustre, devoid of its antic grandeur not because this ‘me’ and that teenage boy standing at Park Street fifteen years ago are no longer the same but for “lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.” In the heart of this street, there was always a capitalist and mercantile class, but they knew what matters to the people for generations. Hence, the Park Hotel stands supreme even now thanks to its forefathers’ economic insight.
I am sceptic if this will still be the case for the futurity.
19 February 2022
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