Absurdity unparalleled

Absurdity unparalleled

By Anmole Prasad

A few months back the civil authorities in their wisdom called a general public meeting at the Town Hall to consider the construction of a bus terminus at a site near Novelty Cinema. The agenda and scope of discussion was to also include alternative sites such as Mela Ground and/or Dr. Graham’s Homes play ground for the construction of the bus terminus.

As far as the Civil authorities were concerned, the ‘general public’ of Kalimpong (as invited to the meeting) consisted of our respective Members of Parliament and Legislature, the local Police chief, seven bureaucratic heads of local Government departments, the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of Kalimpong Municipality, local politicos, one Headmaster from a school, the heads of three local clubs, one railway out-agent and one newsagent. Apart from the above, it does not appear that the notice was circulated elsewhere.

I was driving to Gangtok on the day of the meeting when a shocked friend called to give me the news that the Mela Ground was actually under consideration as a possible site for the new bus terminus. I was appalled but could not return in time to make an appearance at the meeting to register my protest.

That the meeting did not settle upon Mela Ground as a site for the terminus is no source of comfort. What is ominously significant is the fact that the possibility was considered at all by the decision-makers of our beleaguered town. After years of neglect, of the squandering of public funds on hare-brained projects and the near-total breakdown of infrastructure, the proposal to build such a major project on our one and only public space shows a frightening lack of imagination and a bankruptcy of vision on the part of not only local leaders but the bureaucracy as well. What callous motives prompted them to even suggest the Mela Ground as a possible site, one will never know, but coming as it does after two-and-a-half decades of regional ‘autonomy,’ one cannot help but feel a sense of doom, a regression to a feudal age where the overlord’s whim runs large.

What does the Mela Ground of Kalimpong mean to us? It is an unprepossessing field as stadiums go. Its architecture is patchy and straggling, having been pieced together over a number of years largely through the efforts of citizens and the doughty old Kalimpong Sports Association. It grows some turf of its own accord during the rainy season and remains gritty for the rest of the year. But it opens to the south of the town in the direction from which the monsoon winds blow in summer, cooling and airing the buildings in central areas of the town, clearing the diesel smog off the Motor Stand. Far off beyond the field, on a clear day, one can see the hills of Suruk and Samthar and the blue sky over the Siliguri plains. In winter, the southerly sun bathes the ground and the surrounding houses with warmth and light. Other towns in the district that cannot boast of such a centrally located public space have had to spend huge sums in creating one even if on the outskirts.

Not a man born and brought up in Kalimpong has but kicked a ball around Mela Ground as a child. The grassy field, as it was then, served as the venue of the town’s football tournaments since the days of Raja S.T. Dorjee who, as legend has it, himself dug the football field out of the meadows along with his labourers. Soccer greats such as Rané, his brother Bhim, Mini (Md. Sporting), Baby, Jerry Basi (Mafatlal; India), Kumar Pradhan, Hém Adhikari, Reginald Namchu, Phuptshering, Kharé Basnet, Pém Dorjee (Md. Sporting), Bhânu Pradhan, Nim Tshering, Shékhéy, Hiru Périwal, Shivratan Périwal, Alamgir Choudhury, Ganjéy, Terence Gomes, Samdup, Chamba, all grew up on its scrubby turf. The likes of Jawaharlal Nehru and Jyoti Basu addressed public gatherings from its manch. During the nineties, the annual Sanskriti mela drew crowds of people during dasai. Every year, agricultural fairs, circuses, melas, Chaat pujas, the Holi sambat and sporting events are held on the ground. Of late, young rockers have found it a lucrative venue for playing high-wattage heavy metal to large audiences. Last year saw Udit Narayan Jha and his troupe stage an impressive music and fashion show for the town and the audience stayed on late into the night, not the least because home was not far away.

If there’s one thing that Kalimpong brings to the district, unparalleled in terms of both energy and scale, the one thing that no other town in the area can match, it is the Independence Day celebrations each year. Since the first day of freedom in August 1947 when my father and his friends rode cheering around town, firing their shotguns into the air, Kalimpong has celebrated each anniversary with incomparable festivity. Independence Day is fiesta time, a day for parades, drills, dances, soccer, beer and food. New suits are tailored for the occasion and people from neighbouring towns throng in droves to Kalimpong for the event. 15th of August in Kalimpong without Mela Ground is something hard to imagine.

But above all, the ground has provided much needed space for children, especially those from poor homes, as a recreation area in an otherwise cramped and heavily built neighbourhood. As a child, I and many other children from the nearby buildings played football and cricket there, flew kites in autumn, marched to the school band as students and learnt our first cuss words from our playmates.

Thus when a brutal proposal to tear down the stadium and replace it with a smelly grease-stained bus terminus is bruited by those very persons who have arrogated to themselves the authority to determine the future of the city (for indeed it has grown to be one), it is a time not only for cuss words, but also for sober reflection on the state of the region. It is also a time for squarely facing the malaise that has stricken us as a civic society and reduced us to timorous, sycophantic and selfish creatures since that sad day in 1986 when Subhash Ghising delivered us his glorious promises from that very Mela Ground.

After the present day ruling party of the Hill turned its gaze upon and took over the reins of the civic body several years ago, one of its strangest obsessions has been with that of endlessly creating more and more space for motor transport. In the late nineties, all the major roads in central Kalimpong were widened, in many cases by demolishing private homes and shops, with the ostensible purpose of easing traffic congestion. Instead of using the newly widened roads for the smooth passage of vehicles, the Municipality along with the bureaucracy and police, converted more than half the road width into parking space. The consequence was that with the parking of vehicles along one side, the ‘widened’ roads became narrower than before and had to become one-way streets. The pavements were reduced to thin strips of concrete so that if two fat ladies with shopping bags stopped for a chat, there was no way of getting past them. The pedestrian became a second-class citizen in his own town. In the meantime, the gatichârâ attitude spread to the fruit vendors, hawkers and shop keepers who with impunity commandeered large sections of the pavements for themselves under the indulgent eyes of the Councillors. Simultaneously Katharine Graham Park became the target of an ill-conceived and ugly Tourist Information Centre built mercilessly against old stonework of the Katharine Graham Gate with scant regard for the piquant and historical houses in the area.

While all this was going on, the numbers of vehicles went up by leaps and bounds for a variety of reasons. With the revision of pay and allowances, many persons in service suddenly found themselves with surplus incomes. Side by side, interest rates fell and a virtual perestroika overtook the finance market. Banks fell over each other to lend liberally to the salaried classes. All of a sudden loans were easily available for all sorts of goodies, including the purchase of cars which themselves became cheaper and cheaper as new models jostled for a share of the market. Every home could afford a Maruti Omni or an ‘800 at the least. A commensurate explosion in construction took place with liberal finance now available at the drop of a pay-check. And so the number of trucks and heavy transport also went up.

In the surrounding countryside, the “Rulers of the Hills” reneged on its promises year after year: there was virtually no investment in agriculture and rural development. Life on the farms became harder and harder and migration to the town became the only answer for many an unemployed youth. With the lack of opportunities in the village and the suburb, scores of young men have taken to driving as a form of employment. The civil administration and the law enforcers which have always encouraged petty criminality amongst Kalimpongers for the explicit purpose of exerting greater control upon them also cast a benevolent eye on the use of private cars as taxis. This state of affairs eminently suited the purposes of the ruling party which has long since relied upon the lumpenisation of the youth as a source of power. And so it did nothing to alleviate the plight of hundreds of unemployed youth. Instead of anticipating and addressing these real and pressing problems, the politicians simply perceived the growing drivers’ unions as potential vote-banks and also as a source of muscle-power and logistical support during elections. Hence this pretended solicitousness in making space for more and more cars, conveniently forgetting that the city does not have infinite amounts of parking space. Hence, ignoring the more pressing concerns of public health, environment, sport, culture, children and youth welfare, the decision makers now have the temerity to suggest that the Mela Ground be converted into a bus terminus.

Aggravating things further was a total failure on the part of both the West Bengal Government and the DGAHC to address long-term town-planning and to expand infrastructure in advance to meet the needs of a burgeoning population. Kalimpong, which had been planned as a small township in the early part of the last century with no investment in infrastructure to sustain such a heavy growth began to come apart at the seams. Some examples of the degeneration can be seen in the appalling state of the roads or the inefficient water distribution system.

Despite the nationalistic posturing and their protestations of mâto ko mâyâ, the politicians have let it generally be known that public property was up for grabs. Unable to fund their private armies completely from Government contracts and vikas yojnas, they have declared an open season upon all public resources; the rampant tree-felling in the forests and farms, the sale of illegal water connections, the occupation and sale of PWD roadside lands, the ‘hooking’ of electricity, all of these have become a source of free income for one and all.

It is understood that the above mentioned meeting settled upon the land next to Novelty Cinema as the site for the new bus terminus, a decision afflicted by the same myopia. The Siliguri experience shows us that a single centralised bus terminus in or near the city inevitably produces the same congestion it seeks to avoid. Terminuses by their very nature attract commercial activity. The Novelty Cinema area is the main exit and approach to the city and is already congested with jeeps, shanties and pushcarts. Further down the area is disfigured with trucks parked dangerously along the bend. What used to be a beautiful walk with the entire Kanchanjunga massif in full view is now obscured by vehicles and shacks. The construction of a bus terminus there would most certainly compound matters further by creating an even more congested bottleneck comprised of incoming and exiting traffic, momo-thukpa-Gold Star dives, hovering taxis, and baggage-toting porters. The final result achieved would merely be the transplantation of the present Motor Stand from one location to another without solving the real problem of congestion. The planners have to realise that the real answer to the problem would be decentralisation of infrastructure with many more and smaller motor stands spread across the city. The north-bound traffic could thus originate from a stand located, say, at Gumba Hatta or even Topkhana and the south-bound from as far a 7th mile leaving central Kalimpong relative free of traffic. This would also enable taxis to cruise from one place to another and get more business. Every bit of vacant land left at the disposal of the city ought to be converted speedily to parking lots before they are overrun by more squatters. But can we look forward to such measures in the near future?

A deep and sinister cynicism has overtaken us all, a sense of not belonging, a habit of not caring. It reveals itself in the sad, shabby architecture of our misshapen and closely-packed buildings (rods protruding on the terrace for that extra illegal floor), in the potholes that have endured for more than a decade, in the bundles of water-pipes that clog every drain and alley, in the mounds garbage that accumulate in front of the State Bank of India, in the roofless stalls of our once-glorious hat bazâr, in the rows of shanties that spring up overnight along the roads, in the jeep that ferries your water or the trickle that comes from the tap.

This is not to suggest in any manner that planning should shut out the poor and the needy, or that the very people who deserve opportunities be shut out from Kalimpong. Rather it is for them and for these very reasons that much is needed to be done in the realm of town-planning, low-cost housing, waste-management, human resource development, education, public transport and traffic management, public health and sanitation, buildings regulation, environment, water distribution, the list is endless. But a solemn duty is cast upon the persons who have chosen to represent us to address these problems with intelligence, with vision, with humility and above all, with honesty.

And an equally solemn duty upon we, the people, to demand it of them.