The Dharmatala traffic junction in Kolkata must be the noisiest place in India. At least it is the noisiest that I have ever been to. Taxis, buses, minibuses honk constantly; conductors of minibuses and private buses shout at the tops of their voices to induce customers and bang on the sides of their vehicles, a dozen at a time: “Gariahat Gariahat!” “Behala Behala!” A hundred pavement hawkers scream at you, peddling wallets, handkerchiefs, nighties, fake international-brand perfumes and everything else under the sun that can be hawked on a pavement. And this tsunami of sound is completed by some small-time politician/ activist shrieking into a microphone over some issue that one can’t decipher in the mad clamour. I am sure if someone measured the decibel level here, it would be the equivalent of what a Boeing 747 sounds like while taking off, with you just 100 m away. I have watched the Rolling Stones perform, standing 20 feet away from the stage with its giant speakers, and trust me, compared with Dharmatala junction, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are timid wankers.

I flee from there to visit my branch office. It’s a heritage Victorian edifice located at the heart of the city’s central business district. The Raj Bhavan and the Eden Gardens are nearby. So are the state secretariat and the beautifully restored riverfront. Almost every large corporation has its Kolkata office within a radius of three km. I stand at the gate of our building with a colleague for nearly half an hour, smoking. After about 15 minutes, it strikes me that in all this time, we have not seen a single person pass by who looks upper-middle class. The highest-priced cars that have passed were Indica-s. There is an Innova parked across the road, but that is a car for rent. I tell my colleague this, and he is not surprised-he has noticed it too.

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