Comrades & camaraderie

Memories and associations have a strong role to play in creating the fabric of a city’s history. The demolition of the house at 46 Dharmatalla Street, known as Lenin Sarani now, apart from being a pointer to the little value attached to culture in Bengal today, obliterates an entire episode of the Leftist movement in Bengal.

It is also a joke on this city, the country’s cultural capital, for in place of this building, which stood witness to the flowering of the performing arts, emotional poetry reading sessions, and heated debates, will come up one of those concrete and glass office buildings that have disfigured Calcutta.

So vital was the building to the efforts of the undivided Communist Party of India to reach out to the masses through the media of songs and theatre that Leftist intellectual Chinmohan Sehanabish has left behind an entire book whose title recalls the once-famous address. This culture hub was not just a stronghold of the Leftist doctrinaire. The young and old applied their minds and talents to the business of creating literature, music and stage plays that would sway the masses. Their fervour and energy attracted not only Left-inclined men and women but even those who were at the other end of the political spectrum like Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay.

Full report here Telegraph