Bengali and not from Kolkata

Yes! We do exist and we are as or even more Bengali than people of Kolkata.

At the very beginning of this post, let me make one thing very clear, Kolkata is a city and not a state. The state is West Bengal or preferably Bengal. There are many other cities in Bengal and some of them are very far from Kolkata. All Bengalis do not stay in Kolkata and do not need to either.

I may sound very stupid but trust me, how some people seems to believe is that the state is called Kolkata. Recently when I had been to Bengaluru and people asked me where am I from and I used to say Durgapur and their reaction would be like, 'O! Its in Kolkata?'. Very similar would be if someone hears me speaking Bangla somewhere outside Bengal and they would be like, 'O! You are from Kolkata?' Come on folks, grow up! Every Marathi is not from Mumbai and every Kannadi is not from Bengaluru.

There can be two sides to this issue, one is that simply people are too ignorant to understand basic Geography and the difference between state and city. Secondly, the other reason maybe that most of the people belonging to different parts of Bengal when asked about their hometown, they simply say 'Kolkata' because that saves time of making the other person understand where exactly the hometown is located. This has, in turn, created a notion that all Bengalis belong to Kolkata.

Moving over that, people from Kolkata usually have a very strong belief that everything in Bengal and outside Kolkata is maphoshshawl (suburbs) which is not at all true and trust me at times its very irritating to keep hearing it. Kolkata is a metropolitan city and there is no other metropolitan city in Bengal, I agree but everything that is not metropolitan cannot be suburbs. The administration and companies has also stopped acknowledging the Bengal outside Kolkata because most of the time all the developments and projects are in and around Kolkata, be it launching a new product or construction of roads and flyovers which is very unfair.

Bengalis from Kolkata also tend to believe that they are the best breeds of Bengali on earth but again that is not true because when one is considered the finest breed of Bengali, it is very important for that person to speak Bangla wonderfully which we find in purer forms in people from outside Kolkata whereas nowadays in Kolkata people tend to use more of English words while speaking Bangla and feel proud about it. Its there everywhere that I know but we still get to hear pure Bangla is villages and towns outside Kolkata which makes me feel very good. Somehow, I cannot take it happily when two Bengalis or Marathis or Tamilians or whatsoever keep conversing in English among themselves. 

The whole post may seem like am an anti-Kolkata person which am absolutely not and I love Kolkata a lot as a city, there is no metropolitan city in India like Kolkata. The only thing that i wanted to say time and again through this post is that there is a big and beautiful Bengal outside Kolkata too, please do acknowledge it.



Comments

  1. Debtanu24 December 2015 at 00:11

    I liked it bro.... So very true... Even the development of Bengal has become Kolkata centric.. Which is so very wrong!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Saptarshi24 December 2015 at 00:28

      Right! And that is what has kept the maphoshshawl notion in the minds of many people

      Delete
  2. Unknown24 December 2015 at 00:24

    Its really a good one.
    :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Tanujit24 December 2015 at 02:12

    Wonderfully written and very clearly expressed your concerns....Its always a pleasure to go through your posts...which you should write more often!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Saptarshi24 December 2015 at 11:52

      Thank You so mach :) I will surely try and write more often.

      Delete

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