The newspaper was in my hand after a decade. First page: stolen bicycle. Last page: a poem about the Hooghly river. I read the poem.
Kolkata is a city of newspapers. Bengali newspapers. English newspapers. Morning newspapers. Evening newspapers.
I grew up reading them. Then I stopped. For 10 years, no “kolkata newspaper”.
Last month, I was in Kolkata. I bought one out of nostalgia. I opened it. I was surprised.
What I found in the newspaper
The first page had:
A stolen bicycle (really? front page?)
A political statement (same as yesterday)
A crime in a distant neighborhood
The middle pages had:
Ads. Lots of ads.
Bollywood gossip.
Cricket scores.
The last page had:
A poem about the Hooghly river.
A letter from a reader about a park that needed cleaning.
A small story about a school that won a science competition.
I read the poem. Twice. I read the letter. I read the school story.
Then I closed the newspaper.
What the newspaper seller told me
I asked the newspaper seller: “Why is a stolen bicycle on the front page?”
He laughed. “Because there is no real news. Kolkata is peaceful. So they fill pages with small things. Blow them up.”
“The stolen bicycle? It was one bicycle. From one house. But the newspaper wrote it like a bicycle theft wave.”
“The poem? That's real Kolkata. But it's on the last page. Because poetry doesn't sell. Fear sells.”
What Kolkata newspapers miss
I spent a week in Kolkata. Here's what I saw that no “kolkata newspaper” showed me:
The Howrah bridge at sunset. Golden. Crowded. Alive.
The book stalls at College Street. 100 years of knowledge.
The tram that still runs. Slow. Peaceful. Old.
The coffee house where artists and writers still argue.
The mother feeding stray cats near her home.
The young man selling books on a cycle. He knows every title.
This is Kolkata. Not the stolen bicycle. Not the political statement. Not the crime.