Bengalis and their ‘dada-giri’ lifestyle

Bengalis have always been very much ahead of other communities because, as the famous saying goes ‘what Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow’. These famous words were uttered by none other than Gopal Krishna Gokhale and, appears to be valid even today – may not be in the way Gokhale had envisaged but Bengal does take the lead in all fields that require less of brawn and more of brain.
Bengalis love to write poems and have invented a concept called ‘little magazine’ – some of these are ‘little’ in size as far as the number of pages go. When these little mags came on the scene in the 1960s, it was the age of letter press printing. And, sometimes a couple of individuals, caught by the writing bug, would pool their financial resources to get a little mag printed. The contents would be poems dedicated to the girl who remains in their imagination.
The little mag would be a method to get it out of the system and, the novelty would wear off once he young man got hold of a job.

Another proof of Bengalis are the innumerable tea stalls at every street corner – the owner opens the shutters at daybreak and shuts down at night. And, as long as he is awake, he is kept busy serving out tea to his clientele.
Usually, most of them are locals and known faces. They will drop in, snatch the day’s newspaper, glance through the headlines, select a topic and proceed to create a storm in the teacup.
The topics could be anything from Tasleema Nasreen to Narendra Modi, from football to tennis, from the rising prices of onions to the murder of a local ‘dada’. ‘Dada’ means ‘big brother’ and, Bengalis all over the country are known as ‘dada’. It is believed to be a respectable address unlike in some parts of the country where ‘dada’ means a rowdy character.
Of course, ‘dada-giri’ is a different kettle of fish altogether – especially, after the popularity it has gained as a gameshow on a TV channel, thanks to Bengal’s blue-eyed boy Saurav Ganguli. (to be continued …)
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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