Calcuttascape (Musing of a Globetrotter)

This book grew out of the regular blogs written by Sundeep Bhutoria and his weekly column in the Hindustan Times, Kolkata, titled Cityscape. A peripatetic soul, the writer criss-crosses the world on business and leisure, but his heart resides in his hometown, Kolkata. With characteristic wit and disarming plain-speak, Sundeep writes about a variety of topics - from travel and food to customer services and lifestyle, from art and heritage to environment and gender equality. A keen eye for detail and with a firm finger on the pulse of a city, this collection of columns is an ode to the cosmopolitanism that sits at the very heart of Kolkata, even as it minces no words to point out some shortcomings, as only a loving resident is allowed to.

It gives the reader a glimpse into the journey of a boy from a small town in Rajasthan to the wider world: a world that has given him the scope to take forward his interest in community and artistic causes; a world that has gone beyond the boundaries of his own country and established him as a keen social worker and cultural catalyst.

— Jaya Bachchan

Sundeep Bhutoria is a social and cultural activist working in the field of social welfare, international cultural cooperation and the promotion of Indian arts. He contributes to various newspapers and magazines and has written four other books. The author has also delivered lectures and presentations in eminent universities across the world, including New York University, Oxford Business College, University of Turin and Moscow University, to name a few.

"Travel is the best teacher.”

My family and friends often joke that my real home is my suitcase. While that is, of course, an exaggeration on their part, it is true that I travel a lot, almost on a weekly basis - attending events and meetings, social functions and official engagements across the country and the world. My travels are a huge part of who I am, and have shaped my knowledge, my thinking and my outlook in more ways than I can explain.

I have always been asked about my busy social calendar and experience overseas. And I usually have many stories up my kurta sleeve, from the kindness of a stranger to the strangeness of a friend!

“You must write this somewhere," is a common refrain I would hear whenever I shared these tales.

I had been contributing regularly to various Hindi newspapers as a columnist and sometimes to national English dailies as well. I also started writing blogs over a decade back, and many times these blogs were picked up by newspapers if the content resonated with a particular story they were covering.

Then an English daily in Rajasthan started a travel column with inputs from my blog, and a few regional papers began taking cues from my online jottings as well. At an informal adda, the then editor of the Kolkata City edition of Hindustan Times, Ms. Yajnaseni Chakraborty, who had read my blogs, asked me if I would consider writing about my experiences in the form of a newspaper column. I agreed, and thus was born “Cityscape”.

It started as a monthly column, and then became a weekly, all thanks to the overwhelming response from readers. My columns covered a variety of topics — from travel and food to customer services and lifestyle, from art and heritage to environment and gender equality.

I wrote about what was happening around me, I wrote about the pressing issues of the day, I wrote about grand, luxurious sojourns, I wrote about some of the stalwarts I met in my line of work. The topics were varied, but I always wrote from the heart. Maybe that is why the column resonated with so many readers, many of whom wrote back to share their own experiences and thoughts on the subjects.

Also, because I often wrote about issues affecting the average Indian as a citizen or a consumer, and wrote without prejudice or malice, in many instances, brands and services sat up and took note. They often wrote to me thanking me for bringing the tardiness of their staff to their notice, and promised to improve services.

In some extreme cases of chalta hai attitude or taking the consumer for granted, a couple of reputed brands in this part of the world took a beating after my column exposed their bad business practices or duplicity. And in one particularly happy consequence, an airline adopted a more hygienic safety policy for its crew just days after my column on the issue appeared, as some of the crew members informed me, off the record. One does feel happy when one's words and actions lead to some public good, however minuscule.

Which is why, while I en and thrived on the deluge of and strangers, I was always word, and tried my best ne fact-checked or researched.

There are those who complain that Kolkata has lost its cosmopolitan charm. A city known through centuries for culture and commerce has, perhaps, turned inwards to define itself in terms less ambitious than before. Disgruntled Kolkatans are known to despair of a kind of provincialism in thought and spirit, and a reluctance to experiment and innovate. More than anything, it seems to point at the tragic absence of people who pride themselves in crossing boundaries and opening doors rather than shutting them purely for the sake of self-preservation. There are those who despair, and yet there are some like Sundeep Bhutoria who strive every day in defence of that vanishing spirit.

It is a sheer pleasure to read Sundeep's blogs that are just as vibrant as the world we imagine it to be. Part diary, part reminiscence, part observations on things big and small, part character sketches they are testimony to the kind of cosmopolitanism that in the past had created the necessary dynamism to connect the city to the world. The whirlwind of his life, as captured in these posts, reflects a genuine desire to blend the many and varied experiences into something that's as entertaining as it's thought-provoking.

Among many of the entries there is one about his visit to his native Churu, where he comes upon cremation grounds divided by caste — the "apartheid of death”. There's touching portraiture across as wide a cast of characters as you can imagine. Anecdotes come alive in subtle touches, like a visit to the Rashtrapati Bhavan for tea with the President, organising camel rides in Kolkata, or the poignant crowning ceremony of India's youngest prince. From food to cinema, charity to wildlife, he keeps us engaged in a journey that after a while seems just as effortless as marks of the author's pen.

Sundeep's columns and blogs are neither laboured, nor preachy and pretentious. They are right from the heart of someone who cares and cares deeply about the living values that make our world both inclusive and empathetic.

I am sure you will savour Sundeep's writing, just as I have, in all their mouth-watering tastes.

In the past, people used to maintain diaries or write letters to 1 pen in their thoughts, daily personal and social occurrences and issues that interested them. My father, Taroon Coomar Bhaduri, and my father-in-law, Harivansh Rai Bachchan, were prolific letter writers and diarists. Today, the world had gone viral and blogging is the current means of keeping in touch.

Blogs, like diaries of the past, record the writer's thoughts and preferences, often revealing his or her reaction to situations, current events and giving us a glimpse of personal history. My husband, Amitabh Bachchan, is a keen blogger like many other actors, writers, artistes, activists and political personalities. And the blog fraternity grows every day.

I find Sundeep Bhutoria's blogs interesting as it gives the reader a glimpse into the journey of a boy from a small town in Rajasthan to the wider world: a world that has given him the scope to take forward his interest in community and artistic causes; a world that has gone beyond the boundaries of his own country and established him as a keen social worker and cultural catalyst.

I wish him luck and many future days of happy blogging!

**Contents and Sample Pages**