This place, Coffee House, on a by-lane off the College Street, Kolkata, India, is a nostalgic burden on a Bengali's conscience. Immortalized by the song "Coffee house er shei adda ta aaj ar nei" (the get together at the Coffee house is no more) by the legendary Manna Dey.
Coffee House has been entertaining the cultural illuminati of Bengal, starting from Satyajit Ray to Aparna Sen, Amartya Sen to Shakti Chattopadhyay to many others across generations.
All these thoughts were racing in my mind when on a sultry sunday evening my hubby dragged me to that place for a first look.
Thanks to the GPS, we were able to navigate through the puzzling city roads and reach our destination. Being a Sunday evening, the place was deserted. We were not even sure if Coffee House was open. The nearby shops were all shut. We parked under a dim street light and walked over to the entrance of the famous canteen to find it open.
The old shabby place is a couple of floors high. Next to the entrance on the ground floor is a huge grid of age old electric switches. A curved staircase leads to the first floor, where we see a sign for Indian Coffee House, the door to the right. There are posters and announcements on the surrounding walls advertising about various events like plays, music concerts or even protest marches happening in the neighborhood.
As we entered we were greeted by a gush of hot air, assorted aroma of various food items, an overwhelming stench of the almost visible cigarette smoke and a distinct murmur from all sides.
I realized that the place is massive in height, almost two and half floor above was the ceiling. Ceiling fans dangling from that height offered very little respite. There were just a couple of windows open to air the entire place and that explained the stuffiness.
Big and small groups of people were seating around, young friends or very old ones. We, not being a part of either end of the spectrum, felt a little out of place. We took a table at one end of the room, near one open window. With chicken and mutton "chaap" in hand we tried to take in the 'atmosphere' of the place clinging on to its past.
As for the taste of 'coffee' in the Coffee House, that's another story altogether.
Coffee House has been entertaining the cultural illuminati of Bengal, starting from Satyajit Ray to Aparna Sen, Amartya Sen to Shakti Chattopadhyay to many others across generations.
All these thoughts were racing in my mind when on a sultry sunday evening my hubby dragged me to that place for a first look.
Thanks to the GPS, we were able to navigate through the puzzling city roads and reach our destination. Being a Sunday evening, the place was deserted. We were not even sure if Coffee House was open. The nearby shops were all shut. We parked under a dim street light and walked over to the entrance of the famous canteen to find it open.
The old shabby place is a couple of floors high. Next to the entrance on the ground floor is a huge grid of age old electric switches. A curved staircase leads to the first floor, where we see a sign for Indian Coffee House, the door to the right. There are posters and announcements on the surrounding walls advertising about various events like plays, music concerts or even protest marches happening in the neighborhood.
As we entered we were greeted by a gush of hot air, assorted aroma of various food items, an overwhelming stench of the almost visible cigarette smoke and a distinct murmur from all sides.
I realized that the place is massive in height, almost two and half floor above was the ceiling. Ceiling fans dangling from that height offered very little respite. There were just a couple of windows open to air the entire place and that explained the stuffiness.
Big and small groups of people were seating around, young friends or very old ones. We, not being a part of either end of the spectrum, felt a little out of place. We took a table at one end of the room, near one open window. With chicken and mutton "chaap" in hand we tried to take in the 'atmosphere' of the place clinging on to its past.
As for the taste of 'coffee' in the Coffee House, that's another story altogether.
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