Describing people of India - West Bengal

Hi everybody!
Travelling around many states of India I touched only some drops of local culture, lifestyle, social approach, relationship between indians and foreigners-indians, and in every states I found different situations.
They were just fast bites, tasted for only for few days, surely conditioned by my feelings, my mood and the randomness that occurring during the trip, but they left a message concerning what i have encountered.

I know, generalize is not totally correct, but try to do a portrait of a community is humanly natural, especially in a colorful place like India.
After my personal experience I can say just simple/trivial impressions like:
people of Rajasthan is surely not shy, in Orissa people seems very helpful and Kind, in Amritsar honesty is a must, in Kolkata young people seems terribly openminded... and so on.
But I'm quite sure that my experience was full of errors, bad perspectives and strongly conditioned by good or bad things happened to me in these days.
Tourists get in touch with a lot of people interested only in some kind of business, giving them in some cases a bad/wrong idea about all the local population. In Jaipur I felt like a human cash-machine (not very pleasant), but I'm sure that Jaipur people are not good represented by those scammers.
At he same time, especially in a travel forum like indiamike, relationship and welcome of local population with tourists should be considered.

So, would be terribly nice to read in each indian states subforum (unfortunately there's not a common page related to Indian social and cultural relationship) about the human contact of tourists with indians but over all about how indians can describe indians bypassing the filtered perspective of tourists, trying to exalt their reasons of pride but, in the same time, not hiding the criticisms.... oblvioulsy without starting any kind of polemic conclusion.
I started with West Bengal for the wonderful feeling I had with people in Kolkata.
So... indians, travellers... how could you describe WB people?

As i'm from Kolkata, just curious to know your experience here in a little bit detail.

Generally I've to say that in Kolkata I felt less tourist comparing to other big cities, like for example Delhi... even near Sudder Street.
I was prepared to a strong impact, due to the high poverty visible on the streets but I was surprised and glad to discover a different situation. Yes, I met a lot of homeless and people in distress, but my personal experience of Kolkata was absolutely far from a suffering city as many people think.
I walked a lot in Kolkata, but I rarely been stopped by anyone interested in doing some "business" with me... just some women with infant asking charity.
However, I met a lot of people very curious to meet other cultures and have a chat asking everythig is possible.
I remember with pleasure a day when I met a group of guys (3 girls and 2 boys, around 27/30 years old) in front of Victoria Memorial and we take some photos together. After a couple of hours I found them again in a metro station and they were incredibly happy to meet me again and they invite me to walk with them to the city. I was glad to accept and we spent a pleasant couple of hours.
Last thing that surprised me was the eyecontact with other people i met (very natural and full of human curiosity), even with girls... an hard experience in other places of India where usually women ignore other people, especially tourists.
The short conclusion of my superfast 3 days Kolkata experience could be reassume in "an openminded, curious and cultured city".

But now I'm also very curious to know about what YOU think about your fellow citizens...

Very interesting.

What is my idea about Calcuttans in general ? It's very difficult to describe. It's like your eyes - the two stay together, work together, but don't look at each other. So to think about fellow city-dwellers who i meet everyday and analyze them - it's the duty done aptly by good writers who are also good observers.

What better way to celebrate my ten thousandth post than on this thread ?


I don't dare to reply to the Original Poster's question. But I have written reams on the subject already in several trip reports. Suffice it to say that the people of West Bengal are unique.

In what particular aspects do you think that people of West Bengal could be different from the rest of India?
For example, but i could certainly be wrong, it seemed to me that they are not totally obsessed with work as in other places...

Nobody is obsessed with work anywhere, apart from few workaholics. Off course, if you look at the Govt. employees you will never find any interest or passion or energy in work. If you look at the private sector you will feel the difference. People in every corner of India work to live, not live to work.

I can sum up the people of West Bengal in three words: adda, obhiman and kobita.

adda
is the art of endless debate, for which Bengalis are rightly famous.

obhiman
is what happens when the debate is taken too far and someone's pride is wounded by a loved one.

kobita
means poetry, and can be used for love or for warfare or indeed in a good adda.

To these three uniquely Bengali facets we can add amazing food. But that would be the subject of a different thread!

[Please do not take my comments too seriously.]


Ramy, please give us more of your observations. It is hard to write in this thread without using stereotypes, which it would be better to avoid.

... not necessary going to Tokyo, you can spend a week in north-east of Italy to find them

Yes, stereotypes are the main problem of this kind of thread. I'm trying to avoid them but on every line I have to correct some words
My aim was not to say or read that people is kind, welcoming, curious and so on... but to try to catch the different shades of people from the different states of India... the problem is that they only come from indian people or indian expert (maybe like you).
Tourists want to read about India from indians, but for indians talking about indians is probably boring
Your "adda, obhiman and kobita" explanation was superb and hit the target. Thank you!
My observations are originated only by some simple experiences, like every tourist can have, some of these very stupid... like a ticket examiner on the train from Kalka to Ambala where I had to get off in the middle of the night and was scared to fall asleep and miss my station. He came to me inviting to sleep without anxieties and 15 minutes before my station he gently wake me up. The sweetest person ever meet on and indian train... and he was from Kolkata.
I need to stop because another stereotype is very close

Another positive thing is that people that worked with tourists (hotels employers, taxi drivers...) ar not pander (hope is a correct word) like in other places, and more "sober".

Ehm... ok the last one. Thinking about the art of debate mentioneb by you, I remember a day on the Kolkata Lake Lovers when a couple of young bank employers started talking to me and spending a lot of words criticising the habits of young people getting pampering in public even in presence of elder people
I innocently replied: "But we are at the Lake Lovers"