Calcutta. And her Love Story with Trams.

Feature Image Credit: dailypioneer.com

“রাস্তা চলেছে যত অজগর সাপ

পিঠে তার ট্রামগাড়ী পরে ধুপ ধাপ…”

Tagore

The year is 1873. Calcutta echoes a strong colonial influence, replete in her architecture, alongside an eclectic blend of aristocracy, intellectuals and the working class. This is a very English-setting Calcutta, albeit with sharp contrasts. Books and films of this era showcase a British curated life with Western education and attire amongst the Bengali elite, alongside the rise of the Bengal Renaissance, a historic cultural and intellectual awakening. This is what gives Calcutta her charm. A city of contrasts. Aristocracy and fine living compliment a rise to intellectual freedom of the common man. 

And in this medley of the ruler and the ruled, the aristocracy and the rebellion, Calcutta’s iconic trams chug along at their quiet pace, making way past gothic English architecture, to crowded market places to sprawling greenery. The morning tram ding-dongs and trudges along city lanes, heralding the start of a new day…a classic testimony to the many historic, social and cultural movements the city has stood witness to.

We, who grew up in the 90’s and those before us, are all too familiar with tram shots in iconic Bengali films; trams have occupied a special place in the cityscape, like a woman to her besotted, personifying the soul of the city, a quintessential living symbol of the romance that is Calcutta. Satyajit Ray introduced a running tram in the first sequence of Mahanagar.  Apur Sansar has Apu reading the editorial letter in the tram, a symbol of dreams being realised. Criss-crossing tram wires was the backdrop for the opening scene of Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s Kaalpurush. Trams are showcased as an intricate part of our city and our lives across a host of cinema – Ritwik Ghataks Bari Theke Paliye, Raj Chakraborty’s Parineeta, Nandita Roy and Shiboprosad Mukherjee’s Praktan, Srijit Mukherji’s Ek Je Chhilo Raja and more.

Calcutta conjures up in her catchy syllables an idyllic black and white picture; there’s an old-world charm in it. Iconic Durga Puja (deplete of present-day glitz and pomp), majestic Howrah Bridge, the aroma of roadside phuchka, churmur and jhaalmuri, kites flying in the evergreen Maidan, grand white facade of ancient Victoria Memorial, with her fairy perched atop. And the iconic tram, gently making its way along meandering tracks at its slow sweet pace, knitting the city’s elements together; the old with the new, the quaint with the quirky.

Trams. A small, two cubicle story, with a long vivid 151 years of rich history, of gently rumbling along busy roads and sprawling greens, past colonial architecture and bustling markets. Trams saw Calcutta in her prime, the capital city of British-ruled India and a cultural and political melting pot, greatly influenced by the 19th century Renaissance. The richest subah under the Mughals, our City of Joy witnessed the first horse-drawn trams in India, making their maiden short journey on February 24, 1873 from Sealdah to Armenian Ghat. With a gap of seven years, metre-gauge horse-drawn tram tracks were laid by the famous Calcutta Tramways Company. Later in 1902, Calcutta became the first Asian city with electric trams, traversing between Esplanade and Kidderpore, built by brands like Burn Standard and Jessop. For book lovers of Calcutta, Tram no. 5, running from Shyambazar to Esplanade, is famed for passing through the iconic paradise of books, College Street.  Calcutta hereafter witnessed in the next four decades, many new lines to extend the tram routes throughout the city.

As Calcutta transitioned from being the British capital, with gothic structures to Kolkata, an eclectic mix-bag of modernity infused with tradition, trams kept traversing through the archaic and the contemporary, through quiet greeneries, past colonial structures to vibrant neighbourhoods, bearing testimony to the changing tapestry of a city rich in colours, hues, literature, music and life. 

Today, trams are but a symbol of heritage. As we bid farewell to a splendid journey spanning over a century and a half, drowned beneath the cacophony of progression and modernisation, the rumbling and ding-dong of the trams would continue to ring in our minds. Like a lost treasure, just buried. Much like the recent death of a loved one.