A still from Kim Ki-duk’s 3-Iron

Can good cinema exist without cigarettes? The debate is on at the 14th Calcutta Film Festival.

Smoking is injurious to health and banned in public places. But not in Nandan. At least not during the film festival. If you are watching films and giving the puff a miss, you may feel more alienated than South Korean film-maker Kim Ki-duk’s protagonists, while deconstructing his disturbing, idiosyncratic films.

A smoke, for some men and women, is still the best thing, with tea or coffee, to aid the thought process, which is quite necessary during a film festival. “There are so many things in India that need to be banned. Why single out smoking?” asks actor Rudranil Ghosh, for whom Nandan means “lebu cha and cigarettes”.

Many subscribe to Rudranil’s way of thinking. “I can’t think if I don’t smoke. We come here in a huge group and after every screening we catch up over a smoke. We connect with so many others over cigarettes whom we wouldn’t have known otherwise. It boosts our energy level. Isn’t that healthy?” demands 28-year-old content-writer Rituparna Das.

No wonder “buddhir goraye dhoan deoa” (stimulating the brain-stem) is a euphemism for smoking in Bengali.

But of course there are the nay-sayers. There are some who like to think, but not to smoke. “I don’t understand how people get away with everything in Calcutta. How is it that nobody is bothered? There’s a couldn’t-care-less attitude among Calcuttans always. How can people smoke so openly?” charges Shayan Chattopadhyay, a PhD student at Jadavpur University.

Chicken Internet

Kim Ki-duk, with his half-a-dozen films — Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring; 3- Iron; Samaritan Girl; The Bow; Time; and Breath — is the top draw at the film festival, along with “Chicken Internet”. If Kim is food for thought, it’s Chicken Internet that the Nandan regulars are gorging on, when not speaking metaphorically.

Priced at Rs 14, the soft patty with a zig-zag pattern on top with a minced chicken filling, teamed with a thick, tangy mustard sauce, is the ideal bite, especially with the nip in the air. It’s a box-office hit. “Chicken Internet is a quick and filling meal. We buy our stock from a confectionery and sell around 40-50 pieces on normal days. But it’s a lot more during the festival. These seven days we sell more than 70-80 pieces every day. More and more people throng in the evening to dig into a hot Chicken Internet,” says Sunil Barui, the owner of Prangan, the stall near Nandan 1.

“I catch up at least three films a day since 9am and have one Chicken Internet every day,” laughs Shaheli Mitra, who used to teach cinema.

But why is it called Chicken Internet? Because it’s fast, it’s easy, it’s cheap, it’s useful. May be more than the original Net at times!

Military paint

A still from Kim Ki-duk’s 3-Iron A military vehicle gets a fresh coat of paint on Bentinck Street. Picture by Amit Datta (right)

Ever since Orient cinema on Bentinck Street shut down a few years ago, the road that used to remain busy till well after midnight has become a quieter place.

Fewer cars are parked here after hours. So some people have taken this opportunity to turn the kerbside into their private motor repairing garage. At all hours of the day one can now hear the ear-piercing staccato noise of metal being hit with another piece of metal. Cars are being beaten into shape.

This is absolutely illegal activity but a few bucks thrown at the police, the local dadas and the Calcutta Municipal Corporation staff can work wonders. But there is a limit to everything, and perhaps it is only in Calcutta that one would ever catch a military Jeep being given a fresh coat of paint at a roadside garage.

In such cases do the authorities intervene, or do they behave like one of the three proverbial monkeys who sees no evil?

Sourav Ganguly

Dada retirement plan

Now that there is no Sourav Ganguly to cheer for on the field or cry for, when dropped from the team, what will the Bengali do? What will he talk about — over the morning cuppa, on way to office, at lunch or better, at any Sourav-induced break? What will he dream of at night, or at daytime?

Ever since the Prince of Calcutta announced that the Australia series would be his last, a threat was looming over a lifestyle statement of all true-blue Bengalis. But the past week has brought relief. Nature abhors vacuum. The Bengali nature abhors a vacuum left by Sourav.

So the great Bengali pastime now is to predict (or prescribe) how best the former cricketer should make use of his time. “Bultu, how old were you when your father retired?” started a 63-year-old Jethima, casting a worried look at a photograph of Dada. “Just think, such a small daughter and the father already retiring!”

Pishima was more pragmatic. “Doesn’t he have a hotel on Park Street? He will now sit at the cash counter. Such are times that you cannot trust employees with money matters.”

Pishemoshai, who was silent all this while, appeared from behind the day’s newspaper. “He is holding it back. He is not telling anyone the real story. He is putting it together, in secret, piece by piece, in a book. When it comes, it will blast everyone into shreds,” he announced and retired from the room.

(Contributed by Kushali Nag, Soumitra Das and Sudeshna Banerjee)