ADDA INFINITUM

The new academic session for my son’s school had commenced. I was required to deposit his fees in a nearby branch of a Bank. Accordingly after dropping him to school and before going to my office, I proceeded to the designated branch for the purpose. I was directed to a dedicated counter receiving the payment. A young man sitting across the counter was in the midst of an animated discussion with a colleague sitting in the adjacent counter as others looked on. The bits of the conversation are reproduced below:

“Where were you yesterday morning?

The guy across my counter replied: “I had gone for a haircut.”

“During office hours?”

“Of course! My appointment letter says that whatever you do, do it during the office hours!’ 

While the other guy, who appeared to be quite amused at this argument and was in the middle of his next query to take it to a logical finish, I addressed my handler: “Dada I am in a hurry. Will you please…” Even before I could complete my request, he glared at me and disapproving this interjection raised his voice: “Dekhchhen na katha bolchhi? (Can’t you see I am in a conversation?).

Snubbed and browbeaten, I realized how intensely my friend across the counter missed an Adda compelling him to recreate one during the business hours on a working day in office. As Mathew Arnold, an English poet in his famous poem ‘Scholar Gypsy’ would say “This strange disease of modern life/ With its sick hurry, its divided aims” made it impossible for him to take a siesta, have a bath, wear a kurta- pyjama , slip on a hawai chappal and walk over to join his regular adda group in the afternoon. I later realized that my appropriate reaction to this dialogue should not have been one of anger or dismay but of compassion and empathy for his loss of a treasured activity.

It is exactly 411 meters radius of a walkway in this small park nestled in thick foliage and shaded by trees where I take my morning walk. The park is beautified and maintained by an adjacent nursing home.  In the midst is a natural water body inset with fountains that spring to life exactly at 6 in the morning. A lot of men and women of various sizes and shapes walk here - clockwise or anticlockwise. Some like me walk alone, some walk in groups of two or more, while some others, particularly ladies in a group would want to walk in a single file, occupying the entire narrow road width. Many of them walk briskly and others at a languid pace. Some others are propelled by a trail of posterior emissions that they blaze across the park trying to settle a score with the Mother Nature. Yet some others in violation of permissible decibel limits discuss the share-market and the economic policies of the Modi government scaring the chirping birds into silence. All told, this seems to me the mobile version of the fabled Adda. But wait.

On one of the corners of the park there is an elevated platform with a huge tree covering it. As the hour strikes 6, a young man appears regularly from nowhere with a stack of chairs that are set on this elevated platform in a circle. Not content with the mobile adda, a group of morning walkers then parks itself on these chairs and the real adda commences. The animated discussions, arguments, loud laughter and combined cacophony tend to disturb the ecological balance and threaten to drive the morning quiet and serenity out of the park.

Amartya Sen has found all Indians to be argumentative. After all, India is the largest and most vocal democracy in the world. Democracy is just another word for argument. Our parliamentarians will vouch for it.  As one writer has observed: 'Perhaps Shakespeare’s Hamlet was a Kolkatan as his famous self-argument shows: To vhi or not to vhi, / That eej thee kweschon….'

Argument is the essence of adda, its life line and its oxygen. If two, or more, people agree to the same viewpoint, there cannot be an adda. But if they see the same thing in two, or several different angles, there is the right opening to an adda based on the n^th scientific principle that every argument must have an equal and opposite argument.

Even before you could say Siraj ud Daula, Clive had won the battle of Plassey and laid the foundation for 200 years of British rule while they were busy arguing. After 34 years in power, the Marxists got themselves so embroiled in internal argument as to whether they were still communists or capitalist property brokers that they wouldn’t know when the tables turned on them. Adda, like history repeats itself.  

Adda, a term roughly translating to community chat sessions is a form of brain storming. The adda releases the thoughts of individuals that lie dormant. As an active participant of an adda one always has something to say. Whether or not he has solutions to problems, he always has an opinion. Topics for the adda are wide-ranging: from religion to politics, from football to mangalyaan, from Che Guevara to Albert Camus, from Ritwik Ghatak to Satyajit Ray, the list is unending. At times, some local adda can revolve around idle gossip about some local happenings or  a certain celebrity's   romantic escapades. 

As can be noted, the venue of the adda could vary depending on the context and milieu: that roadside shop next door selling tea, samosa and jalebi, the office or college canteen, some one’s residence or a  park or late at night on a pavement, around the carom board with a light bulb hanging overhead, powered by the street lamp-post.

In Kolkata, ‘Coffee House’ located on the College Street, has a great reputation of being the next level venue of adda for poets, writers, journalists, artists, philosophers, theatre  persons etc. who frequent it to have stimulating conversations, discussions and arguments over several cups of coffee. Sadly, however, it appears that it has somewhat lost its folklore glory of the past; it is not the same now. This has led to Late Manna Dey’s popular lament: Coffee-house e shei adda ta aaj aar nei…

Premendra Mitra was a renowned Bengali poet, novelist, short story and thrillers writer and film director. He was the creator of the famous fictional character Ghanada, who is the central attraction of all the addas.  Even after 40 years of its release who can forget Soorma Bhopali of Sholay and his tall stories keeping his audience mesmerized. The character played by Robi Ghosh in Satyajit Ray's "Agantuk" asks a pertinent question: ‘Rabindranath ki adda diten?’ (Did Tagore ever engage in adda?).

Many believe that the concept of adda is as alive as ever notwithstanding the phenomenal advances in electronics and communication technology. Others feel that it is gradually dying. Yet some others see a steady decline in the laid-back community gatherings and frequent meetings as Face book, Twitter, chat rooms and text messaging take their place. kothay hariye gelo shonali bikel gulo shei aaj aar nei (where have we lost those golden afternoons?)…

And will there be a final word in this never-ending argument? Doesn’t seem like so. For there can be no end to an argument. Which leads to a further argument that if there’s no end to the argument, then where does the argument end? Is that an end to the argument? Will there be any final word to an argument?  An arguable point indeed. We shall argue over it during our next adda…