The Bengali adda - III
Addas were a form of brainstorming. The addas helped release thoughts that lay dormant beneath a veneer of seriousness. There emerged ideas that resulted in the beginning of an epic or that sowed the seeds of a novel in the mind of its recipient.
Then there were the special occasion addas like when one had to spend the nights at the railway station to get the reservations during Durga Puja vacations. In those days, railway reservations would be available only ten days in advance based on first-come-first-served basis. The counters would open at eight o’clock and if you were not there at the head of the queue, you would have to return empty handed. Therefore, we would finish a hurried dinner and make a beeline for the railway station armed with playing cards, books and magazines to keep us company. Those midnight addas had a charm of their own.
Apart from the venues at railway reservation counters, other venues for addas normally were the tea stalls at every street corner. This is something unique to Bengalis in Kolkata and West Bengal. These tea stalls were the meeting place of all persons of the neighbourhood. Age was no bar and, the occupants were mostly unemployed youth – once one of them got a job, he became an eyesore for others. Similarly, if one of them fell for a girl, he had to pay a price or become an outcast. Yes, Bengalis without addas are unthinkable. But then, as with so many other things, this also is on the way out. The number of educated unemployed has declined, so has the number of youths who were addicted to a pastime called idling. They constituted the core group of addas. With these patrons in short supply, addas are a vanishing culture. In the words of Manna Dey – “coffee houser sheyi addata aaj aar nei ….” (those famous addas of Coffee House are not there any longer)
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