Chinatown

 

A red lion dances through the narrow streets,

Onlookers create content

While eating Puchkas and momos

In equal proportions.

 

At Tangra, I wonder,

Of these migrants from far -

Do these people not miss home?

Do they even remember the price?

 

Guangdong for Gariahat

Taiwan Strait

For the tanneries of Tangra,

That umbilical cord thins with time

 

I look at the faces –

Those eyes, those cheek bones

Now used to the heat

The malarial mosquitoes

The rosogolla

The mishti doi

Eating maach bhat with hands,

Not jasmine rice with chopsticks

 

Do these people not miss home?

Do they even remember the price?

Perhaps, they define

Evolution in modern times

 

Speciating here in Calcutta

Not conforming to the past

But creating a new future

A fading community, but head held high

 

Exporting chilli chicken

And gobi Manchurian

To a hungry nation

And an inquisitive world

 

How long the lion will dance –

Who knows?

But the prints left behind

Will fossilize for sure

 

An old bhadralok

Eats hakka noodles at a shack

The owner talks in bangla

Perhaps there is no more price…

 

Tangra is home to one of the oldest Chinese communities in India. Beginning in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, migrants—primarily Hakka Chinese from southern China—settled in eastern Calcutta, establishing tanneries, leather workshops and small businesses. Over generations, they built a unique Indo-Chinese culture, blending Chinese traditions with Bengali life. Tangra became famous for its restaurants, where dishes such as chilli chicken, Hakka noodles and gobi Manchurian evolved into a distinctly Indian-Chinese cuisine. Although the community has dwindled through emigration, Tangra remains a remarkable testament to migration, adaptation and the creation of a new cultural identity far from home.