{"id":4808,"date":"2016-06-23T00:19:28","date_gmt":"2016-06-22T18:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=4808"},"modified":"2016-06-23T00:19:28","modified_gmt":"2016-06-22T18:49:28","slug":"beep-festival-bengal-culture-progressive-bong-bjp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=4808","title":{"rendered":"With the Rise of the Beep Culture, What Will Happen to the \u201cProgressive\u201d Bong?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I<\/span>t took 30 years for poriborton to come to Bengal. But once the argumentative <\/p>Bengali<\/span><\/a> had a taste of this heady brew, there was no going back to that earlier staple of \u201ccholche cholbe\u201d the Left Front\u2019s slogan. It loosely translates to \u201cWe will carry on with whatever we are doing.\u201d But for the woman who was inspired by Barack Obama\u2019s historic \u201cChange We Can Believe In\u201d campaign, poriborton has came back to haunt her. Bengalis want a change from the change, and we want it, like, yesterday. From the looks of it, blue is bleeding to saffron in the city. <\/span>\n\nBeef<\/span><\/a> was recently beeped out at an ill-fated food festival, which was eventually called off. At a different time in history, Arjun Kar, the young host of the meat festival, would have been the poster boy of the city\u2019s cosmopolitan and inclusive spirit. Sadly, he seemed to tick all the wrong boxes this year. The moment news of the \u201cBeef and Pork Festival\u201d went viral, the team was inundated with threat calls. It was not enough for them to change the name to \u201cBeep Festival\u201d, they eventually had to call it off, unsure of the violence that awaited the hundreds of <\/span>foodies<\/span><\/a> who had paid for the fest. <\/span>\n\nThe Beep Festival\u2019s cancellation was perhaps just a trailer for the grand release of the <\/span>BJP<\/span><\/a> blockbuster that seems almost inevitable. There are some who are delighted that all their predictions of a cultural clampdown are coming true, thanks to the \u201cbetrayal\u201d of the 23 per cent (according to poll data) that decided to vote in favour of the BJP. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\n\n\u201cBesh hoyeche\u201d is the Kolkata state of mind these days. In other words, serves you right. And it is directed in <\/span>anger<\/span><\/a>, fear, and foreboding toward no one in particular but everyone in general. <\/span>\n\nNow that the Beep Festival has met an ignominious end, the Besh Hoyeche gang predicts worse during the time of <\/span>Durga Puja<\/span><\/a>. Forget chicken rolls and mutton biryani, have Navratri special sabudana khichdi at the pandals instead. If that\u2019s not enough to make every self-respecting Bengali lose his sanity, what is? There is also the possibility of enforcing a ban on mutton, every Bengali\u2019s celebratory meat, since Netaji\u2019s grandnephew and BJP\u2019s Vice-President for Bengal Chandra Kumar Bose claimed on Twitter that the goat is our mother. <\/span>\n

For decades the Bengali cultural arrogance has divided the world into two kinds of people \u2014 Bengali and non-Bengali<\/blockquote>\nIt doesn\u2019t stop at the food apocalypse. There is more bad news from the north. <\/span>Darjeeling<\/span><\/a>, a symbol of Bengali pride (and also where our predecessors roamed the tea estates on horsebacks and entertained European guests), is slipping away. If the BJP continues with its strategy of winning over councillors who will work towards breaking away from Bengal, one half of Bengalis would definitely press that Besh Hoyeche buzzer again. <\/span>\n\nFor decades the Bengali cultural arrogance has divided the world into two kinds of people \u2014 Bengali and non-Bengali. There was a special kind of disdain for those from the North, unless they came with potatoes in the <\/span>biryani<\/span><\/a> \u00e0 la Wajid Ali Shah. Our superiority as race over the rest of the world was wired into our heads from the time we have been in our mothers\u2019 wombs. Now that we have paved the way for those whom Mamata Didi calls \u201coutsiders\u201d, irony is about to jump off the top of the Victoria Memorial dome as those same \u201coutsiders\u201d are trampling all over the rubble of our cultural and racial pride.<\/span>\n\nThe next few years (or maybe months?) could see history being rewritten, places renamed, and people forgotten. Naysayers are predicting terrible things. The legendary <\/span>Ramzan food<\/span><\/a> trail at Chitpore, in the graceful shadow of the Nakhoda Masjid, could well disappear. For the multitudes that throng these skinny alleys for selfies with Adam\u2019s sutli kebabs, haleem, biryani, bakarkhani, and other delicacies, while shopping for attar and mojris, this year things were ominously different. Even before the election results came out, there were fewer stalls selling the cautiously named beep kebabs. The mood was definitely far more downbeat and solemn. And even though a grand photo opportunity was created for the celebratory namaz near the Victoria Memorial maidan, the josh was not as high. <\/span>\n\nNow, the aristocratic families of North or South Calcutta, who are happy with the BJP\u2019s gains in the city, cannot really tell anyone that their <\/span>relatives<\/span><\/a> living abroad love a good steak. Or that beef is also their occasional choice of meat when they gather at the colonial-era clubs to enjoy a good scotch and discuss politics. The poriborton that began with the collapse of the Left Front has snowballed into something unrecognisable, and soon Bengal may no longer be Bengal, but UP-by-the-sea.<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To some Bengalis who felt betrayed by those who voted for the BJP during the Lok Sabha elections, the Beep Festival\u2019s cancellation was merely a trailer for the blockbuster cultural clampdowns that are sure to follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":320,"featured_media":4809,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[8455,8456,3045,2256,8457],"class_list":["post-4808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pov","tag-beep-culture","tag-beep-festival","tag-bengalis","tag-bjp","tag-lok-sabha-elections"],"yoast_head":"\nWith the Rise of the Beep Culture, What Will Happen to the \u201cProgressive\u201d Bong?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"To some Bengalis who felt betrayed by those who voted for the BJP during the Lok Sabha elections, the Beep Festival\u2019s cancellation was merely a trailer for the 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