‘Kolkata tram is a link between life and literature’

Kolkata tram: A cultural icon in literature and film, facing uncertain future as government considers shutting it down.

A link between life and literature — that’s how Sabyasachi Chatterjee describes the Kolkata tram, which has served the city for 151 years but whose exit appears an inevitability at the moment with the West Bengal government no longer interested in running it.

“As a professional historian, I have deep interest in socio-cultural history of Bengal, but I have studied trams out of passion. I have felt for the tram from my school days, and later, as an environmental activist, I realised that the tram is a vehicle that does not pollute,” said Dr. Chatterjee, associate professor of history at the Kalyani University.

His article glorifying the tram, appearing in the reputed Bengali literary magazine Krittibas in July 2023, was widely shared on social media after the State’s Transport Minister indicated this week that his government was in favour of shutting down the tramway except one route for tourists.

“Tram is an integral part of Kolkata, the City of Joy. Many, many decades ago, Rabindranath Tagore had written a poem called Swapna (dream), in which he had described a scene from a dream. The dream was about Kolkata. He wrote how the roads of Kolkata had become like a snake on which the tram carriage was hurtling. This features in Sahaj Path, meant for children. Thus, for generations, childhood in Bengal has been associated with the tram of Kolkata,” Dr. Chatterjee said.

“Sunil Gangopadhyay, the celebrated novelist and a romantic poet of Bengal, had created a fictional muse called Neera. In one of his poems, he likens Neera’s moods to the movement of a tram: she gets highly disturbed when a tram is forced to halt,” he said. “In Kalbela, the second part of a noted trilogy by Samaresh Majumdar, the hero, Animesh, arrives in Kolkata to the sight of a tram set on fire. So you see, tram is omnipresent in Bengali literature.”

The tram played an important role in films by Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen and Buddhadeb Dasguta. Mr. Ray’s Mahanagar, in fact, starts with the tram featuring in its title card. Mrinal’s film Interview, again, has the tram figuring prominently. And one of Bengal’s most revered poets, Jibanananda Das, was actually killed by a tram in 1954.

“He was hit by a tram on Rashbehari Avenue in south Kolkata. I remember, one afternoon in the 1990s, I was reading the biography of Jibananada Das and I got to know the details of the accident. It had happened in front of Shelley Cafe, which doesn’t exist now. After finishing the biography, I went to the spot that very evening. Silently I stood there for a while, in front of the café,” Dr. Chatterjee said.