Talk:Kolkata

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Archives

• 1 Kolkata Culture
• 2 Kolkata Calcutta Debate
• 3 Mother Teresa
• 4 Economy of Kolkata
• 5 Pictures
• 6 Move

Kolkata Culture

The British were part and parcel of Calcutta's culture for over a quarter of a millennia, and yet they are hardly mentioned in the culture section. Their main contribution was (I think) India's first ever newspaper, printed in Calcutta. Not a small thing given the importance of the press in India, but nevertheless, not worth a mention it seems. The influential Asiatic Society (only mentioned in passing in the Eductaion section, but even then not linked to the British), which did so much to introduce Hindu culture, science & philosophy to the outside world, is again, unmentioned. What about Calcutta being the birtplace of William Makepeace Thackaray even? -- Not even worth a link? Obviously not.

But of course, why waste space with the above in the culture section (or anywhere else) when you can write: "Street foods such as beguni (fried battered eggplant slices), kati roll (flatbread roll with vegetable or chicken, mutton, or egg stuffing), phuchka (deep fried crêpe with tamarind and lentil sauce)[....]" etc.

But how stupid of me, obviously fried battered eggplant slices are far more important than anything I have mentioned or 250+ years of Anglo influence. For example, the only reason we don't read about Calcutta's discovery of the cause of the tropic's most virulent killer (malaria) is because it had too much whitey and not enough Bengali behind it.

Let's be adults about this and face facts. There's an anti-British bias to the article, if not in what has been written, then certainly in what has been left out, (smothered by tamarind and lentil sauce perhaps).

Tim / Australia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.184.119.118 (talk) 01:55, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Excuse me while I recover from that staggering display of an Aussie channeling scathing British sarcasm... Ahh, much better. Now, if I've missed some major physical disaster and Kolkata has been sucked into some time warp flinging it back 150 years - such that everything you mentioned is currently relevant to the day to day culture of the city - I will be sure to speak with my therapist and demand an increase in my medical dosage. Oh wait, I just checked, it seems my meds shall remain as they are since Kolkata appears to be firmly rooted in the 21st century. If I'm not very much mistaken, Kolkata is the capital West Bengal, not British India, and is now a center of Bengali culture specifically and Indian culture broadly - not British or even Anglo-Indian culture.

Since you seem to be such a dazzling maven of the British history and impact in Calcutta, why don't you provide your contributions to History of Kolkata, where I'm sure you will find very appropriate grounds to sow your seeds of knowledge.--Taajikhan (talk) 02:55, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Kolkata Calcutta Debate

Calcutta was probably an ANGLICIZED version of "Kalikata" which was one of the fishing villages that the British forged their town of Calcutta out of (of course the fact that the British started Calcutta with three unconnected fishing villages is not mentioned in the article due to its anti-British bias, and if included, it might actually make it sound like the British founded Calcutta - which of course they did.) "Kolkata" is (ironically)probably a Bengalified version of "Calcutta" - as there was never any "Kolkata" prior to the British. Please meditate on this word: ANGLICIZED - that is to say, it was put into an English pronunciation. Hence the word CALCUTTA is English - period, no debate! So, .... a Communist led council in West Bengal in 2001, changes the ENGLISH name of a city into the Bengali name and then tells the world that English must be Bengali - and you people buy it??? Well, I still hear "Calcutta" on the BBC, and even the airline industry still calls it Calcutta, amongst many examples I could give, because almost everybody knows that it's still Calcutta (in English) - but not Wikipedia it seems. But of course the Indians are free to call it whatever they like. So a Marxist regime in Calcutta, makes a ruling that an ANGLICIZED word is no longer English and 300+ years of common English usage must change. Yeah right!!!! It amazes me that there is even a debate whether the article should be called Kolkata, - and yet there is, and it has been. The entire article is just a biased Bengali and nationalistic travel brochure for "Kolkata". There is no neutral historic overview. No mention of outside cultural influence. Any criticism of the city over the last sixty years is minimal, and even the name has been hijacked. I do not want to see the city's modern reputation degraded here, nor do I want to see the British 257 year tenure "window dressed" - but what we have here is the complete opposite, the British 257 year tenure is degraded, and modern "Kolkata" "window dressed" - how about just a bit of neutrality and honesty? The name would be a good place to start.

Tim Barrett —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.216.47.24 (talk) 23:09, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Please go through this failed move request which happened about nine months ago, this earlier move request (which also failed), and this discussion for context. The consensus reached, each time, has been to retain the name as Kolkata. Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 10:09, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Mother Teresa

It is strange that Mother Teresa is not mentioned in this article - not just as perhaps Kolkata's most famous resident, but also in terms of the city's portrayal. I see in her article that she was criticised by Aroup Chatterjee for "promoting a negative image of his home city." She is mentioned, but not discussed, in History of Kolkata and List of people from Kolkata. It does seem this deserves a mention, maybe in a paragraph about perceptions of Kolkata. StAnselm (talk) 05:18, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Economy of Kolkata

This section misses the part of the economic stagnation of the Kolkata during the 70's and the 80's. I think it will be good idea to include part the economic stagnation of Kolkata. Also this section only mentions the economy of Kolkata after 2001 but it does completely missed out the economy of the city prior to that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Anirbandasnet (talk • contribs) 15:20, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Pictures

The pictures on the Kolkata page are very pretty. However, they look absolutely nothing like what Kolkata actually looks like. I find it a little misleading that the pictures display Kolkata this way. Can we at least get a few pictures of what Kolkata looks like when it hasn't been photoshopped to American glory? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.99.41.226 (talk) 10:10, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Move

Kolkata -> Calcutta

The most common English name must be used. --J4\/4 <talk> 13:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

This has been discussed multiple times in the past; the most recent discussion (September 2009) arrived at a consensus that Kolkata had become the most common name by then. Also read this failed move proposal (February 2006) and this debate (May 2007) for further details. Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 13:58, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

This proposal is downright POINTy. Please see Talk:Quebec#Requested move for reference. Favonian (talk) 21:29, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

So what's the general policy? This article uses the official Bengali name, rather than the universally-used English name, while Quebec uses the universally-used English name rather than the official French name. --70.134.48.188 (talk) 14:43, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

The policy is WP:COMMONNAME. Since Kolkata became the official name, also in English, it has become the name most commonly used in English media, similarly to Mumbai. Canada is bilingual, and Quebec is the spelling used in official, English-language documents as well as the one most commonly used in the media. Favonian (talk) 15:38, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

The most commonly-used name, even though it isn't official, is Calcutta. --70.134.48.188 (talk) 19:02, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Since when does the usage of english in another country decide over the usage in the mother countries of this language? Indians can propose, decide or legally change many things, but just because of that no british or american citizen has to change his world map. It's an "native" name and not something that came from the UK or US so in my eyes it's the same category as Moscow, Warszaw, Cologne, Munich, Rome and thousands of other cities where there is an official (native) naming convention and an english naming convention and both are not and will not and even do not NEED to be identical. Using some indian retconning out of this millenium is just the usual PC bullshit that haunts so much of our modern world, overcompensating the guilt complexes routed in hundreds of years of colonialism and imperialism. So the city got a new name in India? nice for it, but not relevant to an encyclopedic work other than in the short section of the article header stating how the natives say for it. Like with Cologne, Aix-la-chapelle, Prague, Rome, Milan... Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Greece, Japan... Nobody ever gave a shit about what's wrong with those. So why start with Calcutta, Bombay, Bejing? --92.50.94.35 (talk) 00:29, 15 August 2010 (UTC)