Institute For The Future

Basu, Local communities of participation, Kolkata, 01/10/09

Family Background

Mr Basu is a professor of accounting in a local college in Kolkata. He also works as guest lecturer in the Masters department of St. Xavier’s College and University of Calcutta. He teaches accountancy, taxation, financial management and financial statement analysis. His wife also teaches in the same college as a Reader in Sanskrit. He commutes to college, about thirteen kilometers away from home, primarily by bus and sometimes by metro rail. He lives near Jadavpur University with his wife, parents and two teenage children. His father is 83 years old and his mother is 73 years old. He has lived in the Jadavpur  house for last ten years. For space constraints, he moved to this residence from his earlier home at Bhawanipur, Kolkata. He had lived in the same house for the last 40 years. He is nostalgic and still misses his native home and childhood community.

Domain Specific Questions

Mr Basu served as a treasurer of the local Durga puja committee of his neighborhood. He became the treasurer of the committee since he has a background in accounting. As a member of the durga puja committee, he raises funds for holding the puja celebrations. Fund raising is done by going from door to door asking people to donate money for the puja and looking for sponsors. Depending upon how money they are able to raise they organize dinner for three or four days of Durga puja celebration.He also is a member of North Road House-owners’ Association. Basu considers himself a community person and often gets involved in different types of services and supports to the community members.

We interviewed Mr Basu at his house, and he took us for a tour of the neighborhood. He showed us the land and "pandal" that was donated for Durga puja by a local landowner.

Despite a lot of preoccupations, local people take part enthusiastically in the five-day long Puja. The puja committee members use the money that is raised to organize community eating. On the Navami, the fourth and the most auspicious Puja day, local businesses sponsor the community lunch. For the earlier couple of days, Saptami and the Ashtami, the Puja Committee bears the expenses based on voluntary donations. 

The spot of the Puja pandal – a temporary structure erected where the Mandap, the temporary stage or dais on which the image of goddess Durga is put during the Puja days – was not permanent previously. It had to be shifted from one place to another. Now a permanent small Mandap has been constructed (about three years back) on a very small piece of land donated voluntarily by a community member. Even the cost of raising the Mandap has also been willingly born by a community member having a building promotion business.

 

Technology

Basu plans to buy a computer soon with a broadband internet connection. His children and students are pressurizing him into buying a new computer, and they are advising him about what kind of computer he needs to buy. He has a landline phone that is shared by the family members and his daughter uses a mobile phone.

Trends:

Community feeling fostered by events like Durga Puja is still viewed as vital for an individual’s life.

Younger generations are gradually losing community feelings.

Computer and internet are viewed as more important technology in near future