Urban Legends: a Study Of Kolkata And Suburb

Legends may be considered as local history. They can be associated with local folk belief and customs or without it. A legend contains a story of a particular time with a particular place which depicts an incident of recent past. Legends have various divisions, among them urban legend is a new concept to analyze those stories which are circulated around the urban areas or the cities. It is an important part of city-lore. Urban legend is necessarily urban; the stories of urban legends usually reflect an unknown history of modern life in cities or suburbs.

Kolkata, as any other metro city, has an affluent history. Often those histories are connected with a legendary incident.Cemeteries, old mosques, Ghats of the Ganges often tale stories about the rich heritage and the glorious past of the city. Those urban stories are unabated part of the history of Kolkata.

Aim and objectives of the paper: In this paper I will discuss those legendary stories that are the integral part of Kolkata’s urban life.

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As we know that legends often treated as history, the folkloric history of Kolkata will be disclosed in the paper. Kolkata has a diverse cultural background .The formation of these diverseness is lurking behind its urban history. Oral legends are the documentation of the past history of this metro city. So in this paper I will analyze those legendary stories to find out its glorious past.

Methodology: The paper is based on primary and secondary data collected from various sources.

I have collected primary data by conducting field work of some historical places of Kolkata and its suburban areas. The secondary data has been collected from various books, newspapers and internet blogs.

At the beginning of my paper, I should give a clear understanding about legends and urban legends. Legends are basically oral stories, connected with an incident, any place or any historical being. In legends the stories are believed to be true. There is a point of possibility and the incidents may be considered as rumor also. According to Professor Barun Kumar Chakraborty legends are unification of truth, false and probabilities (সত্য মিথ্যা সম্ভনার ত্রিবেণী সঙ্গম). Legends are localalized and may be associated with folk belief and customs.According to Josepha Sherman-

“Local legends are folk narratives with distinct characteristic markers, including a setting that is identifiable and local; extraordinary, sometimes supernatural, situations that have occurred within recent historical memory;” (Josepha Sherman:2011,p.286)

According to Jan Harold Brunvand

“A monoepisodic, localized, and historicized traditional narrative told as believable in a conversational mode. Psychologically, legend is a symbolic representation of folk belief and reflects the collective experiences and values of the group to whose tradition it belongs. Thematically, legends often deal with the supernatural or odier remarkable phenomena. These events typically are said to occur in a specific place and time with named characters” (Jan Harold Brunvand:1996,p.915)

The main distinction between legends and urban legends is that urban legends are necessarily urban. It is a trait of city-lore and can be termed as ‘city legends’, ‘urban belief tales’, ‘contemporary legends’, and ‘modern legends’ etc. According to Josepha Sherman, “Urban legends are an important resource for storytellers because they express modern concerns in urban societies,” (Josepha Sherman:2011,p.479). That means the stories of urban legends are not very old. They are the production of urbanization. The stories of urban legends usually reflect the history of modern life in cities or suburbs, which were often connected to the experience of colonialism. According to Jon Harold Brunvand, urban legends is “an apocryphal contemporary story, told as true but incorporating traditional motifs, and usually attributed to a friend of a friend”(Brunvand:1996,p.1509).Here we can point out some core characteristics of urban legends

• Urban legends are treated as city lore.
• Urban legends can be associated with modern buildings, rail roads, high ways, urban cemeteries etc.
• Urban legends are the culmination of massive colonialism. Often they are depicting a story of migrated people or communities.
• Urban legends are formulated and transmitted not only by the general folk but by the mass media as well. Newspapers, magazines, internet blogs are playing key role to spread this kind of legendary stories.
• The elements of urban legends are often very old but they presented in a new manner. Such as believing in ghost is an old concern but ghost in metro railway or ghost in writers building is a new incident.

Urban legends of Kolkata:

Job Charnock (1630–1692/1693) was an employee and administrator of the English East India Company, and traditionally regarded as the founder of the city of Kolkata (24th August, 1690). Three prosperous villages, Sutanuti, Gobindapur and Kolikata had been clustered together by him to form a city called Calcutta, which is now named as Kolkata. The urban legends associated with the city had been formed after the British colonial era. The urban legends, I am going to discuss in this paper are from different religious and cultural background.

The legend of Tong Atchew: Tong Atchew is believed to be the first Chinese who migrated to Kolkata on the late 18th century. He was a Chinese tea trader, landed on the banks of the Hooghly River, near present day Budge budge situated at the south-west of Kolkata’s suburban area. The then Governor General Warren Hasting granted land to Atchew to set up a sugar cane plantation and sugar factory. According to the records of British East India Company, Atchew was granted 650 bighas of land about 6 miles south of Budge budge for annual rent of Rs.45.There are several legendary information we gathered from the present Chinese people inhabited at Kolkata regarding the arrival of Atchew in Calcutta-

Information 1: A Chinese ship caught in a storm washed up in Calcutta and Hastings agreed to give the sailors land where they could settle.

Information 2: Atchew was on a ship with a British captain, who accused him of smuggling in two stowaways. But then the stowaways turned themselves into pieces of wood and Atchew realized they were Gods. He later planted them on land where a temple was built.

Information 3: Atchew did Hastings a great service, so the governor general decided to reward him with land.

All three informations have a same issue that Atchew had gain some land that he could manage his sugar factory. The sugar mill that Atchew set up was near to the town of Budge Budge. Atchew’s venture drew attention of other Chinese migrants and soon a small Chinese community had formed around it. In 1783, Atchew was died and for various reasons the sugar factories started to shut down. After 1783 Chinese families started to move from Budge budge and got settled in north Calcutta and other places.

After Atchew’s death he became a legendary character. The place where he started his sugar business is now known as Achipur. The term Achipur derived from Tong Atchew. According to local sources Atchew married a Muslim woman named as Teli bibi. In Achipur, there is a temple of twin God named as Khuda Khudi. It is believed that the idols of Khuda Khudi were brought from China by Atchew as guardian deities. Khuda and Khudi are worshiped as God and Goddess of the Earth. In Chinese belief, they are called Yin and Yang. They are the deity of Confucianism and Taoism. According to Chinese mythology yin and yang were born from chaos when the universe was first created and they are believed to exist in harmony at the center of the Earth. The irony is that Achipur is a Muslim populated area and the temple is maintained by the local Muslim people. For that reason Chinese Yin and Yang became Khuda and Khudi. There is a tomb of Tong Atchew on the river bank which is near to the temple. “Little is known about the strange-looking grave – a red horse-shoe shaped structure.”(source: Outlook traveler:2018).The tomb is known to the local people as ‘tomb of Achi saheb’.This tomb is also worshiped by the Chinese community as the first ancestor of Chinese people in India.

After Tong Atchew the Chinese is still maintaining their rich folk culture in a very dedicated manner. They celebrate Chinese New Year. It is the most important festival of the Chinese calendar. The members of the community start their preparations much in advance by painting their homes red, shopping and preparing delicacies in advance. It occurs in the month of February. The tomb and the temple of Atchew are decorated during the New Year week. In North Kolkata the community people perform lion dance. This is a great example of folklore in urban context. Lion dance is mainly associated with the young people. It is very surprising that most of the Chinese people of Kolkata have been converted into Christianity but still they perform the lion dance which is a reflection of the Taoism.