Have you ever imagined that, apart from being sentimental about Mach (fish), Pathar Mangsho (mutton curry), Mishti Doi, and Durga Puja, what else an average Kolkatan is deeply emotional about?
It is Adda—the art of sitting around and gossiping.
Be it the local market, a neighborhood tea stall, or a shop by the roadside, adda is something a Bengali simply cannot live without. It usually starts with:
“Pach minute boshi”—let me sit here for five minutes.
And, of course, five minutes in Kolkata is a very elastic concept.
What begins as a casual chat about the price of fish can slowly move to cricket, cinema, the neighbor’s son, the economy, and finally—inevitably—politics. By the time the adda ends, a completely new political outlook has been invented, the government has been advised on how to run the country, and the next cup of tea has somehow become essential.
That is Adda. No agenda, no minutes of meeting, no action items—just opinions, arguments, laughter, and tea.
The origins of Adda are difficult to trace to a single place or period, but its roots may well lie in the old zamindar’s baithakkhana, or drawing room, during the colonial era. Here, the zamindar would sit with his parshads, estate officials, and other associates to discuss the day’s affairs and the running of his estate. These gatherings also allowed him to hear what was happening among his subjects, understand their problems and, when necessary, take prompt action if someone was in trouble or if there was a conspiracy brewing against him.
But the baithakkhana was not always about estate business. Many zamindar families were great patrons of the arts, and their gatherings often included poetry, music, and songs. Conversation, entertainment, politics, and culture naturally became intertwined.
The modern form of Adda, however, blossomed in 19th-century Calcutta during the Bengal Renaissance. With the emergence of the English-educated Bengali middle class, or bhadralok, new spaces for conversation and intellectual exchange began to flourish. Traditional drawing rooms and neighborhood gathering places became informal forums where people discussed everything from global politics and philosophy to literature, social reform, and the latest happenings in the city.
There was, however, one important difference: there was rarely any fixed agenda. An adda could begin with a serious discussion on philosophy and end with a heated argument about cricket—or begin with politics and somehow end up discussing someone’s neighbor’s marriage.
And that, perhaps, is what makes Adda uniquely Bengali.
Two important destinations for Bengali intellectuals for their adda sessions were the Indian Coffee House on College Street and, in a very different setting, Khalasitola.
At the Coffee House, writers, artists, students, and political activists would gather over cups of coffee and tea, debating the latest in literature, politics, and social affairs. Conversations could continue for hours, with everyone seemingly having an opinion—and usually a very strong one.
Khalasitola offered a rather different atmosphere. Not exactly the kind of place associated with the respectable gentleman, its country liquor and informal surroundings nevertheless attracted a number of poets, writers and intellectuals. Here too, the drink was merely an excuse. The real attraction was the conversation.
For everyone else, however, Adda did not require an intellectual café or a famous drinking den. The local tea shop, stationery shop, or telebhaja (fritter) shop was quite sufficient. A bench, a few plastic chairs, a glass of tea, and some freshly fried beguni or peyaji could transform an ordinary roadside shop into a full-fledged debating chamber.
And unlike the Coffee House, there was no need to be a writer, intellectual, or politician. All you needed was an opinion—and preferably someone willing to argue with you.
But perhaps the most democratic form of Kolkata’s adda can be found sitting on the rock.
Rock baji is the quintessential neighborhood adda. The “rock” is not a nightclub, nor does it have anything to do with music. It is simply the raised concrete platform outside an old Kolkata house, neighborhood club, or roadside building. For generations, it has served as an unofficial meeting place for the para.
This is where schoolboys become cricket experts, college students become political analysts, and retired gentlemen suddenly acquire a solution to every problem facing the country.
The subjects are limitless. Football can lead to politics, politics to cinema, cinema to someone’s latest love affair, and somehow the discussion may circle back to the price of fish.
The remarkable thing is that nobody really comes to the rock with an appointment. Someone is already there. Another person walks past, stops for “five minutes” and sits down. Someone else joins. Before long, what was supposed to be a brief stop has become a two-hour session.
And nobody is in a hurry to leave.
That is the magic of rock baji. It requires neither money nor status—only time, curiosity, and the willingness to have an opinion.
I will end this piece with a personal experience involving my father, who passed away recently.
It happened about twenty-five years ago, around the time when Sourav Ganguly had made his dream debut in England and was trying to cement his place in the Indian team.
One day, my father and I went to our local grocery shop to buy a few things. There, he suddenly met one of his old school friends, who had grown up in our locality but had since moved to another part of the city. They had not seen each other for a long time.
After the usual pleasantries—”How are you?” “It’s been so long!”—my father turned to me and said, “You take the things home. I’ll come back after a five-minute chat.”
I went home, told my mother what had happened, and went back to my studies. My mother got busy with her household chores.
About an hour later, we both suddenly realized that my father had still not returned.
My mother, by then, was getting worried. She asked me to go and check the grocery shop, which was only a short walk from our home.
When I got there, I found my father exactly where I expected him to be—still talking.
Except that he was no longer talking to just his old school friend. A few more friends had gathered around them, and the subject of conversation had travelled quite some distance from the original “How are you?”
Indian politics had already been discussed. And now, naturally, they had moved on to Dada.
Sourav Ganguly was still relatively new to the Indian team, and the discussion had become a full-fledged cricket analysis. They were debating his weakness against the short ball, what he should do about it, and how he could counter it to become a better batsman.
I stood there listening for a while, wondering how a five-minute conversation about old school days had somehow transformed into a cricket strategy meeting.
When I finally approached my father, he looked at me, smiled, and said,
“Etokhon hoye geche, bujhtei parini.”
“I didn’t realize it had become so late.”
And perhaps that is the essence of Adda.
You sit down for five minutes. You talk about an old friend. Someone joins. Then someone else. The conversation moves from life to politics, from politics to cricket, from cricket to anything and everything—and suddenly an hour has disappeared.
My father may have forgotten the five minutes he promised me that day. But I have never forgotten that afternoon.
Such is Adda. And so are the Bengalis.
