“Why does she talk like that?” Snigger, a look of disdain, another snigger, and a few thinly-veiled laughs. It was Jadavpur University, circa 2011. I had asked an autorickshawala, “8B jaba? (Will you go to 8B?)” ‘Jaba’ was my colloquial Cooch Behar Bangla that slipped out in a stray moment. The Kolkata word was ‘jabey’. I did not notice the group of seniors who had followed me out of the university gates to confirm something they were curious about: if underneath all that Delhi University shimmer, I was one of them or the other.
Truth is, I was an outsider, quite like Nadia’s Swapnodeep Kundu, who fell to his death from the Jadavpur University hostel earlier this week. His death is being investigated, with the university and police authorities trying to figure out what was behind it.
My home too was far from Kolkata, half a thousand miles from the Bengal capital, in one dark corner of the state that the capital never chose to acknowledge. But that was perhaps all of North Bengal. There was always a divide between North and South but nowhere is it as stark as in Kolkata.
So, when this group of students overheard me talking in the Cooch Behar Bangla, my mofussil status was confirmed….
After the truth-shower 