Shhhhhhhh....... Development’ is in Progress!

It must be a wonderful time to be in power. Specially when you know you don't deserve it! 

All it takes to make headlines is to close a beloved heritage restaurant or paint a hundred-year-old monument or a 300-year-old city in a livelier shade. This government — you know, the one that recently handed us our “New Independence Day, " self-declared world leader (only in a fool's paradise)— is clearly on a roll. 

The recent one: out goes Bijoli Gril from Bhanga Bhawan, escorted away by memories of kosha mangsho, dab chingri and mutton cutlets never to return. Maybe democracy now means you’re free to say goodbye to anything remotely warm, familiar, or meaningful.

Apparently, College Street in the City of Joy is another example. Why should Kolkata have an old-fashioned book lover’s paradise when it can look like London? Let’s bulldoze the quaint, the unique — after all, failed imitation is the highest form of flattery. Hawkers at railway stations, too, have exited stage left, “graciously” shown the door (but not the way forward), all in the pursuit of a tidier Instagram aesthetic.

And the people? Oh, we clap. We dream. We “progress.” As long as the street is clean and the mall has a coffee barista, who cares about the aroma of old books, the chaos of cha stalls, or the odd burst of culture? 

It doesn’t stop there. Our collective hate is but a resource waiting to be tapped. Religion, caste, wealth, skin colour, neighbour, pet, food preference, flower, river — all just categories in the grand game. Politicians simply channel it, like DJs spinning emotions for an ever-thirsty dance floor. Who needs unity when division’s this much fun?

What we often forget is the thin, precious line between “renovation” and “obliteration.” 

Heritage isn’t just dusty nostalgia. It’s character. It’s identity. It's the foundation that anchors communities and stories. Europe figured this out: you don’t slap neon paint on Notre-Dame. You restore, respect, and let age be graceful. You don’t paint the Taj Mahal pink to make it “new” again. You simply honour her.

But all this is lost on the powerful with more slogans than substance. When the uneducated run the educated, beauty has no translation, and nostalgia is just a traffic jam in the way of “Instagram-development.” Why create a real ecosystem for cheetahs when flying in a few from another continent for PR is so much cooler (and forget if they’re doomed)? 

Civilizations often don’t collapse from outside; they rot from within. All it takes is a cavalier disregard for dignity, history, and genuine progress — a certain foolishness, not just of leaders, but of those cheering them on.

So, next time you pass a gleaming new corridor of Banga Bhwan where Bijoli Gril or a Londol- College street in Kolkata where thousand other memories once stood, ask yourself: Are we building or simply erasing?