Kamal Ghorui
A grand dame of Kolkata’s Park Street prepares to celebrate her 100th birthday
Even as she prepares to turn 100 next year, a grand lady of Park Street in Kolkata remains as vibrant and vivacious as ever.
Of Swiss parentage, she made herself at home in what was then called Calcutta, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, playing host to an amiable jostle of a dozen or more different communities.
With reciprocal generosity, she opened her doors to welcome an eclectic mix of guests, sleekly safari-suited businessmen and svelte socialites taking time off from canasta, boxwallah executives exuding self-importance and aftershave, and a 17-year-old college student trying not to look visibly awed by the muted elegance of the surroundings, the gold-tasselled red lampshades, the hush of deep-pile carpeting, the gleam of age-burnished wood.
I don’t think I managed to look the sophisticate I pretended to be on what was my first of many visits to the lady.
From her bountiful kitchen emerged a zestful abundance of culinary delights, too numerous to mention. But perhaps what her home was most renowned for were the jam sessions she organised on a regular basis.
These popular events did not involve the partaking of sweet preserves made from strawberries and other fruits, but were entertainments in which singers and musicians ‘jammed’ in melodious medley.
Among the more prominent performers was Mr Showbiz, Vivian Hansen, who could do a Cliff Richard so that you’d swear it was Cliffie himself singing, men, Anglo-Indian accent and all.
His feminine counterpart was Enchanting Eve, resplendent in her signature sheath dress, sartorial counterpoint to a voice of silken seduction.
A later arrival in the lady’s salon was the inimitable Usha Iyer, later Uthup, who, sari-clad, belted out numbers of foot-tapping verve in English, Hindi, and sometimes in a fluency of both combined.
All these images and more come to me now like snapshots in a much-leafed family album, evoking the twilight glow of Calcutta of yesteryear, bringing memories like the dance of dust motes in a shaft of sunlight. And I raise a toast to the 99-year-young lady of Park Street called Trinca’s.
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