Calendar, tickets: Tram lovers take a ride down memory tracks

Kolkata: Exhibition, art work and story-telling: these are various domains that tram-lovers are using to pay their tribute to the pollution-free mode of transport in its 150th year. Souvik Roy, a 60-year-old antique collector in Garia, will hold a public display of his collection of old tram tickets at Sabarna Sangrahashala in Behala for four days from Sunday during the 18th International History and Heritage Exhibition. “I spent a substantial amount of money to collect tram tickets, some of which, I acquired even from London and Singapore,” said Roy. About 200 tram tickets will be on display, including rare ones printed in England as well as from Gordon & Co. of 106 Narkeldanga Main Road in Kolkata, which were popular for printing tram tickets form May 1940 to 1968. Apart from tickets, picture postcards and old documents will also be exhibited. Visual communicator Bijoy Chowdhury (61) has created a 12-page table calendar, themed on ‘The Calcutta Trams-A Nostalgic Journey’. He gifted the calendars—each page with old black-and-white photos of trams he had taken—to his friends, followers and well-wishers this new year. “I fell in love with trams at first sight. I used to travel by train from my home to my institute, Govt. Art College, when I was a student there,” said Chowdhury. A documentary photographer and tram lover, Chowdhury still loves to take tram rides, sitting on the single seat on the left side. “Given that the future of the city’s tram network is at stake, I wanted to design this calendar on trams with my own creations. It is my tribute to the mode of transport,” he added. The calendars were never put up for sales. Though the stock has exhausted, Chowdhury keeps getting requests for the calendars from tram lovers.Octogenarian Parimal Roy was visibly excited to learn that Kolkata’s trams are set to become wi-fi-enabled this year. “In the ’60s, many of my elderly neighbours used to board Howrah-bound trams from Purna Cinema in Bhowanipur around 8pm after dinner, with a book in their hands,” said Roy. The odd practice, he pointed out, started in the ’40s, when a group of elderly people, all of them avid readers, would board a tram in the evening, buy a 6-annas all-day concession ticket, and travel till late at night, reading their favourite books in the quiet of the trams, weaving through the city. A few years ago, Roy came across an enamel board, issued by the erstwhile The Calcutta Tramways Co. Ltd, where all-day concession tickets were advertised.