"EI TOH PURO PLANE-PLANE BHAB”, said the man sitting next to me, with childlike excitement. It might have been the cool blue walls, the tinted glass panes, and the comfortable fibre seats that let him feel he was in an aircraft miles above the ground; in reality he was in Calcutta Tramways’ newest streetcar, trundling along one of the busiest lanes of Kolkata on an afternoon in January. All around, people on the road stopped to gape at the shiny new tram, the first of its kind in more than a century, with a single-coach.
Earlier that day I had travelled from Esplanade to Rajabazar Tram Depot in one of the older trams, hoping to set eyes on the new streetcar which had been flagged off by West Bengal Transport Minister Madan Mitra in December last year. As we crossed Lenin Sarani, an elderly man alighted, leaving me along in the two-coach tram. “The office rush is over. It will be again be crowded in the evening,” the coach conductor told me.
At the Rajabazar depot, I met Shantanu Ghosh, a junior traffic officer, who explained why the new tram had been introduced. “It is like presenting old wine in a new bottle,” he said. “We needed a lucrative and good presentation to draw more people towards the tramways .” There were also logistical reasons for introducing a single-coach tram. “A single bogey car is lighter and can take turns better since earlier two motors used to run two coaches. Now, the same runs a single coach,” Ghosh explained. “Also, we are trying to make more such trams so that we can utilise our staff better. There is never enough rush to completely fill a two-coach tram, where we employ two conductors and one driver.”
In the 19th century, trams in Kolkata had one coach; a second coach was introduced more than a century ago, the anterior first class used by British and well-off Indian commuters, who could pay extra for the luxury of sitting on cushioned seats. The majority of the population made do with the wooden chairs of the second class compartments. The class system remained in place for decades after independence, when the fares were in the range of 3 paise for the second class and 5 paise for the first class. It was only in 1982 that it began to erode when the cushioned seats in first class were done away with. Still, the second class coaches lacked fans, making them stiflingly hot during summer months.
The class division survived through the more than three decades of Communist rule in the city, becoming officially classless only last year. “After the Trinamool Congress-led government came to power, they made it a point to do away with the class system and bring the second class at par with the first class,” Ghosh said.“Fares have been made equal, and every now and then we have old trams being sent to our Nonapukur workshop to put fans in the second coaches.”
“The single-coach tram, however, manages to bridge all gaps, enabling people of all age groups, from every sections of the society to travel together,” he added.
I sat in tram number 630A as it glided swiftly along the road, stopping occasionally for people to board. Among its first passengers for the day was political science student Kakali Sarkar, who praised the new tram for being clean and modern, and for having single seats, which “are better for girls”. Sarkar also approved of the fact that the vestiges of class division had been done away with in the tram. “Class is of no use; we are all paying money, so we should be able to choose wherever we want to sit,” she said.
Soumik Sarkar, a businessman who has travelled in trams for the past 17 years said that while the government worked towards providing new trams, they should also ensure that they run frequently. “At times there are four trains back to back and sometimes there is not a single tram for over thirty minutes,” he said. “This should not happen.”
As I alighted at the Esplanade Depot, behind me I heard the familiar ringing of the tram’s bell, indicating its onward departure. Several tourists standing nearby took out their cameras to photograph the ‘classless’ tram as it moved away, eventually vanishing into one of the meandering streets of central Kolkata.