Explaining the Creative Society in Calcutta
Eric Weiner, in his ‘The Geography of Genius’, attempting to uncover the puzzle of genius-cluster in the city, concluded that the apparent chaos of Calcutta, something which every tourist experiences when he encounters the city for the first time, was the secret sauce. ‘Genius is chaotic’ he proclaimed with a nod to chaos theory.
Suggesting that the Creative Society in Calcutta was a product of random events is, in essence, giving up on the task of explaining the source of creativity. It ranks at par with the ‘Great Men’ explanation of the Bengal Renaissance- the idea that few ‘great men’ happened to reside in the city during a particular time period. Once these ‘great men’ disappeared from the scene, the Creative Society departed with them. Both explain nothing. Rabindranath Tagore was undoubtedly very creative but that does not explain why there were several very creative people within his social network. Did the network create the man or did the man create the network?
In fact, there was nothing random about the emergence of Creative Society. Sure, chance played a role, but so did the diversity in population that was a key feature of Calcutta between 1800 and 1950. The ‘associational life’ of Calcutta and ideas and ideologies, which were its lifeblood, all played their part.
