Picture this. A wedding ceremony is in progress at the rented premises of a house. The groom is dressed casually in a pair of trousers and shirt while the coy bride is all decked up, the sandalwood paste on the forehead beginning to melt. The air is festive and everyone appears to be happily busy.

Nothing unusual about it. Except that the bride is also a male. The venue happens to be Calcutta and every bit of it is for real.

Anupam, a 20-something gay rights activist who works for Saathii, a non-governmental organisation that campaigns against HIV infection in India, recollects the incident with a smile. “The bride did what came to him instinctively. A marriage, for him, was special and entailed rituals that a bride and groom perform together, in good faith. So he thought it fit to dress like a bride.”

Welcome to New Age Calcutta, a city that is becoming younger by the day and brazen by night; a city that is becoming more and more permissive, without a care for social or moral policing; a city high on sex, lies and MMS clippings ? be those of Raima Sen or other lesser known Tollywood actors.

An exclusive opinion poll of 200 people by Mode backs the point. A hundred people each in the age groups of 18-25 and 30-55 ? the male/female ratio was 50:50 ? were questioned. Strikingly, 96 per cent of Calcuttans agreed that strong winds of change are blowing over the city, especially among the young; 59 per cent of 20- to 25-year-olds had no reservations about living together, 67 per cent in the same age group were all for premarital sex.

What is more, though the older people polled were far more conservative, attitudes seem to be changing here too. One in every four in the age group of 30-35 had no qualms about the idea of living with a member of the opposite sex without being married, while one in every four in the same age group thought an extramarital affair was but natural.

One doesn’t have to look too far for the reasons for this change in attitudes. The City of Joy itself is changing. Shopping malls and one-stop shops have mushroomed alongside lounge bars, eateries and coffee outlets. FM channels, satellite television and multiplexes have added spice to life. BPO units and call centres have engaged a brigade of you-ng workers ? all of whom are making money and willing to spend it.

Signs of the change are flying all over the place. The demand for slinky tops and designer trousers has hit an all-time high, says an executive at retail store Westside on Calcutta’s Camac Street. The number of footfalls at the Hookah Bar ? the discotheque and bar at the Grain of Salt, a popular hangout ? has gone up from 100 to 300 a day in the past one year. Someplace Else, the pub at Park Hotel on Park Street in the heart of the city, remains chock-a-block even on weekdays. City hotels and resorts ? some billed as “in the lap of nature” ? have a high occupancy rate, with more youngsters from the city availing of weekend packages and discounts.

Evidently, the young are in a mood to throw caution to the winds. Ask Anushka, a college goer dressed in typical low-slung jeans, tank top and nose-ring, to name her favourite song, and pat comes the reply ? Bheegey hoth, a steamy Mallika Sherawat number from Murder. “The music is so haunting, if you get what I mean,” she explains. “I’d love to have my boyfriend sing me this number.”

That she is talking in earnestness is evident when Austin Smith, a DJ at Someplace Else who’s been in the profession for over 10 years, observes, “Youngsters today love ‘wicked’ songs. I get hordes of requests for songs with lyrics in bad taste and seductive beats which today’s generation takes for granted.”

Small wonder then that they are equally willing and wanting when it comes to matters related to sex. The abortion rate in the city, which has gone up by 50-60 per cent over the past couple of years, says it all. And this is, “despite the over-the-counter sales of post-coital/ morning-after pills usually sold under the name of MPT (medical pregnancy termination) pills,” says Dr Amit De, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, Neotia Women and Child Care Centre. “These pills should not be sold without a prescription but women often do not bother to consult a doctor before buying them,” he points out.

Women, however, don’t realise the need for it. “A friend of mine has used the MPT pill once and it’s worked. She hasn’t had any complications so far,” reasons Anushka.

Among men, there are the adventurous ones like Soubhik (name changed), a third-year engineering student. Heavily into extracurricular tuitions from his friendly neighbourhood boudi, a la Ek Chhoti Si Love Story where Manisha Koirala counsels an adolescent boy, he is more well-versed in Kama Sutra than Moore’s Law.

Then there are those who believe you only live once, so it’s best to live life to the fullest. Omshankar Puri (name changed), who works at a call centre on Park Street, is a case in point. He has had a string of girlfriends, having started young. His first girlfriend was the “pretty” maid in their house but it’s his most recent affair that has left him heartbroken. “My girlfriend ? with whom I was living ? went to the US on a three-month scholarship. I was lonely so I started seeing her friend. Both of us knew that it was a stop gap arrangement. But, on her return, she broke off without offering a valid explanation.”

Explanations are also no longer demanded by parents who have children who enjoy smoking and drinking. In fact, gone are the days when a bhalo chhele (‘good’ Bengali boy) would stub out his cigarette the moment an elderly person walked into the room. “I see young people come to the bar and discotheque with their parents,” says Sanjoy Mukherjee, food and beverages manager at Grain of Salt. “The older lot have no hassles if youngsters light up before them. They all sit together and eat, drink and make merry in a no-holds-barred ambience.”

Professions such as modelling or acting are now considered lucrative. Magician P.C. Sorcar Junior’s daughter, 20-something Moubani, started off as a model and has now taken to acting. Underlining the fact that her parents are supportive of her decision, she says, “These professions are not only about taking off your clothes. I feel both modelling and acting allow you to hone your creativity and that’s what I intend to do ? put my talent to good use.” She adds, like all the others in the profession, that she isn’t against a show of skin “but there has to be a right place and time for that” and, wouldn’t mind doing romantic scenes “which make sense”.

The paradox however lies in that while, at one level, the young are becoming more permissive, if not promiscuous, at another level, they are still traditional when it comes to marriage. Parental consent, then, becomes a must.

Take 24-year-old Moumita. She zeroed in on a boyfriend of her choice when it came to dating. But she went with her parents’ choice when it was time to tie the knot. “Parents know best,” she puts it simply. “I couldn’t go against them.”

These are the same people who sleep around with ?lan but are embarrassed about watching serials such as Sex and the City and The Bold and the Beautiful with their parents or, for that matter, accepting same-sex love as normal. “People even today believe that homosexuality is a mental disorder and can be cured through treatment,” contends Santanu, whose mother has now accepted her son’s sexual orientation but is still uncomfortable when he talks about his partner.

But that doesn’t serve as a deterrent for him. Nor does it dishearten other homosexuals who have a strong network and support group in the city. The Rainbow Festival, the only gay pride march in India, is said to have been attended by 300 people in June this year, up from some 15 men and women who took part in the first march in the city in 1999. “Holding such an event in any other metro would spell trouble,” says Rafiquel Haque Dowjah, secretary of Integration Society, one of the organisers of the festival. “Now more and more gays ? even those from middle-class families and suburban areas ? are coming out. This is a positive development.”

Another significant move was a parents’ meet held at the Siddhartha Gautam (one of the pioneers of gay activism) film festival on June 22 this year. The function saw a healthy interaction between parents and their children with same-sex preferences. “It was a very emotionally-charged ambience, strangers ? disconnected otherwise ? were able to empathise with one another; their sexual orientation enabled them to connect,” says Pawan Dhall, a gay rights activist and country director of the NGO Saathii.

Not all Calcuttans can connect, though. In fact, the older generation, still conservative in its outlook, can sometimes cause more harassment than happiness as Vijaya Hegde, a journalist, discovered much to her disappointment. Married recently, she has been house-hunting with her husband for the past couple of months. “At least 10 landlords asked for our marriage registration certificate,” she says.

“That’s natural,” explains psychiatrist Ashim Chatterjee, associated with Mon, a psychiatric nursing home in the city. “The younger generation enjoys more freedom than the older lot. It is more adaptable to the openness that characterises today’s society. There is no accountability as such, so promiscuity is on the rise. But this also has a flip side as our patient base indicates. Anxiety disorders, depression and sexually-transmitted diseases have gone up drastically.”

But young Calcutta is happy, at least for the moment ? happy to sin, than be sinned against.