A break in the median divider on north Calcutta's Mahatma Gandhi Road, very close to the famed College Street crossing, allows one to slip surreptitiously onto the other side. From the sliver of a vantage point another division becomes visible to the eye. Lying before us is an entire stretch of umbrella shops.

The ones lining the left pavement bear a certain well-known insignia. Those to the right are variations of the rival, older name in this business, manufacturing umbrellas since 1882. There's sons and a grandsons, each claiming to be the "original" enterprise. For every two or three umbrella shops, there's one card shop - wedding invitations, mostly.

There is no umbrella-only shop, big or small. Canoodling with umbrellas on shop windows and racks are ladies purses, bags, rucksacks, faux and real leather portfolios and trolley bags. If anything, it is an indicator that to survive in this business one must think beyond rainy days.

The small squarish shop mid-row seems like a good place to start. It is old fashioned. Wooden counter, eclipsed tubelight, cranky salesman... The floor is strewn with giant umbrellas - white and green, white and red, white and blue. Negotiating past these you inch closer to the glass shelves. On one side are the two-fold umbrellas; on another the classic gents', and in the middle the three-folds.

Each one has been meticulously labelled - Rupali, Rupasi, Sayani for the ladies and A-One, Aristocrat, Major for men. And the giant ones on the floor, who are they for? "Terraces, gardens," says the salesman.

In the 2004 book, Umbrellas And Their History, William Sangster makes a reference to an 18th century text that has an anecdote about a garden and an umbrella "in some part of India". The story goes thus. A picnic is in progress. The hostess is a spirited English lady. Suddenly, the gathering is interrupted by a "huge Bengal tiger". Everyone is getting ready to sprint, when the lady seizes her umbrella and opens it in the face of the tiger. "The astonished brute turned tail and fled, and the lady saved her dinner," writes Sangster.

Chasing tigers is not on the radar of the M.G. Road umbrella makers, but innovations abound. There are "anti drip" umbrellas that fold outwards - so the rainwater does not drip down. There are "sun-only" umbrellas made of kalamkari fabric. There are newsy umbrellas with mastheads of foreign publications on them. There are umbrellas with frills and crochet patches, and there are others with glass-work and zardozi, mainly for religious purposes.

Barring those for the lah-dee-dah brigade, most are made of material sourced from Japan, we are told.

The umbrella despite its ubiquitous association with the British, is an eastern contraption - in form and spirit. It was most likely invented in China, but India too was aware of its existence as far back as the 6th century AD (there's a reference in Kalidasa's Abhigyan Shakuntalam). Sangster writes: "...the use of the Umbrella travelled westward, and with it the custom of regarding it as a mark of dignity".

Now, dignity is not a word one would associate with the umbrella, not anymore. As is evident from the increasing number of folds - shops also stock the five-fold - one cannot absolutely do without it in certain climates but will yield the very minimum bag, house and mind space for it. But there are exceptions.

Our next stop is a shop minus suffixes. Resting on the floor and against the edge of the longish counter, you spy them - about as high as a four-year-old, no-nonsense, and ramrod straight with curved handles. Previously the handles were made of bamboo. Now they are mostly polymer and very rarely, wood.

The company's given name is smart but does not sit well in the mind. There is a more familiar name for this variety. " Dadur chhata," says a reedy voice, helpfully. Lakshmi Narayan Roy is wiry and old and looks a lot like Tolkien's Saruman, only with a kind face and thick-framed spectacles. It turns out he has been with this particular shop since 1965 and still drops by out of habit. "We get bulk orders [for the dadur chhata] from Odisha and south India. They are used by those who work in the fields and at construction sites," says Roy.

Weaving in and out of shops, one picks up on the underlying rivalry. Inter-brand, of course, and intra-brand too. The more high-end ones are content to silently spin myths about their pedigree. Busts of pioneers; multiple wall clocks showing Dubai, London, Paris, New York time, suggesting international connections. Yesteryear matinee idol Uttam Kumar, smiles down from one of the shop walls, umbrella in hand, wearing shorts.

But the smaller the shop, the greater is the noise. "Their umbrellas are too costly," says one salesman about the shop across the street. "They stock cheap stuff. That is why they attract more people," comes the repartee from across the street. Warranty. Whither warranty? The jibes fly thick and fast. "They got a toehold in the industry during a strike in our company in the mid-1970s," says Roy about a rival brand.

And so it continues. Calcutta's umbrella wars. Incessant as the rain.