On a rainy Saturday, a select gathering got together to celebrate the Singapore Crab Festival at The Wall (31 Dr Sarat Banerjee Road) and talk about “crab mentality” and Bengalis’ relationship with crabs, over Crab In Black Pepper, Phoo Pad Phong Karee and Crab Bee Hoon. “The food served here was excellent. I love to eat and crab is very tasty. My favourite dish was Crab in Black Pepper,” said grandmaster Dibyendu Barua. t2 snapshots from the talk...

Crabs pulled me up

No one ever told me to stop writing. I kept at it on my own will. I kept on trying and someday somewhere someone noticed me. And all the crabs joined hands and pulled me up. All the friendly crabs helped me. It’s how we look at life. Just one request, if we, all the crabs together, go to watch Maacher Jhol, then I’ll be very happy.
— Anupam Roy, musician

Positive energy

There are all kinds of people in this universe. Some people spend time being jealous, some people like to spend time not being jealous. It’s your own take on whatever you want to do. Energies are all going to come to you, some positive, some negative... what you do with it is all that matters. Some energies are very strong, you can’t fight with them, so you accept defeat and maybe you win. Every sunrise is another day full of possibilities.       
— Bickram Ghosh, musician

Be strong

If you want to achieve something, the ladder is very steep. I have made it on my own and I am very proud of myself. When I started acting, the media wasn’t very active. I always had the ambition to see myself on the big screen but I never took any shortcuts. I never had any director, producer or godfather to help me. I had to struggle a lot. I stand for women who are strong.
— Sreelekha Mitra, actor

Different perspectives

Life is never a bed of roses. Education is one of the biggest factors. There are different perspectives at different ages. Man is a crab sometimes and man fights a crab sometimes. This emotion is inescapable. To out-think anybody is crab mentality. You can’t have the same behaviour everywhere, you adapt, so you become a crab again. In every walk of life, we are crabs at different places at some point of time.
— S. Ramani, founder-director of 6 Ballygunge Place

Ignore the crabs

Crab mentality is to do things that spoil the happiness or success of others. You must ignore what people say regarding this. People who have crab mentality are very small-minded.
— Nondon Bagchi, musician

Overcome it

The main thing is that you have to overcome it. Parents tell their children that they have to come first in class. Everybody wants to be in the top position but that position is not easily attainable. When a person moves up gradually, you find the people who have reached there without the requisite qualifications trying to pull him down.
— Saswata Gopal Mukherji, public prosecutor, Calcutta High Court

Fight it

I have not really experienced crab mentality. If many people had tried to pull me down, maybe I would have struggled my way up but I am happy with the way I am now. Yes, I have seen this happen to other people. There are people who’ll always try and take you down because of their own incompetency, inconsistency and own insecurity. But there’s no point crying about it, no point blaming other people for it. You have to fight through it in your own way.
— Sugata Guha, moderator of the event

Play to win

I play chess and since it’s an individual game, there’s no scope of real crab mentality. You just have to play and win and be amongst the top ten. I never faced crab mentality as a player. In case of other sports like football, cricket, there is a chance that someone might pull you down but not in chess. But since crab mentality is present everywhere, the best way is to ignore it as there is no point criticising it.
— Dibyendu Barua, grandmaster  

Text: Debolina Banerjee
Pictures: Arnab Mondal