STREET SPORT: The chess club under Gariahat flyover. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya The Chief Happiness Officer

The “Gariahat Chess Club” has a strange address. The “members” congregate every evening under the Gariahat flyover for a round or two of chess. They also conduct chess competitions every month, which has about 40 to 50 participants. Other chess club members meet up and participate in these competitions despite having an “actual club house”. Playing there is a different experience altogether, the members claim. They play for the love of the game. Despite the rain and the cramped quarters. Despite cars honking and onlookers watching intently and shouting out moves.

Kingshuk Debnath, who is preparing for CAT, is one of the regulars. He cribs a little, saying that the game requires a quiet atmosphere and playing in the middle of a thoroughfare is quite distracting. Indeed.

Having just three chessboards is also a problem, especially if the competitions draw so many people. People wait their turn to play a game. But the others don’t mind. There are some who have been playing at the same spot for about three years. And play on they will. Being in the thick of the din and the honking has its own peculiar kind of quiet.

Papad girl

She is known as the papad meye. Every day, she stands at the entrance of Tollygunge Metro station till the shutters come down, approaching commuters with the same words: “Bhalo papad niye jao, cha-er shange bhalo lagbe” over and over. The commuters may feel tired, but she can’t afford to. For the entire responsibility of her family rests on Suchitra Das. She is the sole bread-earner in her family in Haridevpur: her parents and three sisters. With each packet priced at Rs 10, she manages to earn Rs 50 a day.

But the Metro station was not her first choice. She tried the “office para” first. Life was not easy — not just the hangers-on on the streets, but “respectable” middle-class office-goers also did not spare her. She was humiliated and molested a number of times. She soon shifted base to Tollygunge metro station and found it a lot more secure. Here, if a man makes an indecent gesture, the station security personnel shoo him away. Suchitra says that her income has actually gone down a but, but she prefers security to profit margin.

McHumour

The Chief Happiness Officer

We are very sorry. We didn’t know. This paper inadvertently referred to the gentleman with the white make-up and a red nose and painted smile, who is always trying to induce fun and humour and cheerfulness into the lives of his young customers at McDonald’s, as the clown. We have sternly been informed that he is not so. He is not only Ronald McDonald, he is also the firm’s Chief Happiness Officer (CHO).

Perhaps the global food chain could add something called Humour to their menu. Even if they call it McHumour.