Outside the largest Pantaloons store in India on CIT Road, near Phoolbagan. Pictures by Sanat Kumar Sinha

Question: Where in India do you find the world’s biggest Pantaloons store? Answer: Kankurgachhi.

Ten years ago, not many would notice what was on either side of CIT Road between Phoolbagan and Kankurgachhi. At the most there was Bata, at Phoolbagan crossing. But now you can’t miss certain things. Especially the gigantic Pantaloons store, which looks like a huge ship that has permanently dropped anchor there, its windows lit up, its hold disgorging an endless stream of people.

From an obscure residential area till the Eighties, Phoolbagan has changed into what can be called a city “hotspot”.

The biggest Pantaloons store with its 70,000sq ft attracts the biggest crowd. It opened two years ago. “We have been there for two years and at present our highest sales in Calcutta come from the Kankurgachhi Pantaloons,” says Manish Agarwal, chief operations (east), Future Group. “The Pantaloons stores in Calcutta are usually bigger than elsewhere in the country because we try to bring everything under one roof. The Kankurgachhi property was ideal because we didn’t have a Pantaloons in that area and it covered Salt Lake and the area around the Bypass too,” said Agarwal.

But the roads are paved with many other big brand stores that lead up to Pantaloons.

Starting from Kankurgachhi crossing, from the direction of Ultadanga, is a series of stores that have drowned the older shops with their glitz: Kolhapuri Centre, The Tea Junction, Okraa Lifestyle, Tanishq, Roland’s, Lee, Reebok, Vibes, Barista, The Rose, Pantaloons and CCD.

ROAD TO RETAIL: (From top) The wide roads that are drawing organised retail to Phoolbagan-Kankurgachhi, the shanties near the Pantaloons store and the VIP Market opposite it

And now Phoolbagan can also boast of a fashion store in the area, with Abhishek Dutta opening Monopoly there. “Kankurgachhi-Phoolbagan is a very hip and happening area now and I feel there will be potential clients now. The problem with central Calcutta is that you don’t have parking space for customers. Here, you don’t have that problem,” says the designer.

Pantaloons is of course the culmination of a longer stretch of “development”. The glitz actually starts at Ultadanga, with the PC Chandra showroom, followed by Essence, Crossword, Senses Saris, Vishal, Hunky Dory, ColorPlus, Honey Da Dhaba, Sindharam Sanwarmal, Haldiram’s, Bhikaram Chandmal and Tewari Brothers. But between Kankurgachhi and Phoolbagan the stores multiply.

“The Ultadanga-Phoolbagan stretch is like the Park Street of the north. It’s always been a well-planned, neat and clean place and it’s no surprise that retailers have caught on,” says Jitendra Khaitan of Pioneer Property Management. Khaitan, born and brought up in the area, says that the retail boom in the area started in the 1990s, probably with Haldiram’s.

Sidharth Pansari, who owns the Crossword chain of stores, claims credit for his family for bringing one of the first organised retail outlets to the area. “There was Haldiram’s, and then we opened Essence, one of the first big stores there,” says Pansari. He was confident when he opened a Crossword outlet there about two years ago. “I would say it’s the most successful high-street retail stretch after Gariahat,” says Pansari.

Even the lanes off CIT Road have shops like Child One, Lifestore and the vegetarian Mexican-Italian speciality restaurant Jalapeno, crowded with youngsters on a Wednesday evening, while a few paces away stands Bal Krishna — the milk shop.

Bagan bari beginning

The contrasts are sharper when the past is seen against the present. Phoolbagan is said to have got its name from the bagan bari (garden house) of a landlord built in the 19th century. Later the garden-house went to ruin and turned into a slum. After the Calcutta Improvement Trust (CIT) acquired the land, residential plots under its scheme came up in the 1970s. The slums were demolished and planned roads and housing began.

Vinod Jain of JK Lifestore, a convenience store off the main road, has been a resident of Phoolbagan for the past 20 years. “At that time there were few shops in the area. Our household necessities were brought from Burrabazar,” he says.

Chhaya Mitra, 51, a school teacher, moved to Phoolbagan in 1987. The area was shaping into its present form then. “This area and Narkeldanga used to be a Naxal area before. I have heard that you could hear foxes in nearby Kadapara,” she says with a laugh. Now all that can be heard are the blaring automobile horns or the music from an automobile stereo.

“In the Eighties it used to be a predominantly middle-class neighbourhood and Bengali. Then about 15 years back, the business community moved in. Many old Bengali families have sold their property and moved out,” she says.

In the early 1990s, the Marwari community, concentrated around Burrabazar, began to spread to other parts of the city. “Property here was cheaper than in south Calcutta and Park Street, Camac Street and Theatre Road. And it was close to Burrabazar. Those who couldn’t afford Phoolbagan rates, moved to Lake Town, where property was 20-25 per cent cheaper than Phoolbagan, or Bangur, which was even cheaper than Lake Town,” says Khaitan.

Old houses bearing Bengali nameplates stand cheek-by-jowl with new apartment blocks as does the old-world VIP Market opposite the swank Pantaloons store. Rajesh Kishanpuria, 32, who runs an event management company, remembers a time when their neighbours were mostly Bengalis.

“We had to know Bengali then to blend in with the neighbours. But today the neighbourhood is more cosmopolitan,” he says. “My clients are mostly the young Marwaris,” says designer Dutta. “And such high-end customers like to shop near home.”

Neighbourhood calls

Those who have opened shop have no regret.

Besides a ready clientele, the area has classic commercial advantages. “The catchment area is large,” reminds Abhijit Das of Lemongrass Advisors, real estate consultants. “For a very long time it was the only way to the airport,” says Vijay Dugar, distributor of Levi’s and Reebok. There was always a flow of cars in the area. “The Reebok factory outlet was opened here because the discount sign would stop the cars,” he says.

“Property prices have doubled in the past three years. The going price now is Rs 70-80 lakh per cottah. It is in keeping with the prices in Alipore and Ballygunge,” says Khaitan.

The demand for retail space is tremendous. “It may not be more than the demand in central or south Calcutta, but it is comparable,” says Das. “If there was space, 20 showrooms would have been sold in a week. But the way the CIT did it, there is little space. Only if old buildings are re-designed can something come up,” adds Khaitan.

The Tea Junction, which came up one-and-a-half years ago, is already looking for bigger space. “This place is what south Calcutta used to be five or six years back. But space is a problem,” says Naveen Pai, DGM (hospitality), Ambuja Realty.

Das thinks that the new-found status of Phoolbagan as a retail hub has something to do with Pantaloons, which drew other retail stars to the area. “Once the trend started everyone is obtaining a commercial licence and converting the ground and first floors into a store. It is the way Elgin Road changed after Forum opened.” Which is a good thing, even for a big retailer, “because then the area becomes a shopping destination”, says Agarwal of Future Group.

But in a way, Phoolbagan-Kankurgachhi’s makeover is not a unique story. It is happening all over Calcutta.

With the retail boom in the city, a single Park Street, a New Market in central Calcutta, a Hatibagan or a Gariahat is not enough. Stores are opening up right at the doorstep to save the consumer the fatigue of a trip to a distance. Everywhere.

“The movement is from a single shopping destination to opening stores wherever there are people,” says Das. What Phoolbagan is going through today has also started to happen in Behala and VIP Road, especially near the airport.

And a really big Big Bazaar has just opened in Sealdah.

Shopping is a way of life. Watch out for your neighbourhood.