It's easy to miss the ghosts in Tangra now. The old icons have faded. Vaishali Cinema, where once the air filled with the aroma of cheap popcorn, was turned into a residential building. Hundreds of tanneries made way for residential towers and glitzy eateries. The country's only Chinese daily printed in Tangra breathed its last soon after the pandemic. But chat long enough with locals on the cracked pavements off Christopher Road or in the winding and undulating lanes of Chinatown, and the past seeps through the strong stench of chemicals, the clang of drums, and the whispered rumours that once, rivals were thrown into the boilers of the tanneries.
Erstwhile tannery industrial belt Before the Chinese lanterns and chilli chicken, Tangra was Kolkata's industrial underbelly — a chaotic, pun-gent, brutal place where commerce and crime thrived. And though the skyline is changing fast, Tangra remains a strange contradiction. Until 2001, Tangra was home to over 600 tanneries, making it one of India's largest leather processing hubs. Most were unlicensed and polluting. The stench of raw hide, caustic soda, and chemicals hung permanently in the air, turning the narrow lanes into a river of sludge. "Days would pass without seeing the sky as smoke billowing from the tanneries would turn the entire place dark," said Ah Fu Chang, 63, who worked in his uncle's tannery on Gobra Road. "There would be lorries entering and exiting Tangra at any given point of time. Several small groups mushroomed, engaged in different crimes".
Tangra also became a crime-prone belt. Even cops hesitated to enter certain pockets. Rivalries between tannery owners, unions, and different criminal groups were fierce, and violence became common. Locals still speak in hushed tones of bodies being disposed of in acid drums or boiling tanks in the tanneries. "Crime was the outcome of thriving commerce. Different groups clashed over parking, labour contracts, leather residue from tanneries, and political spoils," said Sanjay Mandal of Sanjay Mandal and Group, a group of musicians who create music with instruments made from scrap and junk. Sanjay and all his colleagues in the band hail from Tangra. "I have lived my entire life in Tangra and witnessed the evolution. Tangra and crime are inseparable. Only the faces have changed," said Mandal.
Culture Cuisine But amidst the crime and gore, there was another story taking shape one of culture, cuisine, and quiet dignity. The Hakka Chinese community, many of whom came to Kolkata in the early 20th century settled in Tangra and started tanneries of their own. They built temples and cemeteries tucked into alleyways, set up schools teaching Mandarin, and celebrated Chinese New Year with lion dances and fire-crackers, adding a beautiful dimension to the already diverse cultural landscape of Kolkata. By the 1970s, as the leather business boomed, so did the reputation of the food served in Chinese kitchens. Restaurants like Kafulok, Golden Joy, and Beijing became culinary landmarks known for a new kind of cuisine that wasn't entirely Chinese or Indian, but something deliciously in-between. "We used to go to Tangra for dinner at least once a month as children," said Sudipta Roy, now a senior teacher in a south Kolkata school. "The streets were dark, the roads undulating, and the stench unbearable. My father would say if you can survive the smell and commute, you've earned your dinner."
Beneath the success lay anxiety. The Hakka community faced the brunt of the 1962 Sino-Indian war backlash. When the India-China war broke out in the early 1960s, Monica Liu and her family were first taken to a jail in Shillong and then packed off to Deoli in Rajasthan on suspicion of being spies. Years later, she would not only start the first air-conditioned restaurant in Tangra - Beijing - but also rebrand the place as the destination for Chinese cuisine thronged by thousands every day. "Many families left and those who stayed back remained proud of their Chinese Indian heritage," said Liu, who now owns six eateries in the city and has also earned the moniker of "Don of Tangra".
Exit of tanneries
The shutting down of tanneries in 2001, after years of environmental concern and court pressure, was the beginning of the exodus of Indian Chinese from Kolkata. The West Bengal govt ordered all tanneries in Tangra to shut down and relocate to Bantala, on the city’s eastern fringes.
It was the end of an era but the beginning of something painful. Thousands lost livelihoods overnight. Hundreds of businesses crumbled. Families sold land at throwaway prices. “My father was forced to sell his tannery and now a high-rise has come up at the same spot. My two brothers migrated to Canada. I shifted to Australia and visit my ailing mother once a year,” said Christina Chen, a former resident of Matheswartala Road. Buildings that once housed industrial units became derelict. Some were usurped. Others were gradually bought by developers. A few Chinese families stayed behind, running restaurants. Most left for different countries, reducing the Chinese population from a thriving 10,000 to only a couple of thousand.
Culinary delight lives on While the tanneries vanished and the Chinese community dwindled, Tangra-style Chinese food lives on.Dishes like chilli chicken, Hakka noodles, and hot garlic prawns were born in these narrow lanes, cooked in iron woks blackened by years of use. Golden Joy still does packed lunches on weekends. Kim Ling still hands out fortune cookies. Many chefs have left Tangra to set up new-age Chinese joints across the world. "But our heart is still in Tangra. We were forced to migrate as there was hardly any support from the govt," said Wong Chan Tan, who is now settled in Singapore as a chef.
Realty in the forefront Yet, the shadow of crime never left Tangra — it simply shifted. The criminal-politician-police nexus that once fed on tanneries now feeds on the towers being built on the same land. Old musclemen have become 'real estate facilitators', controlling land deals, extracting cuts from construction contracts, and supplying materials. "Nothing moves here without their nod," said Mandal. "Only the product has changed earlier it was hides, now it's high-rises." Local residents lament that the towering apartment complexes and glossy office blocks have left them behind. Most of the blue-collar work security guards, cleaners, house helps - goes to locals, but the better-paying jobs go to outsiders."We've seen the land, the air, and even the smell change in Tangra," said Mandal. "But the lives of the locals haven't changed much."And yet, the people of the area are as warm as a bowl of noodles. The Chinese temples still open their red wooden doors at dawn. Lanterns still sway in the evening breeze during Chinese New Year celebrations.
