Often the interest is personal. We peep out if we see our neighbour returning home late, we gather in our balconies if we hear angry voices in the next flat. The city can also rise above the petty. In Calcutta, we gather for a candlelit vigil to demand justice for a man we had never known, while intellectuals join students, activists and ordinary citizens to protest against the state government.

But it is in this very city that a model’s cry for help is ignored when she and her friend are hounded and the men and women in the bus look away when a young girl is harassed by a conductor. The Calcutta crowd is complex. “Every crowd is just bothered about its immediate interest and own grievance and nothing else,” says Ranvir Kumar, the joint commissioner of police (traffic).

A look at what draws a crowd and what repels it...

Crowd Pullers

Accident, but mild

On a recent bandh day, an Ambassador slammed into a parked Indica and hit a bicycle, throwing off the pillion-rider of the two-wheeler. The woman suffered only mild bruises. But within seconds the empty stretch of road was full of people who pulled out the driver, bashed him up and demanded compensation for the victim.

“The crowd needs to vent its anger against the system on someone, something. A small accident, where there’s no scope of a person finding himself in danger, is just the right situation to allow that,” says artist Nilanjana Roychowdhury. So, as the first five people start beating up the offending driver, another hundred wait their turn.

However, when it comes to really helping serious accident victims, few come forward. “They gather out of curiosity, to watch who was hit, or who is the culprit, but few will take the injured to the hospital,” rues Sreeraj Mitra, a PR professional.

Scandal, in public

A few years ago, in an affluent locality in the city, an entire neighbourhood charged out of its homes to look at a stunning spectacle one morning. One of the young men of the locality was hanging out of a third-floor balcony. The house belonged to his girlfriend and her room was close to the balcony. The young man lived two houses away. He had been first sighted by his own mother, who thought he was a thief. Of course she shouted: “Chor, chor!” and by the time she found out his identity, it was too late. He was still hanging but all his neighbours had gathered below.

Such incidents draw Calcutta out — though (thankfully) these don’t happen every day. But smaller ones do too. “Even a small fight between two people ensures a gathering. Or some work that’s going on on the road or in the Metro. Maybe that is because people here have more time on their hands than in other cities,” says Imran Zaki, businessman and social worker.

Adds Nilanjana Banerjee, a radio jockey at Friends 91.9 FM : “The initial crowd is almost always of curious bystanders who gather just to watch the fun.” She believes that 99 per cent of any such crowd is male and in the age group of 25-55 years.

Oindrilla Dutta, event director, agrees. “It’s not always the sentiment of a Good Samaritan. At times they derive a sensational pleasure; a ghoulish, gruesome pleasure. This was not the case when we were younger.”

Controversial remarks/Arguments

One needs to just put in a casual comment on price hike (of anything), or the Mamata-Buddha face-off, or Bush, or anything under the sun, and you will surely get a response from your fellow passengers in the bus or Metro. “An argument always draws in a crowd. People you have never met join the debate. It is very common in buses,” says Arijit Nag, team leader at a content-writing firm. Sreeraj agrees. “A friend and I were talking in a shop about recent affairs and others just joined in,” he says.

Maybe the temptation a Calcuttan feels to make himself heard is just too much to resist. Coffee House is legendary for raising storms in a coffee cup. The Tea Table or T3 does its best to hold on to the tradition of adda by creating an ambience conducive to conversation. It is also one of the things that comes free with every drink at Oly Pub.

Star presence

It doesn’t need a Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie to get the crowd excited here. A Hrithik Roshan, Aamir Khan or Rupam Islam (of Fossils) can whip up a frenzy. When Hrithik Roshan came to Calcutta post-Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai, Park Street erupted in mad star worship. One girl waited to see her hero, going without food, another was stopped right in time from slashing her wrist. Aamir Khan stirred equal frenzy at INOX. Even his wife Kiran was mobbed (she almost suffered a wardrobe malfunction due to the crowd crush at Forum). And the release of Fossils’s new album recently drew thousands on Park Street.

Oindrila points out that unlike in Mumbai or Delhi, the Calcutta crowd is diverse, eager to relish many forms of entertainment. But topping the e-list is hero worship.

Address hunt

Ask for directions in Calcutta, and you will be inundated with so many that you may remain as confused as when you started. A person looking for an address in this city can spark off a debate. While one guide will insist that he take the right turn, another will be confident that he needs to go straight on. You might not manage to find the address, but you would definitely have earned the crowd’s attention. Especially if you happen to be a fair-skinned foreigner. “It can’t be helped. We have been ruled by the British for so long that we still suffer from the colonial hangover,” laughs artist Nilanjana.

Free demo or sale

It can be a roadside demonstration for ayurvedic medicine, or a discount offer at Levi’s, but a SALE or FREE sign always pulls a crowd. “A sale, along with a star presence, or the Pujas draw the biggest crowds,” agrees RJ Nilanjana.You might later find that the discounted price is the same as the original, or that you have no real need for what you picked up and what came free with it, or a few strong ones may even resist the temptation to splurge, but no one can help gathering at a place that is offering a discount.