The Cuttack riots of October 2025

 The recent riots in Cuttack (Kataka in Odia) is extremely exasperating, especially Odisha is not known as a communal state by any yardstick. Odias in general are peace loving folks who being perennially afraid of police prefer to stay away from trouble (KALE POLICE CASE HEI JIBA - for they are mortally scared of facing police cases). Not any more as modern day Odias can't stay away from trouble these days, attracted to violence like moth to fire.

I love the city of Cuttack though have been a frugal visitor to the Silver city. Never seen the two iconic educational institutes for which the city is better known - Ravenshaw College and the SCB Medical College in my life due to lack of opportunity to visit them. Forgotten when was the last time I visited Cuttack. It was probably quarter of a century ago.

Cuttack and Bhubaneswar form a Twin city, separated by distributaries of river Mahanadi. A la twins, me a Pukka Bhubaneswariya (hard-core Bhubaneswar guy) and my friends from the city of Cuttack fight a lot among ourselves like siblings do. During my growing up days, Cuttack was the big brother, a happening city and Bhubaneswar its poorer twin. The later was regarded as a city of immigrants lacking a coherent culture of its own, termed by many as GOLAM NAGARI (The City of Slaves) ascribing to the salaried class slavish people serving their SARKAR (government) masters vis a vis DILADAAR and BOBAAL (Broad hearted and fun loving) KATAKIAs (denizens of Cuttack). We used to poke fun at our KATAKI friends for their squalor like SAHI (localities) consisting of unplanned houses entwined by narrow lanes filled with stinky, squalid drains compared to us housed in swanky, planned quarters in the squicky clean city of Bhonsar (Bhubaneswar in pronounced locally).

The city-zens from Cuttack boast to be fun loving, considering the 5 or 6 Talkies (local parlance for movie theatres) they had, a decent by the standard of those days and far more than any other city in Odisha at that time. Prominent of them were Grand Cinema, Durga and Nishamani Talkies - the later which played only Hollywood movies. From the quality of mosquitoes (the famous KATAKI MASA is capable of lifting you for miles) to the movies the city sandwiched between the bank of giant Mahanadi river and its tributary Kathajodi river always had an edge over its newly built adjoining capital city. Though critical of Cuttack's fledgling infrastructure, its dirty drains, whenever the latest Hollywood blockbuster hits the Nishamani theatre in Cuttack, especially a movie of my teenage crush Brooke Shields, I lose no time to visit Cuttack to watch her movies.

In this context, widespread riots which followed stone pelting on a "BHASANI" (immersion) procession of Maa Durga look out of place. Such things common in the Hindi cow belt states were rarely heard in the state of Odisha. But as us, also alluded as "DEKHA SIKHA" (Copycat) Odias who readily love to ape North Indian culture, this is another feather added to our cap. It was sad to see swanky departmental stores and a KFC outlet being ransacked and vandalized. Those involved in violence and pilfering aren't ideology mongers, but plain thugs and scums taking advantage of the grim situation.

Few years ago another place impacted by similar imbroglio was Bhadrak, a place associated with my childhood memories. I spent solid 5 years in that small town before migrating permanently to Bhubaneswar in the year 1976 and after finishing Class III at BANKA lower primary school in that city. Still remember living close to dusty embarkment of river Shalandi, high enough to protect the neighborhood from being marooned during monsoon floods, snaking its way through the sleepy city.

One of my first memories is my father, a huge fan of drama, cinema and theaters taking me to watch "Mogal Tamasha", a local theater  which best depicted the assimilation of Hindu and Muslim cultures. Still imprinted in my mind are images of our rental home in a predominantly Bengali neighborhood with multiple Muslim households scattered around, forming a sizable part of community and my friend circle in school. Still remember my school friends from class III with nick names SAIBA (A local variation of Sahib who sadly passed away recently), KRESTO (Krishnendu Guha), PATHANA (Rezamuddin Khan), PECHA (Owl), CHHELI (the Goat) who was a fast climber of KARAMANGA (Star fruit) trees and so on. All these thoughts came floating by when I heard the news of riots, same as an old song over radio waves wafting in, bringing in the memories associated with that time.

What is the commonality between the cities of Cuttack and Bhadrak which has turned communal in recent past ? Both stood as symbol of communal harmony. As usual, the blame game has well begun, before anything is even half done. Political parties are now accusing each other of complicity. In this murky world of alternate truth and fake news, the truth is the main casualty. Like Nero fiddled as Rome burned - the inept and corrupt administration is caught napping while taking its summer siesta post an afternoon bout of PAKHALA as Cuttack burnt.

An official statement of "the situation is tense but under control" has been issued - a standard bureaucratic practice from the Doordarshan (the solitary government controlled TV channel) days since 40 years ago. More than any official or administrative magic, let's keep faith in time as time is the best healer, keeping our fingers crossed and hoping for the best - for unlike many other Indian states communal violence is not the forte of Odisha. Let's keep it that way.