“The Legend of Fat Mama” is a bittersweet story of the Chinese community in Kolkata, India, intertwined with the nostalgic journey in search of a woman who once made the most delicious noodles in the city’s Chinatown district. Kolkata once had a thriving community in its Chinatown, engaged in different trades, like medicine shops, food and shoemaking.
Though a small number of Chinese still live there, many of them left India in the aftermath of the 1962 India-China war. Thriving street food, disappearing family-run eateries, mahjong clubs, a Chinese printing press that has shut down and its handwritten counterpart that continues to deliver the news every morning, and the first all-woman dragon dance group preparing for the Chinese New Year make up the Chinese heritage in Kolkata.
Sunil Shibad for more
(Thanks to robin Khundkar; his note: “From my friend Shing whose parents owned the famous Waldorf’s Chinese Restaurant on Park Street. Shings and his siblings all live in Southern California.”)