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Shreya Banerjee

@calenkari

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Writer | Traveller | Journalist
✍️ @the_hindu
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
— Oscar Wilde

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Ever wondered what the master storyteller, Satyajit Ray’s moments of trepidation looked like? Before calling “Action” or “Cut” on the sets of Pather Panchali, the maestro was often overcome by nervousness. Standing beside him was the one person who instinctively understood those silences. It was his closest friend, collaborator and art director, Bansi Chandragupta.

Read my Friendship Day feature to know more about these surprising and long enduring friendships that defined Bengal’s cinema , art, literature and politics

🔗 Link in stories

[Friendship Day 2026 Satyajit Ray Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar Jyoti Basu Hemanta Mukhopadhyay Uttam Kumar Ramkinkar Baij Michael Madhusudan Dutta Bengal Kolkata friendship art literature cinema music Mrinal Sen Ritwik Ghatak Hrishikesh Mukherjee Paradise Café ] by @calenkari

As the year draws to a close, letters seem to be finding their way back to me.

In the last few weeks, I’ve opened my letterbox to two handwritten letters I wasn’t expecting at all. One arrived from the highest post office in the world, in Hikkim, Spiti. “My hands shake in -15 degrees as I write this,” the letter said. Which made me wonder: am I a very nice friend, or does one need a serious friend deficit to think of me while freezing at that altitude? Either way, I was deeply touched.

The other, just in time for Christmas was another handwritten card . And it stopped me in my tracks. These days, letters usually mean bills hurriedly handed over by postmen asking for my ID.
What strikes me every time is how letters carry more than words. They carry weather, geography, and time. Someone paused their life amid cold, altitude, routine and thought of you. In an age of instant replies and vanishing messages, that pause feels so sincere and meaningful.

This took me back to 2023, when I wrote a piece for The Hindu on Chennai’s dwindling dalliance with letters, post boxes, and the disappearance of handwritten communication. At the time, it felt like an obituary of sorts. Today, these letters feel like footnotes pushing back and are gentle reminders that not everything meaningful needs to be fast.

Sometimes, the story you write returns to you in an envelope.

Special thanks to Santadeep and Neeladri
for helping me with on-ground research 🙏

🔗 Link in highlights

#communication #letterwriting #postboxes #christmascard #2025 by @calenkari

From campaign trails to club playlists, Bengal’s political slogans are finding a second life on Kolkata’s dance floors. Viral remixes of “Hamba Hamba” and “Mach Chor” are turning election rhetoric into nightlife culture, blurring the boundaries between politics, memes and pop music. I speak to revellers enjoying this genre of music, as well as Chandril Bhattacharya, lyricist of Chandrabindoo and noted orator, to understand this trend.

🔗 Link in stories

[Mach Chor Khela Hobe File Chor BJP TMC West Bengal Kolkata Politics Bengal Elections] by @calenkari

Pujo 2026✨

@ogobideshinee clicks the best pictures 🫶 by @calenkari

Has Bengali cinema forgotten how to look at Bengal?

For this piece, I spoke to filmmakers @avikunthak Ashish Avikunthak, @indrasis Indrasis Acharya and @ishaanghose Ishaan Ghose about the invisible lives of Dhapa, the changing textures of Bengali, and the worlds that have slowly slipped out of the cinematic frame.

A conversation about what we choose to see, what we leave unseen, and whether Bengali cinema can find its way back to the Bengal beyond the familiar.

Read my piece to know more.

🔗 Link in stories

#BengaliCinema #KolkataStories #IndianIndependentCinema #BengalStories #FilmJournalism by @calenkari

In Bengali cinema, the goddess can be more than a marker of the festive season. What matters is what her presence does to those around her. Does Durga become a witness to transgression, a counterpoint to human cruelty, an ideal that a woman is asked to embody, or a mirror reflecting a household’s contradictions? In films such as Satyajit Ray’s Devi, Aparna Sen’s Parama and Rituparno Ghosh’s Utsab and Antarmahal, the goddess’s image becomes part of the drama. Through framing, light, sound and the camera’s gaze, she shapes the characters’ lives without ever speaking.

To look closely at Durga in Bengali cinema is to look beyond the spectacle of Puja and ask how an unmoving image alters the meaning of everything unfolding before it.

Read my piece to know more. 🔗 Link in stories

#BengaliCinema #DurgaPuja #SatyajitRay #RituparnoGhosh #AparnaSen IndianCinema FilmStudies WomenInCinema CinemaAndSociety by @calenkari

Shreya Banerjee @calenkari sets out to visit four of Singapore’s bars, two of them — Nutmeg & Clove and Jigger & Pony featured on The World’s 50 Best Bars list 2026. "I found that a drink could be a portrait of a place, a private joke, a cultural inheritance and each permitting the barhopper to find zany expressions that melts into ice, flavours and memories - as you will."

Read the full story at the link in our bio

#singapore
#50bestbars by @calenkari

my indian newspaper debut in @the_hindu by @calenkari💞thank you so much @calenkari! this is the first time someone has ever written a full article about my artistry for a newspaper, I feel blessed! by @calenkari

Chef @chefsujans Sujan Sarkar’s Elder, a British-Indian chophouse, takes the old London chophouse and lets India into the room through vindaloo, samosas, paneer and spice. Shreya Banerjee @calenkari finds out more.

Read the full story at the link in our bio

#newyork by @calenkari

Is Ganga hilsa really different from Padma hilsa? What is Gujarat hilsa doing in Kolkata’s markets, and why did old Calcutta connoisseurs claim they could taste the stretch of river a fish came from? Following the hilsa from ocean to river to plate reveals a story of ecology, appetite and inherited taste, Shreya Banerjee @calenkari writes.

#hilsa
#bengal by @calenkari

My lead story for this week

In November 2025, Vikram Narula, founder of @ajwainwatches , received a call from the Indian Air Force about developing a watch. The Air Force had already prepared a preliminary design and approached other Indian watch companies, but were not impressed with their designs. Vikram suggested changes and asked to meet Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh before the project was finalised.

The resulting watch was called IAF Kshitij. Its Grade 5 titanium case was shaped to evoke the afterburner of a fighter jet, while an internal rotating world-time bezel and GMT movement replaced the conventional three-hand configuration. India’s GMT+5:30 position was marked with the tricolour. The watch was conceived primarily as a formal gift that the Air Chief could present to counterparts abroad, rather than as an instrument for pilots in the cockpit.

The commission points to a larger shift in India’s watch market. Microbrands selling watches from about ₹1,500 to ₹50,000 and above are finding buyers through small-batch production, imported movements and designs rooted in Indian histories, languages, art and places. What are these young brands getting right, why are collectors buying them, and can this momentum grow into a durable Indian watchmaking ecosystem?

My sincere thanks to everyone who contributed ❤️ @gauravmehtajaipur @jaipurwatchcompany @ajwainwatches @avarthwatches @muhurto_bengali @manu.srikumar @shanto.shishto.lej.bishishto

🔗 Read my story to know more. Link in stories by @calenkari

So apparently we got covered by THE HINDU???? 😭😭😭

You mean only one of the coolest newspapers in the country???? HELLO????

Thank you so, so much for giving our tiny little film (and the 230 people who helped us make it!!!)this kind of space. This is VERY VERY VERY COOL and I am clearly being extremely normal about it. Read the whole article: https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/movies/how-filmmaker-sulagna-chatterjee-crowdfunded-olakh-with-230-supporters/article71383194.ece by @calenkari