from the need to freely speak and use bangla not urdu millions died for it our language and our love for it still define us more sharply than any other aspect even food and footballin an upwardly mobile nation with nearuniversal savoirvivre is the bhadralok as a distinct social species on the brink of extinctionnot at all upwardly mobile whatever that means signals more bhadrolok and bhadromohila hopefully with all the positive celebratory aspects and less of the negative aspects such as the prerequisite of chhotolok or lesser people in rural or poorer parts of banglasphere in order to be counted among the relatively civilised and refined of course we often forget the innate earthy sense of culture civilization and sense of community among socalled chhotolok that would and often does put a bhadrolok to shameyou observe that the adda is on the decline in urban west bengal as a fulcrum of bengali intellectual life in what way will its decline affect the modern bengalii discuss the decline of adda in the way adda was earlier defined adda was core to the bengal renaissance but now there are various forms of adda from the intellectual to neighbourhood thugs planning the next political coup over tea and carrom or a group of friends vigorously exchanging news views and banter over drinks and food the bengali remains argumentative in all spheres of adda its what shapes usyouve described the bengalis cultural conceit as inhabiting a class of its own is this why bengalis lapse into bangla when they meet oblivious to the nonbengalis presentwell it is only impolite when everyone present has a common language of communication and some deliberately choose to jabber away in their own language of that the bengali can quite often be guilty cultural conceit is a different matter i think it derives from the time kolkata and bengal were the centre of the administrative universe of british india bengali professionals and culture were then at the leading edge of eastern india quite often much of india chauvinists among us havent quite got over that sense of superiority