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Chinese Indians take comfort in mahjong as Kolkata Chinatown shrinks around them
- They chat in fluent Bengali, but the players around a mahjong table in Tiretta Bazaar, one of two Chinatowns in Kolkata, India, are ethnically Chinese
- Once home to 20,000 – migrants from Guangdong, Shandong and Hubei in China – Tiretta nowadays is a place of run-down buildings, chipped paintwork, and dust
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“Do you know how to play Chinese rummy?” asks an elderly man who introduces himself as Mr Sun, flashing a grin.
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He continues stacking mahjong tiles neatly on the mosaic table. “It’s just like Indian rummy, but with pretty Chinese figures.”
In the dim yellow light, four pairs of hands circle the upside-down tiles, their symbols hidden like dominoes, picking out a stack for themselves and then looking to see whether they have a matching sequence. Tumblers of milk tea appear.
Around the room, teak chairs, old mirrors and a shrine gather dust, while cats roam aimlessly. Then, with a roll of dice and the flip of stacked tiles, the game begins.
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It could be a scene from a rural village in China. But this one is being played in Tiretta Bazaar, one of two Chinatowns in Kolkata, India.
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