The dwindling Chinese community in Kolkata, in India's eastern state of West Bengal, marked Spring Festival last week with celebrations rich in tradition and grandeur.

The celebrations, which began on Jan 28 and continued until Feb 2, took place in Tangra and Tiretta Bazaar in central Kolkata, India's only remaining Chinatowns. The events included lion dances, fireworks, a food festival, and the lighting of Chinese lanterns.

In Tangra and Tiretta Bazaar, two neighborhoods in the city with a sizable Chinese community, houses and streets were decorated with lanterns and flowers. In addition to highlighting the city's ethnic diversity, the celebrations offered an insight into the community's history, heritage, rituals and lifestyle.

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Since the Chinese first arrived in Kolkata in the late 18th century, the community has celebrated Spring Festival, the biggest traditional Chinese festival, annually.

For Chen Yao Hua, celebrating Chinese New Year with his extended family and old friends in Kolkata, is very special as it brings back many childhood memories. Chen, now in his late 60s, is a third-generation Indian-Chinese resident of Kolkata.

About 20 or 30 years ago, during the festival, lion dance groups would start performing early in the morning from different parts of Tangra and Tiretti Bazar, recalled Chen. They carried large “Chinese lion” heads made of silk, cotton, paper and plastic.

They would dance to the beats of cymbals and drums, winding their way through the Chinese neighborhoods. Some groups also carried “dragon faces” with long, flowing bodies as they jigged and danced to the music, said Chen.

The dance groups used to come after every 10 to 15 minutes. This year, however, he had seen only three or four lion dance groups perform, said Chen, who is also the president of the All India Chinese Association in Calcutta.

Chen’s son had migrated to China, and his daughter to Mumbai, many years ago in search of better job opportunities. Every year, both of them, along with their children, return to Kolkata to celebrate Chinese New Year.  For Chen, the best part of the festival is family reunion.

Like Chen’s children, many Indian-origin Chinese — whose roots lie in Kolkata, and who had migrated decades ago to Canada, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, and other Indian cities for education, work, and better opportunities — return to Kolkata each year to celebrate with their relatives, old friends, and neighbors.

“Many youngsters have settled abroad and it’s mostly the elderly or those running a business left here,” said Chen, whose family is one of the few Chinese-Indian families who still call Kolkata their home.

A quintessential part of the celebration is the family get-togethers over meals. On the eve of Chinese New Year, many households would be busy preparing meals for friends and family.

On the menu were siu mai (dumplings), noodles, fishball soup, steamed chicken and barbecued pork, said Janice Lee, the CEO of Pou Chong Kim, a sauce manufacturer that started its business in Calcutta in 1958.

The whole family would gather around a round table to enjoy a delicious feast.

“On New Year we also give money to friends and family in red envelopes,” she added.

For Lee, "New Year isn't just about fun and food”. “It is about coming home, remembering where we belong,” she said.

David Chen, in his late 60s, ruefully recalled that the celebrations were “much bigger” when he was younger.

“Over the course of time, like other communities, we have also changed. All of us have spread out, yet we find time on special days to come together and celebrate,” said David Chen, who owns a footwear shop on Bentinck Street, central Kolkata.

The Chinese community has been hosting cultural activities, such as singing and dancing, at Tangra's Pei May Chinese High School for many years.

This year, several cultural events were organized, and many food stalls set up at the school, but the celebration has lost much of its old pomp and grandeur due to the lack of participation from the new generation of Chinese, said Francis, a third-generation Indian-origin Chinese pop singer who spent his childhood in central Kolkata.

Every year, Francis flies to Kolkata from Bengaluru to celebrate Chinese New Year with his family and old friends in central Kolkata.

Cultural events were also organized at Mei Kong Chinese School in Tiretti Bazaar.

Pei May Chinese High School and Mei Kong Chinese School were the city's oldest Chinese schools, but both closed down many years ago due to the lack of a new generation of Indian-origin Chinese.

Kolkata is one of the few cities in the world to boast two Chinatowns — Tiretta Bazar (Old Chinatown) and Tangra (New Chinatown) — where at one time more than 20,000 ethnic Chinese-Indians used to reside.

They established tanneries, restaurants and temples in Tiretta Bazaar and had a lasting impact on the city's cultural and economic landscape.

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Although the community's population has dwindled to around 1,500, their contributions to the city's food and culture are still very much alive and well.

Historical records indicate that in the latter half of the 18th century, a few hundred Chinese migrants arrived in Calcutta (now Kolkata) aboard ships from Canton, now Guangdong province, in China.

However, the most well-known "first" settler was a tea trader named Yang Dazhao, nicknamed Atchew. In 1778, he received a land grant from British governor-general Warren Hastings near Budge Budge, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River. Atchew set up a sugar mill on the plot of land, which would later be known Achipur, and began recruiting laborers from China.

The writer is a freelance journalist for China Daily.