Vol. 7, Issue 2, Part H (2025)

The iconic Bengali song Coffee House-er Sei Adda Ta Aaj Aar Nei is a rich cultural artifact that intensely sustains collective memory through its suggestive nostalgia linked to the historical urban space of the Indian Coffee House. Deeply-rooted in Jan and Aleida Assmann’s cultural memory theory, Svetlana Boym’s notion of reflective nostalgia and Avishai Margalit’s ethical memory concept, the study establishes the Coffee House not merely as a physical place but as a symbolic source that preserves, commemorates, and ethically honors the shared intellectual and artistic heritage of a preceding generation. The purpose of the paper is to explore how the song functions as a mnemonic device and ethically engages with nostalgia to preserve cultural memory amidst the inevitable passage of time and change in postcolonial Bengal. Employing qualitative content analysis of the song’s lyrics alongside historical and cultural studies of Kolkata’s Coffee House, the research investigates how nostalgic remembrance acts as both an emotional reverence and an ethical act of cultural preservation. Results indicate that while the song mourns the departure of old friends and changing social realities, it simultaneously celebrates the continuity of the space, embodying an ethical stance on remembering the past without romanticizing loss. The nostalgia in the song is reflective, balancing tradition and reality, thereby sustaining cultural memory by transmitting shared values and histories to new generations. Thus, the song maintains Bengal’s urban cultural identity amid postcolonial socio-historical transformations by fostering a dialogue between past and present. Overall, Bengali “Coffee House” song exemplifies how music can ethically preserve cultural memory and collective heritage through reflective nostalgia, respecting temporal change while sustaining a shared cultural bequest.