Adda (South Asian)

For other uses, see Adda (disambiguation).

An adda (Bengali: আড্ডা) is a term in Bengali referring to when several individuals 'Hangout'. This originally took place between members of the same socio-economic strata, but the process has become more heterogeneous in modern times.^[1]

Adda conversation, Kolkata

Adda was incorporated into the Oxford English Dictionary in 2004.

This word is both a standalone noun and a noun in a noun-verb compound, in Bengali. The nominalization of the word has two senses — one being the Hindi sense, and the other being the place of ritual meeting and/or conversation of a group of people (i.e., a symposium). The verb form means informal conversation among a group of people, often for hours on end, and usually accompanied by food.^[2]

Other languages

Hindi

In Hindi, adda is a noun, with the nominal form of the word meaning the location or nest of a group or community. The etymology can be traced to the original meaning of the word, which means the "perching spot or perch for birds".^[2]

Popular culture

In 2011, filmmakers Surjo Deb and Ranjan Palit made a documentary on the subject.^[3] The film, Adda: Calcutta, Kolkata, has been screened at several festivals around the globe and won the Golden Palm Award at the Mexico International Film Festival 2012.^[4][5][6]