Bonolata --- dates back to the days when trams were representative of class and struggle in Kolkata. For much of the pre-independence period of fervent nationalistic activism in the city, the 1880-established CTC was seen as a metaphor for the British ruling class and consequently, tram cars were often vandalized. In later decades, with the advent of radical Communist politics, any hike in fares would result in the carriages being damaged. In the 1950s, the Communists organized a Tram Fare Enhancement Resistance Committee. At one point,13 trams were torched on Kolkata's streets in a single day by Left activists protesting a single-anna fare increase. Banalata was retired after it was scorched by political workers during a street protest near south Kolkata's Charu Market in the late-1960s. It was at Nonapukur Workshop, after decades of neglect, that the tram got a steel body, and another shot at life, in 2002. Its old number # 568, still links it to its past. Bonolata references the iconic poem Bonolata Sen by the poet Jibanananda Das.