However hard Kolkata tries to hold on to its beloved adda, hectic jobs, the intrusion of smartphones and migration of youths from Kolkata to other Indian cities and abroad mean that addas are threatened. "The addas I used to have in Kolkata were very fulfilling. Most of my addas that I enjoyed were with people I knew since childhood; it is not possible to recreate that here," reminisced Moumita Ghorai, doctoral candidate at Western Michigan University who immigrated from Kolkata in 2016.