revolutionary clouds that rain in droplets of change
candles that burn bright as darkness deepens
hands that reach out
voices that are raised
ei toh amar kolkata...
satyajit and truffaut, neruda and jibanananda
nandini and bonolata, othello and hayavadana
"aaj hok na rong fyakashe...you fill up my senses"
"tumi je amar ogo...dil mein mere dard-e-disco"
ei toh amar kolkata...
busy streets where horns are honked
empty lanes where hands are locked
people who cheat, people who lie
people who live on after they die
ei toh amar kolkata...
lives that are made, dreams that are crushed
lies that you live, truths that go hushed
survival's a struggle, brains are drained
you live on still...forgetting what's gained
ei toh amar kolkata...
dukkho aache, swopno bhangar bhoy-o, tobu aamra aachi, hoyeto thakbo-o, karon ektai - etai toh amar shohor, ei toh amar KOLKATA
In a strange and sudden impulse when I decided that I had to walk around Kolkata, I didn't think that the experience would be so enriching (invigorating, enlightening...please help yourselves with a thesaurus!!!) During all these years when I've stayed in this city, the thing that has struck me the most perhaps is the "twin states of contraries" - I have seen a peaceful and often not-so-peaceful co-existence of the happy and the teary, the silence and the rage, the busily idle and the idly busy and this time, I was not disappointed...Kolkata had made me smile...genuinely.
My trip began as I snailed out of my house, the March heat making me disgustingly drenched in sweat. As I reached my first destination, my friend (read-supporter & victim of my irrational and unjust demands) was waiting, fuming and fretting (also cursing ...though that was not visible!!!). We moved about for quite some time deciding and redeciding what to see and how to reach there. Initial hesitations over, we leaped towards our destinations...first on the list was the church situated in the precincts of the St. Thomas school, Khidderpore.
Unfortunately, we weren't allowed inside and my attempts to convince the guard that I was writing a book on the history of Calcutta sounded unconvincing and hence proved futile. The church is open only to members (wonder who that eclectic group comprises of!!!) and that too on a Sunday. The little that I could manage to feast my eyes with were the large sprawling grounds and the bored looking overgrown kids (?) The church looked old enough but elusive.
Next walking through the streets, I discovered the Munshi Premchand Udyan - wonder of all wonders...in a city where most of the residents rattle of in unchaste Hindi peppered with generous doses of Bangla, where irrespective of your gender you can manage to 'jata' and 'aata' everywhere indiscriminately (kudos to equality of gender when it comes to language) - to find a udyan in the memory of this great Hindi author came as a mild but pleasant surprise. The irony struck home, but not very hard.
By then, the sun had reached its highest...the intensity of the rays dehydrated our strength, almost...but our spirits hadn't sagged, yet!!! Jumping on to a bus heading for Esplanade, we swished past scenes that can inspire couplets, sonnets, lays and odes (haikus, tankas included!) Giggling uncontrollably, we missed the place we were supposed to alight and then began our long-walk in the sun...
Walking was a revelation...the streets and the streetlights alight and burning even when the sun was so generous with its rays seemed like an unaffordable luxury. What first caught my blinking eye in that heat was an engraving in the wall about a sport that dates some 3500 years back. Kabaddi is the game which is said to have been played not only by Abhimanyu in the Mahabharata but also by Gautam Buddha. The West Bengal Kabaddi Association established in 1951 had some players practising their moves, strangely staring at the two intruders shamelessly poking their abnormally long (and grimy) noses into their arena. Having completely embarrassed yet intrigued my friend (for the first time in the past one hour he said that he liked this work...achievement, huh?), I hastily scribbled whatever I could set my eyes on.
Flanked by the Shahid Minar and quite a few statues, the Maidan looked every inch a playground with the little boys enjoying their game of cricket. The statue that held my attention was that of Matangini Hazra -the famous revolutionary who was an active participant in the Quit India Movement (1942). Surfing the net later I found that hers was the first statue of a woman to be put up in Kolkata (1977). My heart warmed to the thought of this brave widow who had managed to locate a home in the world leaving her footprints firmly imprinted on the face of time.
The long-walk went on uninterrupted except for a couple of orange sticks (!!!) and a strange-looking but great-tasting brownish liquid with dabs of lemon juice and crushed ice to quench our ever-augmenting thirst. Funnily enough, these street vendors sell/display their tempting wares in front of 'Grand' and plush hotels that not-so-funnily look extremely unfriendly (foremost to the pockets!!!) No wonder raasta-fare is a perennial favourite with the Kolkata people who don't want to hunt for burnols nursing their pockets.
The walk came to a halt when we reached St. Paul's church which was again inhospitably closed till 3 in the afternoon. That had been enough for legs, feet, grey cells et el were slowly but surely sinking into a coma. A cab to travel in and some water to gulp on was all we needed to journey towards North Kolkata. Our next halt was Star Theatre that housed the eatery Bhojohari Manna.
For all those who don't know, Star Theatre was supposed to be named the 'B' Theatre after Binodini Dasi, the famous actress of nineteenth century Bengal. She had drained all her energies towards the establishment of this theatre - she even carried bricks and stones helping the labourers in the construction work. However, her efforts yielded no results as it was named Star - because named after a female (and a had-been prostitute) would have been detrimental to the success of the theatre. Cheated and humiliated, Binodini had vanished into oblivion voluntarily. Today, it has been renovated and is a movie hall cum hangout zone.
Binodini's could-have-been home had been raided by the Europeans when we set our foot inside Bhojohari Manna. A table full of white-skinned, rosy-cheeked, light-eyed people is always a sight in India and what is irritatingly disgusting is the fawning attitude that greets and follows them everywhere like Vodafone's dog. It was difficult for us to control our laughter as we caught on snatches of the conversation between the restaurant owner/manager and the group of foreigners. Trying to explain Bengali food and recipes to the group, the manager exhausted all his knowledge gleaned from the Bengali-English cookbook dictionaries...
- taste thish...haabh yuuu eiten thish?? it isz made from chana, cottage cheese, yuu know, na?
-yeah, yeah...cottage cheese.
- and thish...thish is echor, whaattt yuu call the jackfruit...the big one, yuu see, the bengolis who don't eat mutton (pronounced as muh-ton) eat thish...it iz vegeterian mutton, try, try.
- yeah, why not...yeah, jackfruit, you said, right?
- thish...ei jaa toh, mocha ta niye aaye...ei toh...thish iz mochar ghonto - the flawar oph the byanana treee..eat, eat, no.
- flowers, right...of the banana...okay.
-and yuuu..what iz yourr name - yuu are not eating, you like the food, no?
-yeah...of course, my name's Sally.
-ohh...Shaalee- youu are bengoli...shee, in our phamilee, our wife's shister is our shali. he-he-he-he. bengoli shalee.
- that's nice..Shah-li, right?
that was more than either of us could bear..."Shah-li" mumbling "Bengoli" while munching on cottage cheese and jackfruit. Trying not to laugh out aloud, we diverted our gazes to a newly wedded couple who made a not-so-pretty picture of simulative happiness. The husband seemed to have lost some more of his fastly thinning and disappearing hair while the wife dazzled in thick vermilion smeared over hers. The wife's bulging belly completely dwindled the husband's bulging pockets and he really looked forlorn carrying a packet of newly bought silks from the Indian Silk Museum.
Having finished our meal (did we, really?? we couldn't even lap up one plate of rice together!), we ventured out, me a paper napkin-ful of sweetened mouth freshner in my hands and my friend with a cigarette dangling in his fingers. The workers/ushers of the theatre were bringing in some bottles of water when one tripped with his box to which his friend quipped - "dekhe chol..eto Tollylights dekhle ki chole?" (The poster of Tollylights, a Bengali movie based on the Bangla film industry had been displayed at the theatre and it showed a bare-backed Sreelekha Mitra with kohl-rimmed eyes, dead-pan expression and ringlets of hair on her soapy-foamy body)
Laughing again, we began walking determined to digest the little that we had eaten. Heading towards Jorasanko, we walked quite a distance when the realization dawned upon us that being a Saturday, Jorasanko might be closed to visitors. Then we boarded a bus and rode past exactly the way that we had walked on few minutes back (it was 30-35 minutes walk that took us 5-7 minutes in the bus). I had lost it by then, simply could not stop giggling...while we both walked towards Kumortoli.
To give our feet some well-earned/deserved rest, we got onto a rickshaw (a man-pulled one) that wobbled terribly and reached Baghbazar ghat. The Kashi Mitra Shashan Ghat looked squeaky clean as opposed to the Nimtolla ghat that I had visited some time back. The Ganges was the sight that soothed my senses - lights just about to fade, water sparkling in that fading light and birds heading home, leaves waving in a mild breeze - it was a scene that charmed inevitably.
Walking again, we decided to get lost...but it wasn't easy, a few minutes and a trial -auto drive (by meee!!!) later we got to the main road. Deciding to pause for a while, we got some water and a mango drink (sadly the orange stick was unavailable!!) and sat down under a tree on a raised platform that was one of the most comfortable seats I ever tried (Inox n 89 owners please note!!!). Babbling about everything on God's green earth - simple joys, painful sorrows, difficult decisions, stupid bosses, flighty frustrations and shifting aims, we simply sat and spoke.
Interrupted by the flying sense of time, we finally decided to call it a day (obviously quite an eventful one). We hadn't managed to see any of the things/places we had charted out initially but it had been nevertheless quite fulfilling - seeing and understanding my city, falling in love with her again, reveling in a friendship that silently speaks volumes and finally going back home, tremendously tired but immensely happy.
