Kolkata is a city I love eternally.
Calcutta or Kolkata is a city of reputation. An old city – an impossibly crowded city – a really dirty city.
A city with classic imperial buildings – a city of British Raj – everyone is a civil servant – a city that celebrates Christmas, trams, book fairs, and worships goddesses who slay terrifying demons, enable knowledge and wealth.
A city full of people dreaming about food, festivals, literature, and standing up for simple and deep beliefs.
A city of music and movies, theater and book stores. A city all about art and talking about art – politics, protest, and food.
I go to Calcutta as often as I can. The city flows in my veins. The city that raised me, inculcated in me a deep love for poetry, music and madness. A city that gave me voice and a mind to distinguish fake from genuine.
I meet people who knew me when the past had no shadows. We talk, laugh and exchange meaningful sorrows. We feel connected. I eat food my mother used to prepare, eat fish that are a fragrant part of my childhood. Delicate bones collapsing under the pressure of my teeth – giving way to a rush of memories – love that flows in many subterranean channels, a continuum of some sort even when people and places are framed photographs. I cross Calcutta roads swirling with dust, with double decker buses bearing down. I am filled with a sense of dé·jà vu – I am a young girl hurling myself in front of speeding buses to cross the road. The dust and the soot create a web in my nostrils, but I manage to cross the road – always.
Sometimes, the dust and the smoke hold messages for me. The smells and the sounds are unchanged – maybe, the city remembers me – my joyful childhood and youth are stashed in its immense brain. My footsteps recorded. I look down at Park Street from the fourth floor verandah of Queens Mansion, a historic landmark. I see the interminable flow of cars and yellow taxis. The footpath looks the same. Vendors selling Menthos, Femina and triangular bars of Toblerone. I remember with a creepy vividness walking on that very same footpath. Platform heels pinching every time I stepped up and down on dips made for entrances to restaurants and heritage buildings. I look down at my own past. I am still here! An amazing moment.
I talk to friends who care. They listen to me. I visit older aunts who remind me how shy I was, how I hated potatoes, hair oil and Mondays. I connect with a part of me that has gone into hiding. The memory is a validation – my raison d’être affirmed.
I leave Calcutta, feeling loved, recharged – clasping something deep within me that throbs to keep a fire in my belly alive.
