oh Calcutta!

Longtime back I had written a poem, in an emotional outburst on the thought of going away from my city- Calcutta, मैं तुझे छोड़ के जाऊं भी तो जाऊं कैसे, तेरी याद तो मेरे साथ चली आएगी / ढूँढ़ते ढूँढ़ते अनजान शहर में राहें, यह निगाहें फिर तेरे पास चली आएँगी! ( how do I leave you and go way, i will still me carrying you in my memories / searching for paths in an unknown city, my eyes will return to you again and again) Well with four plus years away from my city of love, I actually live these lines today. And this weekend, it got manifest with quite an aplomb.

As a recurring dream, wherever I go I find a little bit of Calcutta, in some form or the other luring me. And well, I do look for a touch of Calcutta almost 2000 miles away from it! So you would find me frequenting the Oxford Bookstore in Leela Galleria, trying to relive the moments at Oxford at Park Street... And it is here that I get the flow coming for me to pen down my thoughts! So it was with this intension (and also to check out the monsoon sale on books) that I went to Oxford Book Store inside Leela this weekend. As soon as I sat down heavy with words to pour, I heard two gentlemen on a table beside mine discussing Calcutta... The first words I heard were, Priya Cinema and Deshpriya Park and all that I entered the Cha bar with went off in a huff... Pictures of busy pavement circling Deshpriya Park and  lifesize posters of cinestars outside Priya cinema, complete with marigold garlands and crazy graffiti float in front me! The purpose of my visit to the cafe was forgotten and all I wanted to do was to hop to the other table and talk Calcutta!

Of course, I could not do so. The decency would not allow that. So, i did the next best thing, chew on my thoughts on Calcutta and tried to explore what is this phenomenon called Calcutta. Here I share with you all what I noted in my scribbling pad that evening sipping my favorite Kahwa and listening to bits and pieces on Calcutta, floating towards me...

Calcutta- what is it! An enigma or just an old sweetheart, or a throbbing that is simply too sweet to be done away with! Now that I am away from it, and for good, honestly speaking, I would not like to go back to its humid, sweaty, congested neighborhood. But then can I really move ahead, leaving it behind me? Perhaps not. I cannot because it runs in my blood, too poetic, maybe, but true. It lives with me, as perhaps with every Calcuttan who moves away from it for some reason or other. Calcutta is a fragrance that follows me in mind and spirit, in thoughts and action... in dreams and wakefulness...

Calcutta is a romance - a nostalgia - a beleaguered first love that one has long outgrown but whose face one still looks for in every friend one makes! Yes, I look for a touch of Calcutta in every place I go, every food I eat, every face I see... In books I look for authors from Calcutta or those writing on Calcutta, in bookshops I look for the inexplicable lure of  dirt smeared old copies lined neatly on pavements outside Presidency College on College Street, in cafes I look for the old world charm of Flury's... and when I look at the sky and feel the caress of stars as they touch Calcutta with the same intensity, reinforcing the connect...

Oh yes, there can be a sociological and political debate on how Non Resident Calcuttans (NRCs) only see Calcutta in their past and not in future. But this is not the occasion for it. Lets save it for some other day. Today, I am trying to understand what is Calcutta to me... its inevitability in my life, its all pervasive and sometimes annoyingly intrusive presence in every nook of my thought and being - a presence that irks and comforts at the same time. Its like enjoying rain with its drops caressing you in soft breeze touching your face but your head under the shelter of an umbrella!

Every time I hear the word Calcutta, i feel a tug at heart, a pull, a sense of belonging, and unknowingly a smiles comes on my face, a feeling similar to that of the pat of an old friend on your shoulders! Sometimes I feel i am closer to Calcutta today, than I ever was, living there. I look at it from distance, savour its memories and thank my stars that I came away before people could take Calcutta to the stooping level of anarchy that reigns there today! It also makes me think how ironical our thoughts can be - how one can love and hate someone with equal intensity at the same time - how one longs for and runs away from the same thing simultaneously. To put it bluntly, Calcutta is a place I am indebted to, it made me what i am today, but it does not become a part of my tommorrow... it is an inseparable part of my life - that now lives in remembrance!