KoLkata 2

Kolkata is not “lazy” or “laidback”. It is throbbing passionately, simmering (literally and metaphorically) with only a semblance of laziness if you will. A colleague says, the judgment that Kolkata is lazy may have arisen from a general tendency to label everyone and everything involved with the arts, literature and other such leisurely activities as “laidback”. Kolkata has exemplified aesthetics since forever, thus, falling prey to being labeled if you like. Locals here have options of and time for theatre, concerts, exhibitions and hence not running around like headless chicken in malls in Kandivli, malls in malad, malls in Andheri and malls in Mulund. Not yet! Anyhow, a city which was at the forefront of political, social and artistic reform and movement cannot be lazy, not THEN and not NOW.
I have seen very few beggars in Kolkata and none at all at traffic lights. I do not know the reason. I have seen women, dressed like how we do back in Mumbai, but I have seen very few women. There are still a larger number of independent, quaint homes lining the lanes of Kolkata than high-rises or apartments. This, however, may not be the case after a year. No pigeons (read that Ramya) except for at the Dakshineshwar temple! I have not seen too many fancy cars and the roads seem like the domain of the yellow ambassador cabs. The streets are FULL of them and their size and color makes the swanky esteems and civics look dim-witted, lackluster and boring! The sheer number of these darting yellow blobs with the sun beating down upon them casts a YELLOW glow on the entire frikking city. Kolkata gets its color from them AND from the dusty dark green shutters adorning windows of ALL houses. And I thought the color of Kolkata was RED :-)

Speaking about connections I feel with this place, I discovered something that added to it. My ever so charming hotel is situated right next to a 3 storeyed brick red building by the name of "Jamuna" and anybody entering the lane leading upto my hotel cannot fail to notice the white alphabates bolted vertically on the brick red wall! I see my own name each day as I enter the lane that leads to my hotel. And it feels great!
And to boot, I stumbled across in crowded goriahat on a ballet school by the name of "Udayan".
I love Kolkata!

I return tomorrow and not at all with a sigh of relief as is usually the case. Rather, kolkata is now one of those "living-things" I write about and talk to. We are exchanging good-byes and i have promised to return.

KoLKatA

8th April 2009:
This is the day I flew ALL ALONE for the first time in 27 years. I lost most of this landmark of a journey to overpowering slumber. The much touted “long” flight to Kolkata was not long, not when I would have liked to catch up on a few more hours of sleep. I flew across the country in just a few winks. It took a few winks to get to Kolkata! Hell!

Colin described Kolkata as “a city that is like a beautiful, intellectual woman one wants to have a relationship with”. To me Kolkata is like a melody; painfully tugging at my heart and bringing a lump to my throat. It swamped me in nostalgia even though I have no associations with this city. I am thinking Kolkata is a wrong place to be in if one is looking to get over a relationship! Or I would think it is a bad place even if one is happily in one! It rather dramatically pushes you into catacombs you thought you found your way out of! I think Kolkata rakes up sweet pain. I do not know how the real Kolkata is. I never will. My perception of it will forever be affected by Tagore’s stories and The City of Joy. Maybe these poets, authors and filmmakers made Kolkata hard to be just another city, maybe Kolkata IS difficult to be just another city. The conclusion is it is very well NOT just another city, whether it owes this to its artistic portrayal or to itself.

My first impression of the streets of Kolkata was that I will NEVER have to go WITHOUT anything here! The streets, all of them, are lined with such an abundance of tiny shops seeming like they are selling everything under the sun or almost, that all I need to do to get what I want in Kolkata is take a short walk! In an hour-long drive around the city I saw shops, cafes, multi-cuisine hotels, residential buildings, ponds, gardens, colleges, schools, hospitals, a fine arts academy (of course!), a mall, a crossword, a theatre and there was not a doubt left in my mind about Kolkata and what it got! It got everything. And it shows it. One doesn’t have to wait to get to the market area to see the market, to the residential area to see homely homes and to the corporate area to see offices! Markets are everywhere, people live everywhere and everything co-exists everywhere. In extremely narrow lanes opposite Tolly Club, are quaint houses with indecipherable names (I bet they are worth getting to know. Bengali names always are), in Bangla script, adorned with typical green shutter windows (dust coated but charming) and trees. What are not charming are the aberrant and abrupt skyscrapers. They fail to blend. They herald a new Kolkata rising with an avaricious eagerness, towering over the old city and looking tawdry next to the existing homes. Amidst bustling narrow streets, small houses, cycle rickshaws, rickety blue buses and the anachronistic trams are the anomalous skyscrapers! Kolkata appears to be in the middle of a skyscraper epidemic. In the midst of a Heightened Mania!

Kolkata, by virtue of what it means to me and does to me is NOT a place for me to be alone in. Or be “without work” in. Kolkata should not see me idle. I react to idleness in Kolkata!

This post was meant for something else. But something else takes precedence. I was groped by a hand today on my way back from work. Just a hand, because I do not have a face or form to give that hand. I was not walking “in the open” or on the streets, I was not in a crowded place like a Railway Station, I was not in a dark alley, I wasn’t in a pub getting drunk and being unethical or immoral nor was I wearing “revealing”, “vulgar”, low waist denims and a short T. I was as revealing as revealing could get in clothes suitable for office, huddled in a corner of a rickshaw, with a big bag and another bag of some purchases!

That’s where the groping happened! And I realized as I type, that I am avoiding the sentence “That’s where I got groped”. Passive voice comes to the rescue if I am grammatically correct! Framing the sentence with an “I” is like a slap on the face. But let me face it. “I” got groped by a pedestrian while I sat in the rickshaw.

Am I angry? No! Am I sad? No! There are no emotions… is that a problem? My rickshaw slowed down in traffic, when I was caught unawares (unaware and relaxing after a days work, listening to music, enjoying my rickshaw ride back home…is that a problem? Was I careless for doing that? Did I ASK FOR IT?). It all happened so quickly. My rickshaw was moving ahead already. I asked the driver to stop and got down without knowing what I was going to do…shout? Hit? Chase? I got down only to face the traffic and a sea of people. I do not know who did it!

What is the change? The rest of the journey, I sat with my bag closer than it was, alert to every passerby each time my rickshaw slowed! And I think this will continue for a long time now. Shock value maybe!

This slot was meant for a happy and pleasant post!

It has turned out to be something else…

My friends read this blog. Hell my family reads this blog. For me, my personal victory is that I can talk about it… with no shame! Because the shame is NOT MINE!

Point to Ponder: What can be done? Blogging and some more blogging maybe.......?

And what the hell do I title this post as?

DisiLLUsionMEnt

An American actress said she stopped believing in Santa Claus when a Santa in a mall she was visiting with her mother asked her for her autograph.

Disillusionment.

My first palpable feeling of disillusionment came at the age of 7. I had a runny nose and was taken to the doctor's, the only place back then where I could browse through film magazines (and of course in beauty parlors mom took me to because I was too young to be left home alone, or because mom felt guilty about getting a facial done while I was home alone. Either ways). That was the year of Maine Pyar Kiya, friendship caps, pigeons and corny one-liners about dostis. Disillusionment crept in when I saw Salman Khan with "another woman" (Manisha Koirala in a light pink dress with hair tied in a yellow ribbon) on the cover page of a magazine. That was my first vivid memory of holding a film magazine with glossy pages in my hands and feeling something akin to an ache in my heart. I worried myself sick, teary eyed, how Bhagyeshree was going to hold herself through THAT?

Disillusionment. (Bhagyeshree's seemed greater and more REAL than mine but disillusionment it was)

Disillusionments, I guess are many. Small and big.

Sometimes, disillusionments stop disillusioning. They become "the way of life". The norm. They do no elicit a reaction.

Disillusionments no longer remain a "let down".

Such a let down!

Disillusioned with disillusionments disillusioning.