Calcutta Kolkata

Time, unhurrying, almost standing still, appeared to be watching me as I looked out the window. The trees and vines that I planted, exuberantly filled the vision and teased the stillness by their gaiety. And beyond that, the sea appeared to be atop a mountain of clouds, its roar contained. My mind fell into a time warp, and weakly yearned for a fast-forward button in vain.

1956

Irony, as usual, struck hard:  while time does not stop, and therefore obliterates any sense of present, as every lapse between heart-beats becomes past the moment they become present; and while it does not allow you to take a swift and terminal ride into the future, it always manages to sharpen the consciousness with burdens of the past, as if it did have a rewind button.

My bones and skin, tissues of my body, my physical and mental being, the very blood that courses through my brain, contain tiny, indestructible molecules of my history, my past, and keeps vitalising the persistence of memory, and exhausts me.

1952

Outside my window, it is raining.  A building crumbles, unrealistically, like a toy-model.  But the piles of brick and broken glass and twisted metal are real.  As are the dying or the maimed people.  I recognise the streets of Calcutta, Bhowanipore, Chitpore Road, Pollock Street.  Calcutta is my home.  It is in me; or it exists as a fantasy, a belief that my roots have inextricably sprouted out of it, and that somehow I am bound to its streets, walls, houses, people.  How is it that I am in it, there, and yet now, almost certainly, unreachably far away from it.

1958

Life goes on; or rather, time goes on, unaware or unhindered by life or events that weave in and out through its passage.  Some live, inexplicably, as some perish.  There is decay and death, and yet also renewal of life, instinctively celebrating and ensuring its continuity.  Inexplicably also, I live on, purposeless, unmotivated, unbelieving of everything, unhinged.  I want to go home, but I have irretrievably lost my address. (1986)

1970

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Charu wrote:
Bhai,

Indulge me and allow me to post excerpts from my old blog posting; merely as reminiscence...

"According to my niece who spent about six months with us, she has never heard anybody in our family talk about Calcutta as much as she has from me.

She is right. 

Calcutta is almost never out of my mind.

I often visualize the spacious road we lived on; the neighbors we had; the games we played. I map out the everyday walking route I took to my school. I remember the way but not the shop keepers except a fabric merchant, Primus repairer and a snack shop owner. I believe there was a pottery store at the corner of main road and the side street. During Monsoons, I remember treading the road in knee deep water mixed with sludge. Rains were so heavy that drainage system could not cope with water. Many times we would step on some crawly creatures we did not know what they were. An eeck would go through my body. Most of the times we would be soaked through to the bones for the lack of umbrellas. Umbrellas were, often, ineffectual in torrential rains.

Then, I left Calcutta for good. But......... Calcutta never left me."

charu