HomeI was in Kolkata for a week. And how hot it was! And how humid it was! I visit Kolkata every year, and like every year even this time I noticed – how bad the traffic is, how many people there are on the roads at any given time of the day, and how many of those people have a potbelly (or bhoori in Bengali), how annoying a cycle rickshaw is, how noisy the traffic, how narrow the lanes are, how many buildings there are, how early the sun rises, how dense the city actually is!
On the road each driver thinks he is the king of the road and drives right in the middle, no matter how slow or fast he’s going. The cycle rickshaws clog the narrow lanes. Inspite of constant unbearable honking the pedestrians just don’t move from the road. Absolute madness!
But according to me, Kolkata is one BIG village! Everyone talks to you as if they’ve known you since ages, Apart from the main roads most of the other roads are narrow gullies, or narrower bypasses. The numerous pukoors (Bengali for ponds) that dot the city provide the relief in terms of space- physical and mental. It feels wonderful to cycle down the narrow alleys near my home. Very romantic. Our house is located in Behala in the area that belonged to the Raichoudhury family (one of the richest landowners in Bengal from whom the British had taken land). Near the house there are three pukoors. At times one might get to see water snakes slithering across the pukoor. Around ten years back when there wasn’t so much development (in terms of building construction) one could hear the calls of foxes and wolves at night! Now, only frogs croaking, the area watchmen whistling and the loud tapping of their dandas. The Kolkata sky at night is usually quite clear (surprisingly) and hence the celestial bodies are visible. Glimpse of the odd shooting star isn’t that hard to get. But the mosquitoes, Bah! They will fall in love with your blood. And the lizards, big lizards and they are everywhere! I am awfully scared of lizards, always check the ceiling who knows when one of them would decide to fall on me! So, I prefer sleeping under the mosquito net, so no lizards falling on my head, or no lizards sleeping next to me! I awoke one morning to find the sun shining brightly and no early morning breeze blowing, hence, I thought it must have been around 9.30-10, but it was 6.15AM! And then it struck me, Kolkata is an hour ahead of Mumbai longitudinally!
Cycling around in our paaraa, I saw people bathing in the pukoors some bhadroloks standing in their verandahs feeling their potbellies and brushing their teeth, some watering plants in their gardens (some beautiful gulmohar trees and many pretty flowers), a father teaching his son to cycle, group of boys marching on a field, I could hear the tring tring of the cycle rickshaw wallas carrying kids to school, and many such sights.
But no matter what the time of the day is, the roads are always packed. The traffic density in Kolkata is phenomenal! I don’t want to get into it, as the more I think of the traffic the more it pisses me off! There is the local bus, the state bus, the mini bus, the private cars, the cycles, the cycle rickshaws, the bikes, the scooters, the trams and the people!
The building development in Kolkata is scary! Buildings coming up everywhere, most of the outdoor advertising is on building and housing complexes, feels asphyxiating! Some extremely monstrous towers coming up. I used to think it was Mumbai where one could easily look into the neighboring apartment of the neighboring building, but it is worse in kolkata, you can literally walk into the flat!
Even for all this, Kolkata still manages to appeal to me. For all the mess, all the crowd, it has its own elegance and grandness! I like the names of the roads, the streets, the avenues, the schools, the localities, Lansdowne Road, Shakespeare Sarani, Salt Lake, La Martinere School and many more. Might feel primal as they are just names but somehow the colonial feel of Calcutta has remained through them and compared to whatever else they appear better.
Kolkata is a never ending story for me. Every moment of the day I realize something or the other about the city, something related to me or my family. I am saying this maybe because of the sheer size of the Sen family and the closeness of all of them still, and the long lineage that it has, somehow I feel powerful in Kolkata, a sense of the condescending demeanor settles in. Maybe it is because of how I used to be pampered by my grandmother and my aunts and others. Maybe because of how someone or the other in my family knows someone or the other in nearly every field possible. Maybe because the entire city has a homely feel to it. Maybe because it is the greatest village ever!
On the road each driver thinks he is the king of the road and drives right in the middle, no matter how slow or fast he’s going. The cycle rickshaws clog the narrow lanes. Inspite of constant unbearable honking the pedestrians just don’t move from the road. Absolute madness!
But according to me, Kolkata is one BIG village! Everyone talks to you as if they’ve known you since ages, Apart from the main roads most of the other roads are narrow gullies, or narrower bypasses. The numerous pukoors (Bengali for ponds) that dot the city provide the relief in terms of space- physical and mental. It feels wonderful to cycle down the narrow alleys near my home. Very romantic. Our house is located in Behala in the area that belonged to the Raichoudhury family (one of the richest landowners in Bengal from whom the British had taken land). Near the house there are three pukoors. At times one might get to see water snakes slithering across the pukoor. Around ten years back when there wasn’t so much development (in terms of building construction) one could hear the calls of foxes and wolves at night! Now, only frogs croaking, the area watchmen whistling and the loud tapping of their dandas. The Kolkata sky at night is usually quite clear (surprisingly) and hence the celestial bodies are visible. Glimpse of the odd shooting star isn’t that hard to get. But the mosquitoes, Bah! They will fall in love with your blood. And the lizards, big lizards and they are everywhere! I am awfully scared of lizards, always check the ceiling who knows when one of them would decide to fall on me! So, I prefer sleeping under the mosquito net, so no lizards falling on my head, or no lizards sleeping next to me! I awoke one morning to find the sun shining brightly and no early morning breeze blowing, hence, I thought it must have been around 9.30-10, but it was 6.15AM! And then it struck me, Kolkata is an hour ahead of Mumbai longitudinally!
Cycling around in our paaraa, I saw people bathing in the pukoors some bhadroloks standing in their verandahs feeling their potbellies and brushing their teeth, some watering plants in their gardens (some beautiful gulmohar trees and many pretty flowers), a father teaching his son to cycle, group of boys marching on a field, I could hear the tring tring of the cycle rickshaw wallas carrying kids to school, and many such sights.
But no matter what the time of the day is, the roads are always packed. The traffic density in Kolkata is phenomenal! I don’t want to get into it, as the more I think of the traffic the more it pisses me off! There is the local bus, the state bus, the mini bus, the private cars, the cycles, the cycle rickshaws, the bikes, the scooters, the trams and the people!
The building development in Kolkata is scary! Buildings coming up everywhere, most of the outdoor advertising is on building and housing complexes, feels asphyxiating! Some extremely monstrous towers coming up. I used to think it was Mumbai where one could easily look into the neighboring apartment of the neighboring building, but it is worse in kolkata, you can literally walk into the flat!
Even for all this, Kolkata still manages to appeal to me. For all the mess, all the crowd, it has its own elegance and grandness! I like the names of the roads, the streets, the avenues, the schools, the localities, Lansdowne Road, Shakespeare Sarani, Salt Lake, La Martinere School and many more. Might feel primal as they are just names but somehow the colonial feel of Calcutta has remained through them and compared to whatever else they appear better.
Kolkata is a never ending story for me. Every moment of the day I realize something or the other about the city, something related to me or my family. I am saying this maybe because of the sheer size of the Sen family and the closeness of all of them still, and the long lineage that it has, somehow I feel powerful in Kolkata, a sense of the condescending demeanor settles in. Maybe it is because of how I used to be pampered by my grandmother and my aunts and others. Maybe because of how someone or the other in my family knows someone or the other in nearly every field possible. Maybe because the entire city has a homely feel to it. Maybe because it is the greatest village ever!
4 comments:
very nice post!
i've never been to kolkata, but ur description matches with the picture of kolkata in my head, about the narrow gullies and the colonial hangover..
nice very nice
:)
and welcome back
hey damn nice post ! i hav been there only once off recently and i could really see it ! liked post a lot.
Thank you very much !
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