DISCLAIMER: The following content doesn’t describe the best
places to eat or any tourism related content. I might write something about digestery (no such word) adventures.
On my last day of my unplanned extended so called vacation i
finally sit to write something down after a heavy push from my high inertial
self (surprisingly!). To begin with “Kolkata Footnotes” the term footnotes came
into my mind for the want of less clinched and less bollywoody wanna be
hollywoody use(hint: Dairies, no end to those!) “footnotes” has a simple explanation.
We have been famously known as paye chaka deva (translation: wheels on feet) as
far as my memory goes, i have been travelling to a new place almost every year
since i was a few months. Each place is a sub chapter and Kolkata is footnote
seen every now and then.
My stays in Kolkata have usually been short(very short
according to dimu, no one can satiate her in terms of staying back at kol). Every
visit is first welcomed with a short illness of some kind followed by irritated
dad running around with a topping of fussy mom. A fast recovery of a day or two
and then starts the relative visiting ritual. A probaashi bangali (NRB- non
returning bong) or not, relative citation is a must. My visits are usually strenuous
and tedious on the stomach muscles. Every relative one meets one has to devour
a series of mishtis(Sweets) with a side plate of bengali samosas, beguni,
neemki, teele bhaja, fish fry, mutton cutlet, kochuri, moglayi (drools). Even though
while listing down my mouth waters, but when you have been made to sit through
all this with minimum of four sweets, and have to go atleast three more houses
and been offered food fit for a regiment and assumed to have an appetite as
that of descendants of “kumbhakaran”, even a fist full of gelucil and digen won’t
come to your rescue. Apart from the usual relative stuff, of whom she looks
like and how small you had been there is nothing more to list down.
Coming to the city, i find Kolkata a small bundled up city,
more like an ant colony seen at cross section (might be my Mumbai perspective).
The city is dominated by narrow lanes and often will make you feel an outsider
for the lack of knowledge of its lanes. The air of past hangs heavily over it.
This time the whiff of nostalgia settled on me and i took to rampaging of old
photos and dusty junk. Finding black and white photos, age stained photos, photos of
high end parties, of gentlemen in suit and horn-rimmed glasses with whiskey and
cigars, of ladies with elegant silk sarees and highbuns. I even found records of
abba and boneym of old hindi songs and some Bengali too! Oh! How i wished i had
a gramophone! The city i have always imagined with horse carts and vintage
cars. People with suits and gowns with their little fragile umbrellas, people
drinking tea with their little finger sticking out. What contributes more to
the heavy air of nostalgia is the still existing trams, and hand rickshaws even
cycle rickshaws.
Every street will have a tale of your grandparents or parents
telling how they ate at that place or shopped on that corner. For me Kolkata is
a city of tales, i relate places of this city with tales of others. When i was
small people thought it amusing to ask me which city i like most, Mumbai or Calcutta..
even then i was more diplomatic than my age and i would sweetly answer both. But
if you ask me truly i would ask you back, would you question whom you love more
your biological mother, or the one that raised you?
