Calcutta Chronicles I

Yesterday, while boarding my flight, the check-in guy looked at me and asked “Kawlkatta”, with raised eyebrows. Nothing irritates me more than people gleefully mispronouncing Kolkata and my name. Both these unfortunate names suffer the same fate because people accentuate the ‘o’ to an ‘aww’ without much reason. I don’t know whether there some awe factor here or it’s just their honest attempt to do justice to the Bengali phonetic. I rather prefer to stick to Calcutta because it so royal, reminds me of the British Raj and the good old days of the past glory of the city.

Didubhai (my grandmother) has moved into this new place, away from Dumdum where we had some sort of a ramshackle three-storeyed outhouse complete with trees, wilderness and a large muddy green pond. That house was synonymous with Calcutta to me. As the cycle-rickshaw pulled closer to the society, it was becoming increasingly difficult for me to relate to this apartment business to stay in Calcutta. That house in Dumdum represented freedom, joy and excitement. Another concrete jungle could hardly substitute for it, no matter how spacious or ‘green’ it might be. It turned out to be good indeed with highrises overlooking elegantly manicured lawns, all modern amenities et al.

After the initial bit of chatter with her, I checked out the new house which was strewn with furniture from our Dumdum house. Especially that old armchair that sat grimly in the main veranda reminded me a lot of my misadventures of my past, they are just too numerous to relate. Though its upholstery was still firm, one of its arms had fallen off. I searched for one of the lost arms of that ‘Venus di Milo’ in vain. I still didn’t get that feeling I usually get when I am in Calcutta, it seemed like another artificial, pretty apartment, nothing special at all. Despite her age, didubhai has managed to keep herself updated about all petty details of her grandchildren and her great-grandchildren and their breakfast habits. Well, it seems once you cross a certain age you cease to grow older or at least look older, despite your progressing age; didubhai bore ample testimony to that. Her skin was loose and wrinkled and it sagged all over, she hobbled about the house in a loosely draped white sari with a plainly designed colour border and her blouse always seemed to slide off her shoulders. All of that fit into place into that gaunt 5-foot frame of hers. She rattled off information which was exceedingly redundant from my viewpoint, like the relationships shared by my elder cousins with their respective mother-in-laws and an incisive analysis about the same. She spoke about people I never had the faintest clue about and soon I mastered the technique of being an expert conversationalist. I grunted at regular intervals in agreement at whatever she untiringly spoke about. That bit of acknowledgement was all she needed as encouragement. So, we chatted for hours the whole day.

Today, I woke up lazily at nine, and decided to pick up some rare books at College Street. On my way there, I was tempted to visit the place I spent most of my time in Calcutta. The world might have progressed, India might have changed but the winds of change had completely ignored this part of Calcutta. The bus which I boarded on my way to Dumdum was in its penultimate stage of dilapidation as it rattled like a prehistoric being desperate for retirement and then probably salvation. I remember my father saying that these buses were the most efficient in terms of seating arrangement, or ‘standing arrangement’ rather. There were seats lining the interior of the bus, the rest of the space available with bars on the ceiling for clinging on to. According to him, these buses hadn’t changed since his dad had come to Calcutta; beat that for dogged resistance to change. Old men sat unfazed and fat housewives held on to their overgrown, overfed kids. Girls here have this penchant for red thick ribbons tied to their braided hair; I haven’t seen this amazing spectacle anywhere else. The traffic was erratic even when completely normal always caught in crossfire of blaring horns. So, most of the things here had not changed, a very reassuring feeling.

Once in Dumdum, I slowly walked towards our house. It seemed as if it all happened in a daze. The streets lined with shops were so damn familiar; on some occasions even shopkeepers seemed recognizable. As I reached the house, I felt breathless. Though that place had been sold now, it was in a complete state of disuse. I found it locked and so I climbed the surrounding single brick wall, carefully avoiding the glass bits cemented on to that boundary wall and jumped into the wilderness. I could mentally picture the space in its heydays to its plight now. The construction stood discoloured, awkward and complaining.

Dadubhai (my grandfather), post his retirement had taken great pains to beautify this place. He had planted grass all throughout and had made a narrow brick lane way. The furrow besides the grass and the brick lane was filled with small brick chips. He used to weed out unnecessary vegetation, even from the bottom of the pond. His sense of aesthetics was decidedly amateurish, homely and likeable. He never used anything new or snazzy; everything was remodelled with recycled stuff, laboriously put in place. But all of it had a life of its own. Among various trees, we had one gigantic palm tree, one mango tree, one guava, two lemon trees and a clutch of beetelnut trees. The pond was quite large, rectangular in shape with rounded ends; luxuriant green water around seven feet deep was home to some water snakes, crabs and a variety of fish. I and all my cousins learnt how to swim there. During noon, which felt like the midnight of the day, it reflected the buildings around, silent, green and content, cradling our childhood. I used to toss stones, make them skip, glide on the surface or hurl those brick chips at unsuspecting birds much to the chagrin of dadubhai. During my summer vacations it was like a paradise getaway, away from school and all the horrid homework in Delhi.

Now, everything looked the same in a sorry sort of a way in the wild grass and the shaggy trees. From one end of the pond I could see the mango tree aching with blossom, mangoes abundant on all sides and the guava tree was dead. Another boundary wall had caved in. Right at the centre of the pond, the gnarled, rotten branches of a dead tree arose like a skeleton haunting the surroundings. People living around had found a very cost effective and convenient method of disposing their garbage. They could now just toss it into the pond without any hassle. And I stared at this putrid state of my paradise, my childhood which had ceased to reflect anything anymore owing to all trash in it. Dadubhai used to make me and my cousin work for him in return for pittance, now I felt this overwhelming urge to restore its naked orderliness. I had been sitting next to the pond for an hour now, transfixed and somewhat paralysed, even the drone of the blood thirsty mosquitoes acted as memory tags, rather than an irritation. Historical monuments had always filled me with wonder whenever I tried to imagine them in their prime looking at their ruins. Here I had seen the prime and could see its ruins too, nothing left to imagine. As I made a final inspection of the weathered remains, I saw this heavy metal roller embedded in a bald patch of land. As a child, it was my fantasy to be strong enough to roll the device. I had never managed to do it. I gave it a final tug, the rusted remains of that piece of junk budged and then fell back into that pit of neglect, coating my hands with rust. I plucked a flower and left.

I tunneled through the city in the metro and reached College Street, in this sweltering heat. First time since my visit in Calcutta I felt the unbearable heat and humidity. Sweat streamed down my throat, my nape tickling its way down irritatingly. I got a damn good bargain though with some authentic Rajput history, biography of the pugnacious Muhammad Ali, some bit on the Victorian age etc. I spiced it up with Lady Chatterley’s Lover, hoping for some excitement there. Found didubhai waiting for me even at four in the afternoon and wanted to have lunch together. Even after the hourly calls to assure my well-being had failed to convince her that I was safe and sound. Alexander might have conquered half the world by 26, but here elders refuse to believe that their kids can ever grow up…