Calcutta Chronicles 3

I write this back in Delhi not just because I wanted to finish the Calcutta Chronicle series but because I wanted to pen down every thought that crossed my mind, in the order they crossed my mind, during my stay in Calcutta.

Yesterday was the last day of my stay there in Calcutta and I visited the Dakhineshwara Temple. Earlier, every year during our visit, we made it a point to go there and since this trip was more about reliving the past, I wanted to go there just the way we used to as a family. But going to Dakhineshwara entailed getting up early in the morning and with my low degree of volition, that was always going to be a daunting task. The night before didubhai asked with her tone hardened with sarcasm whether I really wanted to go to the temple or not. Incidentally, I told her every night that I would be going to the temple by six and then woke up everyday at somewhere around ten. Her sarcasm was not totally unjustified.

I woke up early at around five yesterday and took a local train to Dakhineshwara from Dumdum at around five-thirty. Local trains, a huge mass of metal and machine, are a lifeline for petty traders and commuters alike. People did look at me with ample curiosity as I hobbled around in cotton shorts, a loose T-shirt and a weathered pair of sandals, this would be the last place on earth where I wanted to look like a jock. I must have looked completely lost there as this gentleman politely asked me whether I needed help. Every square inch of the platform where people could find shade was already occupied and even that early in the morning the sun was quite relentless. I shifted from one spot to the other partly because of my inherent restlessness and partly because of the burning sensation I felt on my skin. People did all conceivable activities one can do to kill time on a platform. It was quite a society there, people drank tea and chatted in quite a content fashion, some of them ate those hideous dried bread pieces dipping them in their tea with care. Urine had seeped through the walls of the nearby urinal and presented itself with a perpetual stink. Not that it seemed to bother anyone though. Further away, there were book-stalls with flimsy paperbacks kept on the glass walls for display. Ripe women lay in fake pools of blood as they pouted, their bosoms blackened out by the owners probably fearing moral policemen. But what interested me more was that this book titled ‘English Memsahib for Desi Men’ with a nude blonde on a swing kept alongside another paperback with Ram Krishna Paramhansa and Swami Vivekananda on its cover, the books overlapping each other. All this probably provided insights as to how important sex as well as religion was important for people, each having its own place. Fine, it seemed, as long as they were kept mutually exclusive. Finally the train arrived, verdant green with yellow sides, shaking the whole platform and stirring the whole society into action.

The temple is usually more crowded on Tuesdays and Fridays and on holidays. I had made a mistake; yesterday was 1st May, a holiday and a Tuesday. I usually stay away from crowded places, very punctilious about my space. Here, people poured into the temple from all directions. I was asphyxiated with rancid breath and sweat flavoured body odours inside the train and now had to jostle alongside the never-ending human tide. It’s a ten minute walk to the temple from the station and I felt sick already, I had seen a crowd of this magnitude after a long time; it was a weird sight, I could see black heads everywhere and people of different shapes and sizes. I briefly walked around the temple complex and then quickly came out. The temple is built on the banks of the river Hoogly and I walked along the river to a spot which seemed unaffected by the spoils of humanity. I sat down close enough to the river so as to get the wafting damp clay smell under a shade on a cemented embankment. Water bodies have always had a great influence on my thought process and it again started now thick and unhindered as I stared at the murky grey waters and small eddies and a lot of trash floating, bobbing up and down.

During my boyhood days, I remembered tagging with my father as he read the inscriptions on the walls of the Dakhineshwara temple…Sanskrit written in Bengali text which plainly translated into ‘The Goddess who is present in all beings in the form of power, we bow to thee’ and then the same shloka would continue but instead of ‘power’ it would be ‘faith’, ‘peace’ and so on. Those days of boyhood, when I was a scatterbrained child, hated by my teachers and the whole lot, ran away from my studies and in fact everything that I was supposed to do. My Std. VII class teacher, Flavia D’ Souza once complained to my mother that I could easily put ‘Dennis the Menace’ to shame, my mom didn’t know who the character was; I feigned ignorance and looked the other way. To this day I maintain that was a hopeless exaggeration. All this when my father had refused to go to those parent-teacher meetings, he was tired of complaints against me. Dad forced me to learn to play the tabla, I didn’t want to, never had it in me, realised it soon enough, so did my teacher, only my dad refused to. Four years of tyranny, I felt sorry for sir, he felt sorry for me, dad felt sorry for none. Mills of education rolled on, but in my case the summation of it all was close to zero, even negative because all my elements of education were not additive, most cancelled each other out. I understood all this business about culture and education back then too, its just that I felt it more now.

This degradation of Calcutta hurt me now. Sometime back while going to salt lake, I sat near the window of a bus and could hear the blaring loudspeaker. A Trinomool Congress speaker had organised a rally and she spoke passionately. “ 2000 Litres of water is consumed in the manufacturing of one car” she wailed, the loudspeaker bursting with the volume, “ we are gasping in this ordinary heat”, she said making gasping sounds, “we’ll all die if we left to the whims of Budhadev’s CPI(M), die of thirst in those cars” followed by a roar of applause. She was obviously referring to the land given to TATA Motors amid a lot of unrest. West Bengal had gone through this communism phase inspired from USSR and China, USSR ultimately collapsed and China’s communism was unique in its own way, they liberalised their economy and catapulted into the growth trajectory in 1978, 13 years before we were forced to. Then the naxalite revolution ravaged this land, which started off as a humble plea for agricultural land reforms, converted into a revolution to vandalise the rich in the name of social equality. History has shown that there is no such thing as social equality, its just a pipedream, USSR realised it the hard way. The best we can do is to provide favourable conditions for all. CPI (M) after years of rigging elections and labour union raj have finally started to get the drift. They are looking to attract FDI and private investment in Bengal, which is probably our only way out. The only roadblock they have hit is they are sanctioning fertile arable land to factories. But people have lost their faith in CPI (M), and rightly so. So, Nandigram burns and CPI (M) goons fight them, its turning into another social revolution. If this time the CPI(M) rigging is not effective and all that anti-incumbency jazz works against CPI(M) and Trinomool gains power, looking at their attitude towards attracting private investment, the development process can easily be pushed years back. I know, it sounds simplistic but its not, and people are highly opinionated here and rather vociferous about their opinion.

A lot of native Bengalis have left West Bengal for opportunities outside. A place retains its character through its people, the existence of the past depends on the present for its survival, and if people leave the city for good then what remains of the city is what remains of Calcutta. Even as late as 1965, Calcutta was one of the richest cities in Asia, today I don’t think it can be counted as rich even here in India. Education and activities like music, dance, theatre, literature etc. was our mainstay, our pride, which was thinning down now, trampled underfoot primal needs like hunger and security. I was being carried away and I might have been wrong, I hoped I was.

Didubhai had given me three plastic bottles and asked me to fill them with water from the sacred Ganges. The water was thick with miscellaneous bits of refuse, especially on the banks. Hoogly moved sluggishly, sweeping broad curves, meandering its way with a majestic flourish, silvery grey under a steel bridge. I stooped down and dunked the bottles in the river, water tickling my knees, it bubbled its way into the bottles. One of the caps was cracked and the water leaked through the polythene leaving a trail behind as I walked. The main compound inside the temple was packed, sizzling with the unbearable heat and humidity, the floor was so hot that my feet hurt, but people waited there with their cheap red and green plastic bottles hanging from their necks, children fighting, adults chatting, in those serpentine queues, just to get a glimpse of the Deity, so much faith they have in Her. I hope for their sake, She responds.

Finally, it was time to leave and I hugged Didubhai and with uncanny timing a ghastly thought entered my mind, was I seeing her for the last time? The thought was baseless, silly and totally uninvited, but there it was when I wanted it the least. I looked at her intently; she looked herself, just the way she always looked. Her head came till my chest and the hug wasn’t wholesome but I managed to pat her back. As soon as I entered the airport the sky grew overcast and then it rained, rained with vengeance as if to add that bit of drama to my departure. I felt sick, I felt the pain you get from losing an argument, that pain you suffer when you have been punched and you couldn’t strike back, not just the physical pain, but more so the humiliation. As the jet flexed its powerful wings over the tarmac and strained to gain altitude, shuddering with the effort, I looked at the glistening, steaming city that lay below me, that Calcutta that I somewhat belonged to, that Calcutta that I never was a part of, that Calcutta which I hoped would regain its former glory.

Calcutta Chronicles 2

I didn’t know when I would be able to come to the city next; it seemed improbable over the next couple of years. I didn’t know where my work would take me and moreover, my parents would be in Delhi, so clearly, there was not much incentive for me to come back here. All this added to this state of confused nostalgia in me. I remembered myself as a child who used to come here every summer vacations ritualistically and strangely was a part of this city for two months; it was almost like a parallel society though not completely my own. I just wanted to bring those days back, days where I enjoyed the attention of my relatives and cousins, of course it felt quite natural that time. But it is now that I feel this irresistible force tearing me away from the city and its people although I didn’t even entirely belong here.

Nonetheless, I made it a point to meet everybody I used to meet as a boy, even if it was just for the sake of a spectacular nostalgia trip. So, I visited my relatives and received hospitality which I couldn’t have expected to receive anywhere else, all this while braving the inhospitable climate. Here, I rediscovered all my body pores, sweat surfaced from orifices which have been dry for years, orifices which remained unyielding in the face of the most exacting of physical exercises.

I can’t help describing one of my visits to my aunt in Howrah, a crowded suburb in Calcutta. I had given her a buzz the other day to confirm her availability and directions to her place and she in turn had enquired about my choice of food. It was a Sunday, a truly sunny one, and I couldn’t manage to find a bus to go anywhere near Howrah. Patience might be a virtue, but not in Calcutta’s irrepressible moist heat. I hailed the first taxi in sight and reached Howrah. Again, after that bit of chatter and jokes, lunch was served. Though I had asked her to prepare fish and some mutton, I had no clue what was in store for me.

First I had some daal followed by some green leafy gooey preparation which is to be eaten with rice. Post that started a nightmarish tryst with tackling fish, the backbone of a bong meal. Just a disclaimer here, though I am used to eating fish and I quite enjoy it too, my ignorance is of encyclopaedic proportions when it comes to knowing their names or the means to cook them. I’ve kept myself blissfully unaware of it all because it never interested me. So, the following description is as crude and as it gets.

The first one I ate was fried, dry and easy to devour. The second one was the type we regularly eat at home with fairly large and identifiable bones, but this one was with curry. Here I finished my first plateful of rice and helped myself to a second plateful. The third variety of fish was intimidating and was clothed for deception. Two small, steamy and slimy bundles of banana leaf stared at me, glimmering with oil. They were tied with threads holding it together. The challenge was to free the banana leaf bundles of those menacing threads and I made a royal mess of it, much to the amusement of my uncle. The knots were too small for any effective operation and I couldn’t slip the thread from the sides of the bundle. Oil, natural fish oil, leaked from all sides before I finally saw the contents of the bundle. It was a small mass of some steamed fish flesh sans needle like bones, with mustard for seasoning. It was divinely delicious. Although I am not much of a food connoisseur and it’s the quantity that really matters, I really relished the richness of taste. After that, came along the fourth variety which was an entire fish, as opposed to fish parts I was eating till now, with a long trailing spine and with small spiky bones et al. This was again with gravy, and I finished my second plateful. Then I had a bowl of mutton with some more rice and some custard as dessert. The overhead fan dried the bones as I looked at the fossils on my plate, it was a frightening sight. It looked like the excavation site of a place where the whole fauna had become extinct due to some inexplicable phenomenon. It took an hour and a half to finish my lunch. If gluttony was a sin then I surely was on a highway to hell. I tottered to the nearest bed, drugged with sleep and exertion.

The nights were usually dedicated to didubhai as we sat in the veranda staring at the overcast black sky. I always preferred that arm chair and didubhai sat on a plastic moulded chair, her eyelids tightly shut as she spoke as if making a concentrated effort to maintain a single line of thought though she was always guilty of digressing without any forewarning or any apparent reason. Her efforts to take control of things was nothing short of heroic, her eye for detail, strict quality control, just-in-time kitchen warehousing policies could put any practicing manager to shame. Summer vacations were always a blast because of her. Though during the daytime the climate was quite intolerable, the night time weather was divine outside. There was a steady breeze laced with moisture that could be only described as sweet. This idle talk with her continued till midnight and then I slipped out of the house on the pretext of a walk as didubhai retired for the day, and I smoked while I took that walk. That was the only time in the day I smoked, not that I couldn’t do without it, but it seemed to add to the surroundings. And then began the writing/reading/ movie-watching sessions that continued till three in the morning, sometimes well beyond that.

Next day I visited Park Circus, and from there Shishu Manch, an organisation to promote music, dance and recitation among juveniles. Two of my nieces were performing there and that provided me with an opportunity to meet them, their parents, my cousins and their husbands (my brothers-in-law or is it brother-in-laws?). This chap, whom I had last met during his marriage, said that he empathized with my situation of having to endure the whole proceeding of myriad kids stammering, missing beats etc. for four hours. The auditorium was packed to capacity mainly with relatives of the young performers. I just smiled in return, trying not to appear rude; it might just have been a trap. Thankfully, it wasn’t. It seemed that he was equally peeved at squandering a holiday in this fashion. He made quite an acute observation after that, out of all the people in the audience only two were interested at any point of time, the parents of the performers! One and half hour later the audience had thinned down considerably validating his case and we cracked up loudly and volubly. The concept of an effective audience as opposed to a real audience made a lot of sense…