I was once a charming, sweet, smiling boy from the city of Kolkata – yes "once" but now I am a mid-forty gray haired, fitness, fashion freak guy and a stay abroad for over a decade now. But yes, I can say for myself- I lost that simplicity of being that kind of boy image next door- it's not because I wanted it to lose myself, but my society did it for me.
I go back to my city every year to find myself in that corridors of school, the lash green lawn of my college and most importantly to soak in the warmth of my parents and spend some moonlit night on the roof with my sibling under the clear night sky and gazing at the stars together and still counting those. That is the warmth of my growing up place- The sky remains the same, the stars may be that many but the enjoyment of watching it with the sibling gives a moment of unconquerable pride, but the world did not remain the same as we were just 2.1 Kms to our mission on Moon landing.
Now you can see that your guy who was visiting his hometown- from the land of dreams to the land of raising minds -it was during that most awaited time of the calendar year, the month of OCTOBER – the time of month-long festivities-I visited Kolkata, the metro city where I spend my growing up years with so much of bitter sweet memories.
The most precious time for any Bengalis- residents of Kolkata, India (Bongs, as we are popularly known) because of the grandeur of the Durga Puja festivities which attracts several thousand tourists from different corners of the world. Childhood days, when I used to hold my parents' hands and used to go for pandal hopping. Pandals, still there in every nook and corner of the city like it was before -maybe it has grown its popularity but loses its charm. Though it is more gigantic nowadays- several top-notch corporate sponsors pouring money on each Puja made it more of a competitive environment and it's more of a feeling like a set of deities in one pandal is competing with another set of deities in another pandal. The competition felt everywhere from club rivalry to corporate giants to neighborhood brother and sisters and uncles and aunts. The prime objective – "Our pandal and idol need to bag the top position. - This is a matter of prestige for our festival committee" This is my city nowadays and to make matter worse is over population, more cars on street as all can now afford small to mid-sized to luxury cars. But how about the people who still fell below that stature of life and have to wait for public transportation.
Yes, I am talking about a city of close to 5 million legal residents and during those time of the year we get few thousands more. What they do? All are stranded or either running from one end to another end to get to a transport be it bus or city cab or Uber or Ola cabs.
After a gap of 5 years I had been to my city during this time and what I experienced – an utter chaos, sheer moments of pain- then I was imagining – But why do we all want to be back to our roots and there must be some warmth somewhere.
Now my story begins- I was very reluctant to go out and decided to spend time relaxing with parents as I experienced the traffic chaos few days before the days of the festivity. I was called upon by a friend to come over and meet him and few other school gangs on a restaurant in the southern fringe of the city on the first morning of the five-day long celebration. The distance from my home to that place was only 30 minutes- the distance of less than 7 miles and our meeting was scheduled during first half of the day. To the excitement of meeting old friends –dressed up quickly in an ethnic traditional Bengali attire … And then a sensational journey in my next post
