Kolkata Capsule

Hooghly: gently she flows

Words feel utterly incongruent and inadequate when you are deeply in love.  They fail us miserably. Every word sounds positively hollow and inane so you rather keep quiet. You want your heart to reel-in that madness so you might gain some bit of  control over your love - sick heart. But alas even keeping it quiet doesn't help. The mind remains all muddled up foggy mess of mush. Although the heart desires to say oodles but the voice does not support.

My city Kolkata is very easy to hate with all her cracks, crevices and pitfalls. Yet, she remains ever beautiful and loveable as she ages gracefully. She is neither the epitome of beloved "development" nor is she rich as her modern, swanky counterparts elsewhere in India. Yet, what she has in oodles is charm, unparalleled and a heart oh so incomparable.

Sukanto Setu

For each one of us our favourite cities have wonderful associations. Kolkata for me is a love song. A glorious pearl of fond memories and lost love.  And like eternal love you love to hate it but fall prey to its exotica every time you see her. If She were a pill one could swallow, I am sure she would give you a high which would take you  couple of lifetimes to resurface from.

Kolkata is the most potent cocktail of life existing between the porous realms of  existence, subsistence and sheer euphoria. It has been lovingly called "The City of Joy" , "Epic City", "Tilottoma" or the most beautiful and none of them are untrue. The verve, the vibe and the continuity makes it so exotic a capsule.

She tantalizes like no other city and much of it lies with the grand Hooghly river. A river which has been the life source of the city and seen the foundation of East India Company, the world's first multi national corporation. Today it boasts of some lovely promenades around the river upgraded for and enchanting as ever for the regular pedestrians to while away time or catch up with friends. Or simply take the boat across to another ghat. With the waterways and daily ablutions too goes on from time immemorial. The city bustling to it seams thrives in its soulfulness with old trees and never dying memories.  My childhood holidays comeback to me of long summer afternoons exploring our old house in North Kolkata which sadly exists no more.

Old trees at Princep Ghaat promenade

My Grand Father purchased the House, No. 7 Kali Dutta Street in early 1900s. It was possibly built sometime in final years of 1800s. I was always fascinated by that house although it was old and not large by any stretch of imagination. But it was definitely a completely different world from my childhood apartment life as I knew in Delhi. A world with mysteries for my six year old self and I felt exactly like Alice in that Wonderland.

It was a rectangular house. Main living quarters on one side. The kitchen being across the main building with  a courtyard in the center. Kitchen had a dining area. The utensil used were all made of bell metal and had a sweet breath and gleamed like gold, very unlike our porcelain crockery in Delhi. They were even customized to my miniature size. Grannie will take them out when I would visit her. I am sure they were also used by other grand children but somehow I felt special.  I would love to hold the heavy and cold bell metal against my skin. The miniature glass was my favourite as the water tasted flavoursome and not tasteless as it was in Delhi.

The Kitchen had two huge trunks which to me were a room in themselves and I had to stand on all my toes to get a peep into my Granny's wealth of pots and pans. Another big enigma was the clay oven for cooking fitted with a chimney to the boot. Everything used to smell and feel different. The electricity those days was DC or Direct Current as oppose to swank Delhi AC or Alternate Current. The fans had large blades and moved with whispered wind. The lights were all tungsten, I guess that's why I still use Tungsten LED at home as oppose to white light.

The walls were covered with fabulous black and white portraits of family members. My Grand Father was an electronics/electrical geek. He made hand made cameras to radiograms and all the family members were his subject. That's how I fell in love with art and black and white photgraphs.  The terrace was a make shift garden with 100 different flowering plants each season and would enthrall me to no end. That's possibly how I first fell in love with plants and nature.   The biggest puzzle was however, the main door which remained open from 6 a.m. in the morning till midnight. This for me was quite unbelievable as even at the young age of six I was aware I had to lock the door every time I walked into the main door of my Delhi house. I think that's the emotion which is unlocked each time I visit Kolkata beyond boundaries. Will keep you locked in my heart Kolkata till we meet again my lovely.

Photographs: Pragya Majumder and Dhiman Namhata