I can never sell Kolkata to people who show interest in touring India.
“Errr.. there is the Victoria Memorial, and the St. Paul’s Cathedral. The Maidan is a nice green expanse in the middle of the concrete jungle. And then there is the Ganga and Outram ghaat!” I stammer.
But we can’t boast of the Taj Mahal or the Khaju Raho temples, we don’t have the Lal Quilla or the Lake Palace, we don’t have the pristine Himalayas (unless you go to North Bengal) to lure tourists. Instead, we have bandhs (strikes) at the drop of a hat, we have traffic jams, we have terrible pollution and we have tall concrete buildings which, I feel, are suffocating the whole city. And we have terribly long summer. The pleasant winds bringing respite in the summer evenings, are halted by tall buildings that are choking the city slowly.
In my young and foolish days, I took up arms against those who dared to say a word against Kolkata. I was ready to break up with my boy friend who dared criticize my city. I got this passion from my fire-brand mother, who brain washed me from an early age “east or west, Kolkata is the best”. Yeah, she is very parochial. I inherited that mentality from her and kept the fire of nationalistic pride ignited in my heart. My friends too, were die-hard Kolkata fans and believed that only us, the Kolkata lovers, had the right to criticize our city but heaven have mercy on those outsiders, who dared utter a word against it.
Those days are gone. I am a wise, mature woman now who left Kolkata in the mid nineties and never went back to stay. I learned, in due course, that criticizing something/ someone doesn’t mean loving it less. It means we acknowledge a problem and that is a first step towards looking for a solution. That also means something/someone does not have to be blemish free for us to love, we can love something/someone warts and all.
I wonder sometimes why I love the city like the way I do. Does distance make it easier to love Kolkata? Why does the city invoke such a passionate need in me to protect it from outsider’s disdain? Objectively speaking, what exactly is going for the city of Kolkata? Am I really protecting the city or am I safe guarding the memories that the city and I have built together? I still get teary eyed when I listen to Kabir Suman’s
“Ei shohor jaane amar prothom shob kichu
Palate chai joto she aashe amar pichu pichu”
This city knows my every ‘first’
It comes after me, no matter how far I go from it.
It is not the brick, mortar cement of the city that I love, but the faces, the love, the blessings, the friendships, the heartbreak, the experiences that slowly and lovingly molded me, created ‘me’ and shaped me to the person I turned out to be. It is a very personal kind of love that I have for Kolkata.
Those of you who read my blogs know by now, I am a big believer of living in the moments. I have grown up and moved away but whenever I think back to my home city, the moments and memories of my past crowd around me. The sound of Indian classical music coming from the different houses in the neighborhood as the little girls sat down with their harmonium to practice music every evening, the smell of meat cooking only on Sundays in our middle class neighborhood, the communal ‘antakshari’ game on our respective balconies during daily power cuts, the collective sound of ‘Aaahhhh’ when the lights came back on. There are unpleasant memories too but those don’t surface in my mind much. I have lived through them, and left them behind. I came away with the beautiful ones.
I am going home in a few weeks (still over a month left but the time remaining seems shorter if I talk in weeks, hence….)! Friends ask me what are you going to do when you go back? Do? I will do absolutely nothing. I will lay in our king size family bed, next to my mother and talk. Or not. We will probably read or listen to our favorite songs. I am looking forward to those moments of easy silence next to the person who I still want when I am sad or don’t feel well. I will accompany my father to Gariahat market and hear him proudly say to the fishseller ‘Shob cheye bhalo mach ta dao dekhi. Meye esheche.’ (Give us the best fish, my daughter has come) ! I will cherish his ways of showing love – by buying the tastiest fish, the choicest mangoes, the tenderest meat and the satisfaction in his face when I exclaim how good everything is.
I am not sure if this is true for every immigrant. The thing that I miss most about home is the familiarity. I miss the shared history. I love my adopted land but I am not familiar with the tv shows of the seventies, or the baseball players of yester years. When my contemporaries exclaim about how much they loved a certain show growing up and turn to me and say, ‘Remember?’ I say, ‘No, I don’t!’ I remember Humlog and Fauji and Sunil Gavaskar and East Bengal Mohanbagan rivalry.
I will immerse myself in all that familiarity, all the love for two weeks and come back with enough memories to sustain me in the coming year. The greetings of the neighborhood boys, the smiling faces of my aunts and uncles, the welcome from my friends are my personal treasures. They are the city’s love for me which I can’t show an outsiders. They belong to me and to those who can still feel the love.
whatmamathinks 
Lovely … It made me think of Tagore … Here is one of his poems that ‘harmonises’ with what you were saying …
My Song
This song of mine will wind its music around you,
my child, like the fond arms of love.
The song of mine will touch your forehead
like a kiss of blessing.
When you are alone it will sit by your side and
whisper in your ear, when you are in the crowd
it will fence you about with aloofness.
My song will be like a pair of wings to your dreams,
it will transport your heart to the verge of the unknown.
It will be like the faithful star overhead
when dark night is over your road.
My song will sit in the pupils of your eyes,
and will carry your sight into the heart of things.
And when my voice is silenced in death,
my song will speak in your living heart.
~Rabindranath Tagore
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Josephine, thank you sooo much for posting this!!
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beautiful
songs
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Beatifully written as usual , Piyali. I don’t think I love Kolkata nor do I want to go back to live there, but I have fond memories– of loved ones, of college days, of good times. And yes, ‘the greetings of the neighborhood boys, the smiling faces of my aunts and uncles, the welcome from my friends are my personal treasures, too. Which is why I still go back every year for a few days and come back rejuvenated
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Tapshree, thank you my friend. So homesick.
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wonderful balanced note about the city of joy…with all its challenges; it is one of the most humane cities of the world. Why should a fish vendor about a father’s sentiments to give the best fish? It happens only in Kolkata where an ordinary person will connect with our personal sentiments
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Thank you so much, Kushal.
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Piu Di, You have put it so beautifully exactly summing up how we feel who live away from Kolkata but Kolkata is always in their hearts..:)
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Yes, this love for Kolkata, with its warts and all, is inexplicable.
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I think that there is something special indeed about Kolkata and the way the inhabitants feel about the city, wherever they might be. I have not seen this kind of passion in my friends who grew up in Delhi or Mumbai or Lucknow. What you have expressed here, Piyali, is a true reflection of what most Calcuttans living away from their cherished city feels. I know I do. Could it be because Kolkata’s spirit remains the same? In the attitudes of the people you meet, friends, family, strangers? Is it because our homes don’t change that much either – the old furniture, the books you’ve grown up with, those yellowed photographs hanging on the walls almost in the same places? The little corner shop that still exists, now probably tended by the son?
Maybe it has to do with the middle class neighborhoods where we lived – those that don’t change. Because Kolkata has changed. The old landmarks disappearing one by one, the jazzy malls have sprouted like mushrooms all over the city, the favorite place for meeting old friends is no longer the Coffee Houses but the Barista-s and the South City Mall. But even then, the essence of the city seems unchanged.
Have a lovely time there, Piyali Callahan, and come back with those lovely memories that will keep you going till your next visit.
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I do miss the quintessential Kolkata when I go back, but then the Kolkata, I remember suddenly emerges in the greeting of a neighborhood boy, who smiles widely when he sees me, or in the jar of mango pickle that my aunt lovingly prepares for me.
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Beautiful one Piu. Though at times I wonder if we can ever figure out why we love some one or some place. It is easier to figure out why we like or don’t like something. But it is hard to unpack love. At times I feel that by definition, love defies rational explanation and that’s why it is such a pure emotion. Not susceptible to conditionality.
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Beautifully said. Yes, love is a pure emotion because it defies rationality.
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Overwhelmed.
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Thanks Achyut!
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Full marks! 11 on 10 :D…that extra 1 for you know what I feel for this city :).
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Against my will, I fell (almost) in love with Kolkata. I love that line: ‘This city knows my every first’ — beautiful and how amazingly put!
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Mimmy, thanks.
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Places of birth and growing up are always special. Having known the surroundings for so long, living with the close & dear ones, being a party to the changes and happenings of daily life for a considerable and important part of life always leaves behind a vault of memories. This is applicable for everyone and to all places of the world. A person growing up in Kashmir Kabul Paris or a remote village in Rajasthan will miss the place as much as anyone from Kolkata, immaterial of the present socio-economic condition. Loving the place of origin is no big deal, its normal, its unconditional.
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Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment.
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The article does not mention anything which is unique to Kolkata only and which others might feel like being part of
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I was not really looking to get approvals from others. I simply wrote about my personal feelings.
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bookmarked!!, I love your site!
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Thank you Sylvia, for reading.
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