Why I am Not Looking Forward to Pujos

Three decades and more of CPI(M) rule in Bengal has left Calcutta (I prefer the name over the post-colonial Kolkata which was the Bengali pronunciation anyway) a shadow of a metropolitan city. More than three years ago, I had migrated to this city from the cosmopolitan environs of Shillong in search of better academic opportunities. Better opportunities I certainly did get, and am grateful. However, over the course of these years, the city has assimilated me and I have assimilated the city. Confirmation towards the same lies in the fact that I am cribbing about the city in puro Bangali style today.

Having lived in a small city throughout my childhood and adolescence, and then spent a significant amount of time in a metropolitan city, I suppose I am well placed to say that Calcutta now resembles a giant small city today. Small city, of course, in terms, of the advanced opportunities for growth that the city affords its citizens. I would have many sympathisers among my readers if I rhetorically stated that ‘nothing happens in Calcutta‘. Indignants Calcuttans may point at the recent Poets of the Fall concert or simply say that ‘amra alada’ (we are different). But that does not discount the fact that the lack of industrial activity in the state has left its once-proud commercial hub of a capital rather insignificant. In its place, upstarts like Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune have run away on the fast lane towards claiming themselves as one of India‘s few metros.

The problems are to do with faulty economic policy, among others. To maintain a false sense of empathy towards the teeming poor of the state, the CPI(M) embarked on an irresponsible spree of populism. Consider the transportation scene in Calcutta today. The last bus fare hike took place on July 1, 2009, when a litre of diesel would cost Rs 35.03. A typical bus can take you from one end of the city to the other for not much more than Rs. 8. Which is great to hear, but then, fuel prices haven’t exactly been stagnant over the past few years. They have risen steadily to Rs. 44.76 now, a rise of 28% in three years. But fares have remained stagnant under pressure from governments not having the balls to take hard decisions. Instead, bus operators have been subsidised for years at the cost of who else, the public exchequer! I would have even accepted this elaborate process of progressive income redistribution had its economic fundamentals been sound. On the other hand, West Bengal today has an astronomical debt of Rs. 1,92,000 crores (as in 2011). The cost of populism fed to the masses in the name of socialism, you might say.

Calcutta- A Culinary Experience

Even today, before I leave home to return to Calcutta, my mother will ask me what food I will carry with me to eat on the train. I wouldn’t dare compare her culinary skills with that of those who serve plastic-ky somethings on India’s trains. But then every time this exchange takes place between mother and son, I am reminded of the relatively regal days at home that are to last no more. Alas! No more ready-made breakfast, no more nagging to eat lunch, and no unlimited snacks in the evening to go with a mug of coffee. Leaving home is depressing indeed!

I want to warn those who might be reading this that being a personal note and me not being much of a socialite, my experiences are mostly limited to the areas around where I’ve stayed and as a hosteler, highly constrained by finances.

I remember the desperation and purposelessness of the early days at Hindu Hostel, when every morning and every day would bring with it the renewed realisation of my distance from those I know and love. Despite the high of staying alone, I was the outsider among familiars, and the outsider among outsiders. I have vague remembrances of those days, and nothing exceptional. Every two weeks, my pockets would have enough for a meal at The Royal Indian Hotel on Rabindra Sarani. The menu card informed me the first time I went there regarding the history of the biryani.

Of Change, Long Homecomings and (the lack of) Bookstores

“It’s been a long time since you came around/

It’s been a long time but I’m back in town…”

 

Yes it’s been a long time since I sat blogging. And even longer since I blogged from the comfort of my blanket in Shillong, with a mug of coffee by my side. Compiling all my posts together from previous blogs on Blogger, Tumblr as well as that flattering refuge of small-time writers, Facebook Notes, into this present blog has certainly been personally fulfilling. Reading some of my older jottings, I could form a picture of the last three years that I’ve spent between Shillong and the promised land, Calcutta. ‘Promised Land’ of course is a very relative term, and I’m sure I won’t find too many people in Calcutta sharing my optimistic view of their city. However, to a Northeasterner who doesn’t have a Scheduled Tribe certificate nor any skills in sports or music to boast about, but with ambitions the likes of which can be called acceptable in today’s times, anything west of Assam sure is the Promised Land.

So three years it has been, or soon will be, and change has become a constant. Schooldays now seem more and more remote; a distance that was very much discernible the first few times I returned home. Little things, silly things even, here and there, and the town you realise has moved on. It’s one of those chauvinistic feelings of being betrayed although it was you who has done the betraying. So I find that anything longer than two weeks in Shillong begins to irk me. Two weeks is the safe length of time, when you are enjoying all the pampering back at home and the odd chores are voluntarily completed and the lonely walks make you appreciate the scenery and the cold wind on your face. Day fifteen, and the pampering is a tad too obsessive, the chores all at the wrong times, and the walks suddenly missing the laughter or even the silent company of a friend.

A weekend left to laze through, and then I’ll be taking that train back to hungry mornings and the delight of flipkart deliveries and underground rides and examinations  and graduations. And lou!

Moments into that journey, Shillong, you will be missed. The Shillong of my boyhood, but no less, the Shillong of my anonymity.

P.S. Dear town, please get yourself a proper bookstore that sells more than textbooks. The looks on the faces when I mentioned a certain writer today were bizarre.

A Day’s Worth of Thoughts

I hate see-offs at railway stations. The feeling of standing immovable as the train ambles out. Your friends wave, leaning out of the door. Plastic smiles on everyones’ faces. Then they are far away, ever shrinking. Then you watch the others, the strangers, stare with indistinguishable expressions at you and then the thing next to you. And then they’re gone and someone else is there. Coach after coach of grumbling, creaking, complaining metal and life pass you by. And then, suddenly, it’s gone. And you’re facing the semi-naked man enjoying a bath on the rail lines on the other side. Two puppies crawl in under the leaking pipes meant to replenish trains to have their own share. The man shoos them away. You look around. Life moves on. The train has left. The coolies shift base to another platform where yet another train is to leave. You look behind your back. Your friends are nowhere in sight.

I give my head a shake and try to get used to the idea. I walk. It’s a long way. People push and shove me here and there. I assume my vulture mode, head buried in chest. Long face. Maroon 5 is on today’s menu. I wish I could wear my jacket. I like hiding behind its high neck. Alas! I never thought November could be hot… anywhere.

“How I wish… How I wish, you were here/ we’re just two lost souls, swimming in a fish bowl…”

I take a bus. Not the one at the front of the queue. The one behind. It’s empty. I get a window seat of my choice. It takes its time to get filled and then grumbles across the Bridge like a wounded tiger on the Hooghly.