Our administrators say that they will make our city akin to London,but do we seriously need another London?The squalor that greets the centuries old streets has become a close friend,the stench could be bottled and sold on the Champs Elysee as some kind of retro perfume that reminds of an older age when sanitation even in welfare states was a misnomer!
One bursts out of the cloying streets onto the banks of the majestic Hooghly,a broad brown serpent lazily turning towards the Bay of Bengal a few hundred kilometres down the road,its current like muscles beneath the water.When crossing from one bank to the other on rickety steamers i used to sometimes catch a glimpse of a porpoise or river dolphin,alas the pollution has killed them mostly.No fancy yachts or ships just a few fishermen in their row boats reminding of times when the jungle must have grown right down to the banks and the Tigers would have come to the water's edge for a drink.
The Victoria Memorial,the National Library,The Mint,Fort William-buildings from Calcutta's colonial past,of the exploits of Hastings,Cornwallis,Curzon,Bentinck-the birth of a city and of institutions that still endure.
The Maidan-on a monsoon afternoon,glowing green in the rain with the far corners enveloped in mist adding a multi-dimensional quality,a space to walk barefeet on the grass,Calcutta's own Hyde Park.The horse drawn buggies that a century ago must have been a rage!Now alas the horses side drooping with hunger and a mule like staunchness that transfers itself to the inhabitants.
The butchers on the road give new meaning to "fresh meat",the cacophony of traffic-is it dust or petrol fumes that rise into the atmosphere?
Yet...
The only city that has produced Tagore,Jagadish Chandra Bose,Mother Teresa,Netaji Subhas,Ramanujam and Amartya Sen.Where there is a street that only houses book shops-College Street.Where street theatre was born and Satyajit Ray gave us science fiction in Bengali.
Its true the city you live in trasfers a bit of itself into your soul.It has in me.Calcutta will always be Calcutta to me,i do not want another London.
A large city cannot be experientially known; its life is too manifold for any individual to be able to participate in it-Aldous Huxley
No comments:
Post a Comment