The Place Where It All Started...

The City of Joy

I just thought to pen down few lines about "the city of joy" where this Locus began and yes you are right, I’m talking about Kolkata, my city. Kolkata is not just a place to live, its much more for us, the Kolkatans. I am not saying Kolkata is picture perfect or is a highly advanced city, ‘cause let’s face it, that would be a blatant lie, but still we love our good old Kolkata. If you want to know my city, forget comforts, rules, systems and cleanliness, and embrace pollution, mosquitoes, load-shedding and may be loads of other things. If you are ready to accept all these, then welcome to my city...Kolkata.

History behind Kolkata 

Though, the archaeological excavations of the Chandraketugarh, near Kolkata, indicate that the region had been inhabited for over 2 millennia, the documented history of the city began with the arrival of the East India Company back in 1690. Job Charnock, who was an administrator with the company, was traditionally thought to have named the city, but due to lack of proper documentations, recently, in 2003, High Court gave a ruling that states that the city does not have a specific founder. At that time, Kolkata comprised of three village viz. Kalikata, Sutanati, Govindopur. Later they were consolidated into a single city. Kolkata served as the capital of India during the British Raj until the year 1912.  

Kolkata, the city

Kolkata is quite like the woman of today. She has this unique blend of heritage along with flavours from the west. The city truly thinks global acts local. Kolkata is equally a home to International languages like English and National languages like Hindi as it is to its mother tongue, Bengali. Kolkatans enjoy Durga Puja as much as The Christmas. Here, the English New year is equally welcome as the Poila Boishakh (the New Year of the Bengali Calender). Kolkata is truly a lively city. People here go frenzy for what not?? Be it politics or cinema or sports or theatre or anything and everything. People here know to share...be it happiness, be it sadness or be it madness......this provides the very oxygen to the life of Kolkata. Kolkata is not rose tinted or as glamorous as the other metros of India, let alone abroad, but She is a mother. She embraces people of different colours...from different cultures with equal affection and nourishes them with all her fervour. Kolkata is a city of the common man. 

Kolkata like any other city has her share of demerits. Be it the water logged streets during monsoons or dilapidated buildings, unclean roads, or frequent strikes announced by different political parties, you name it and I’ll show you. But in spite of all these, Kolkata has her own flavour...the very classy “bong” flavour. A very big feature of Kolkata is its food. You cannot satisfy a Bengali Dada without a course of delicacies. Bengalis live to eat, much in contrast to people from other states where they generally eat to live. Here, the homemade food is as tasty as the street food like phuchka. To us, it’s much more fun to have phuchka in gariahat in that burning heat rather than having hamburger in any super mall in Chicago or New York.

Along with the Dakshineswar temple, Kalighat temple, Belur Math, Kolkata also has Park Street providing great night life with so many discos, pubs, clubs etc. Here we have trams which date back to the British rule along with the Metro railway. Here, a man lives the way he wishes as Kolkata is the assemblage of different cultures, life styles. You are bound to fall in love with the passion of Kolkata, be it Cricket where India is one of the world champions, or Football, where it’s nowhere in the map; from music to war, Einstein to Bertolt Brecht, social life problems to the great mysteries of life, anything and everything can be solved over an adda session in parar-morer cha-yer dokan, an indulgence which I can guarantee no other city provides. All in all Kolkata is truly cosmopolitan in nature and I love my Kolkata!!!!! 

Locus of Life

In my heart, there’s a different world altogether. One that’s burnt out, but never lost. I find man, woman, child disguised by the face of time. Winds blow from far away, tearing, ripping apart and making love! “What do you want to know?” asks the tide. Be it here, be it there, there’ll always be day after a night! Innocent hands for healing the pain...sleepless nights and amber eyes makes way to the mystic blues. The water remains but the river has changed course. Prayers, promises, predicaments of the past, fear, fortune, fertility of the future, peers, plights, poisons of the present gives the hope to burn down the candle, for there will be a night after every single day!
I cry with crystalline eyes, my heart weeps with the antagonized passion; never before did I put out the fire…but I do now! Music stretches out rewinding to an effleurage of mind. Claustrophobic, cadaverine canvas attempts to confine the carcass of confounded chivalry! Caustic, bitter and corrosive taste in erosive mouth, blends away the rage and ramp with the docile, present existence. The balcony remains, with shadows of the past, echoes of the distant, residue of the rouges and a placid promise for eternity. Faces change but the occult lore remains, passed down and well cherished. I pull away, never being perturbed for as long as there’s earth beneath and sky above, you’ve got no fear, my dear!
The engine’s running. It’s hot…fuel grueling inside the tower. You get inside…you sit beside yourself! It takes time…getting the hang of it. But once you’ve mastered the art there’s no stopping you from running the machine! It’s difficult…making your way out of the pattern. But it’s worth…once you get it out of you! There’s a plateau, a pyramid, myriads of mystic mountains and a conduit of watercourse following you. You call in your sleep…you fall when awake, you’ll find the different world, traveling fast on the furious forces pretending to be the master of all the slavery of your whole life! Accelerators pushed down to the floor, gears shifted up to the top…you run along, fearless…and after a while, peerless! It’s easy to put your gun down, with condition, you can’t retreat. You follow the path, unsure where it ends. You want to stop…but the path goes on…you can’t stop! And the gear shoots even more…surmounting all the obstacles in its way. The journey that began from inside the womb of the cosmic globe still goes on, with the glory of yesteryears and an assurance of a nihilistic delusion.
Time’s ripe, mind’s old. Split apart by the accumulation of knowledge gained through pain. Nostalgic moments; desirous destiny, calls back in agony. I have to go. I need to go. Affection turns to addiction. I make way to the raving winds…to take me to the journey again…this time not through it, but over it. I find peace and a nest to burn down my deepest desires and remain. I remain, waiting for the night to end; to find myself a new day...