To Calcutta, With Love

Prologue

The late afternoon sun shone its orange rays on the worn-out steps of the Ghat. The sublime ripples of the Ganges created a dynamic illusion in the failing light. A plethora of muffled sounds could be heard from somewhere distant, in the heart of the city. The stifled voices of hawkers selling their wares, honking of ambassadors and shrill horn of rickshaws dampened the air. A cow was mooing contentedly in the hustle bustle of the city of joy.

From her position in the muddy brick steps of this nameless Ghat, the Howrah Bridge was just a minuscule structure, a wide arc of glittery garlands of light hung in the air. The darkening sky and soft breeze cast a spell over the dark, solitary spot. Our heroine, a young woman of 21, sat in her own company, her mind weaving tangles of thoughts and unraveling them, like a strange sport, where she was both the predator and the prey. The purplish afterglow of the now set sun partially covered her coffee-colored face, while the other half was lost in the voluminous mass of curly black hair which she had unsuccessfully tried to restrict in a half-undone braid. An embroidered Shantiniketan bag rested beside her, spilling out the heavy and worn-out copies of Shakespeare's Hamlet and Dickens' Great Expectations she carried around with herself, and the enormous volume of notes and summaries she had jotted down neatly in her sloppy penmanship. Our heroine though, did not heed the spilled contents of her bag. She just sat on the cold mass of bricks and mortar, drinking in the beauty of the city she lived in, and the bizarre turn her life had taken this morning.

Was she being foolish? Her better judgement predicted that yes, she was acting on an impulse, but her life was lonely enough. She was indeed in dire need of companionship, albeit in the form of some anonymous stranger. The loneliness and sense of alienation had driven her in the office of Nabayug Patrika this morning, submitting her pseudo-name and address on a slip of paper; she needed a pen pal: an anonymous friend whom she could write to. She had been given some names and addresses too, but she had been disappointed too many times to make the first move. Yes, she was adamant, she would reply only if someone responded to her carefully curated pseudo-profile. A strange feeling of bereavement and pessimism gripped her. It was an end, a slow, silent end to her regular encounter to blend in, to belong, in the suffocating society around her, both at home and college.

She picked up the Aachal of her dusty white saree and wiped the corner of her eyes. It was an end, it was true, but it was also a new beginning. Who could predict, maybe she would end up with a lifelong friend just because she made this weird decision one cloudy morning?

* * *

The day had been cloudy, a depressing sort of weather that marred his spirits. College had been ghastly as ever, even though he had skillfully dodged the anatomy practical this morning. He did not know how long he could wage this war - how long he could ignore his acute erythrophobia and absolute disinterest in human body to study medicine and surgery. He kept walking in the dusk, his mind running in dizzying circles, until he reached Alimuddin Street, where the red painted building stood proudly among the insignificant houses. The Communist Party Office was as majestic as ever. However, our hero had no intentions of arriving at the Office at this hour. As strong a supporter of Naxal as he was, he was not going to make his presence felt in the red dimly lit building. His destination was different.

Evenings in Kolkata always feel special. The yellow painted taxis zoomed through the streets, spewing smoke in the faces of innocent by standers. A plethora of street foods which tasted like heaven decorated the sided of the roads teeming with humanity. He walked on, his red Panjabi sticky in the humid summer afternoon. He weaved through the serpentine alleyways into the labyrinth of walls that had paints peeling off them, until he reached his solitary haven – a Victorian street lamp that had somehow retained its identity from the colonial era and a green painted bench beneath it, overlooking a wide expanse of wild greenery. It was his favourite place to be.

He flopped down on the bench and rummaged his Shantiniketan jhola-bag, carelessly pushing aside his medical books and notes - an anatomical drawing of the human pelvic girdle morphing into a butterfly which he had doodled in physiology class and Tagore's Gitanjali - until he found his sketchbook. Finding a fresh page, he sketched the intricate posture of Nalini, the protagonist of his most recent novel, a young widow who was secretly in love with Ishwar, the milkmaid's son. The golden light illuminated his dark features and messy black hair, as he sat there absorbed in Nalini, oblivious to the life outside his sketchbook.