Calcutta Chronicles.

1.

Loudspeakers and regular political roadshows and fake communism with red flags were what made up my inexplicable childhood. Being the only child in the locality who did not tie red ribbons while going to school and though I was a good schooled kid , my medium was English,and my school was not missionary, i mean Protestant so somehow I was made different.

My once upon a time aristocratic masion overlooking the Bagbazar ghat was in its serrated decay with plastered renovations made helter skelter. But the walls were tinted with unknown stories. From the very lemon plant growing on the ghat's stairs to that trodden wooden door, to that marble worship room, to that hall like drawing room with century old furnitures smelling leftovers to that wide verandah with black and white mosaic and lace curtains drifting in the slow air to that curved wrought iron staircase and finally to the dexterous sky , I , strangely was not bound to all these.

There were a lot of things for the locality to think about. The annual sports, the annual function, the annual feast, and a hell lot of annual functions with the impediment of fixing loudspeakers every now and then.

There were other things too. We were khanti ghoti residents and as a child i used to enjoy east bengal mohun bagan durby matches at the local club. What I enjoyed more was not the game, even after all belonging to a game lover family i hardly know about a game in a complete sense but I loved the way the opposite gangs threw sweet insults, though ironically maybe no bangal played for east bengal or no ghoti for mohun bagan.

Autumns and springs were however real fun always. The instinct of Durga Pujo was itself phenomenal with all the paraphernalia of its grand celebration. That yellow idol, those kind , sensuous, deep eyes always enthralled me and the four days spent under the latest movie songs and makeshift fairylights with bulbs with afternoons spent dancing on the roof and mornings fluttering like butterflies with mehendi ed hands and new garments , were certainly special.
Spring was more special. The chanda collection of Saraswati pujo to that holud shari and kajol, to that strolling at parar pujo and to that khichuri bhog, it was our greatest carnival. And we were free from those commercial film and cheap song loving girls and boys who went to their local schools for pujas.

Apart from springs and autumns and occasional chingri machher malaikari and the mandatory sunday koshar mangsho nothing rejuvenated as much.

However i had two reasons to survive. Cycling through the alleyway which was my very own was fun and the second was Raka,- my morning companion to Bowbazar and then we took different roads,- she to Loreto, me to Welland. She was my partner at night and often in the name of group discussions we stole away nights and googled at stars and discussed our failures in love.