KOLKATA DIARIES.

4.

A certain patch of Kumortuli might have been the brightest in the locality with an evening of laughter, conjecture and excitement but back in Bow Barracks there was nothing of this sort, though there was warmth, quite a lot.

Rachael and Anindita had got down at the airport by sundown. The orange flush of the bypass and the overtone of pollution and the millennium sparkle at the rim of spectacles was what a total new city,- Kolkata introduced itrself to Rachael. Anindita had not only generously offered her a cab ride but also was trying to find out that old grandmother. On knowing that the old lady was an Anglo Indian, it was Anindita who had thought of Bow Barracks, the well known Anglo Indian hub of Kolkata.

As the yellow taxi went past the rows of red bricked pastel colored buildings with bunches of hay here and there and old men in cowboy or gaucho hats and Mexican summer prints or the old ladies found strolling in their skirts, cotton blouses and pearls, Rachael could find a homely feeling which she had not yet found in the whole of Kolkata that the taxi had passed through yet. As she came across the cosy little restaurants with mint green walls with red , white and pink bougainvilleas dancing in the breeze and wrought iron chairs freshly whitewashed, she could not help but recount her cosy little home back in Chennai, the garden with roses, delphiniums and lavenders in full bloom, the sofa covers on which her mother had made stunning embroidery works and the curtains on which she had painted with her own hands. Everything was lost, lost utterly. As she went past the wooden lampshades from which hung colourful flowers , all she could think were the lanterns decorating their verandah with soft, soothing light.

It was Anindita who broke the silence, " Rachael, you know, this is Bow Barracks. During the British rule in India, it was here where the British soldiers were housed and since then it has carried on a legacy of housing Anglo Indians. I hope you find your grandmother here. By the way, what is her name? "

~ " Ummmm, yes, Diana, Diana Gnomes."
~" Ah, okay, Dada, please bring the taxi to a halt. We need to ask something."

They both got down. Luckily, enough the nameplate of the house before which the taxi currently stood read " Diana Gnomes". So, there they were, maybe.

The calling bell was wrung. They stood for almost ten minutes and then there was a rattling sound. A crooked lady with silken white hairs and wrinkled skin but neatly dressed with heavy glasses opened the door.
~"Granny!", Rachael went and hugged her.
~" is that you my dear Rach?"
~" Granny, ain't my voice enough?"
~" It is, it is. Who's the other lady there?"
~" A harbinger , Granny. But for her, I could never make my way to you after being thrashed all the way from Oxford to Chennai to Mumbai to Kolkata "
~" Rach, do you.."
~" I know every single thing Granny but will you make her stand here?"
~" No, no I'm absolutely fine. I'm glad you people are reconciled, that Rachael has got a guardian. That's all."

But  old Diana would not let Anindita go. She held Anindita's hands and brought her in to the beautifully decorated red cottage with age old wooden furniture adorning the heavy walls. She made her cookies and coffee , and Anindita had to finally leave but she took Rachael's phone number and promised to keep in touch and that whenever Rachael feels lonely , forlorn, in need or that she needs someone to talk to, she can always ping her up. And so with a smile and relieved heart, Anindita finally left.

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Once Anindita was gone, silence returned once again. Drinking a sip of soup, Rachael weeped in the only resort left in her life, her Granny's warm lap and the candle which might have told messages of her lost parents, she faintly got asleep after a long while, her cheeks till dry and Granny waving and massaging her hair softly. Maybe both of them wished this warm night continued forever but well it won't.