Soliloquy

CALCUTTA, INDIA: What was the wisdom in starting afresh? They were both still young, and there was no need to conform to the impressions that society had made on them. How perceptive it would have been to walk on the streets abutting Jessore Road, albeit one step behind the times, with the aromas of luchi and aloor dum sailing past. And how wonderful the times would have seemed had the radhaballavis crept in unnoticed, followed closely by the cholaar dal that Sonar Gaon at the magnificent facade of the Taj Bengal could only have dreamt of.

***

To walk the streets that Hastings and Bentinck and Curzon and Canning once had, and to smell the daffodils that still serenaded the Maidaan, was to have accepted Calcutta as a whole, but they could, for once, be forgiven for walking past Red Road without paying homage at the Leslie Claudius Sarani. Past New Market, where the sun still stooped over its slanting rays, and onto James Hicky Sarani, where the daily-wage labourers looked askance, was the city that they had been born into, and the one they had once accepted.  How fortuitous it was to rename Park Street to Mother Teresa Sarani, meting the same treatment to Free School Street, which later came to be known as Mirza Ghalib Street.

The walls that had once sprung up in the north of the city seemed borne with mosquitoes whose provenance was unheard of. Whitewashed roads, multi-layered car parking slots, trees lining up avenues of their own accord – this was Salt Lake, whose only crime had been to look pretty. Further north, where the New Town now lay, was the childhood they had foregone, and the genteel walks they had taken when life had seemed a more tolerant expanse to be in. And that was where they found themselves again, in anticipation of a life unparalleled, a voice unheard, and a song unwept.

***

It was just as galling to witness the historical Falaknuma Express drift into the glissades of platform number one of Secunderabad railway station. Shunting past criticisms of a tormented past, they deftly skipped past the beggars for whom the platform was home, and for whom life was a burden to be borne until the bliss and release of death came calling. The wafting aroma of the biryani from Bawarchi, which they had particularly asked for, swept in unannounced over the proud visage of their offspring, whom they had last seen a month ago.

If you like my work, consider visiting my website to get in touch with more of my writing. You can follow me on X as well. Also, sign up for the newsletter to get regular updates coming your way. I would love to talk to you!