Kolkata

Kolkata, unlike any other Indian city, has been close to me. The name in itself stimulates my fancy. I have heard little of it from my friends. Even in their poetry I find no mention of the city. They don’t write to me about it. I have not been there either, and don’t know much about how it looks like. But, in my imagination, I travel to Kolkata.
I walk with people in the streets guided by my shadow. They scatter. They walk. And, I scatter too. Then, I become them. My eyes fall on the sign boards. I do not understand the language. But I like what is written. It charms me. The curves, bars, the haphazard association of the words together.

This city is always green in my imagination. Its green maintains the pretence of serenity. Its green, in my imagination, is its sudden identity. There are trees. There are birds perched on the trees who hum melodies of love. The hum is always distinct.  But, I hear it somehow. 

It is a place of happening. The motor cars whizz past. The yellow taxicabs slow down when I wave my hand to them. I sit inside. I ignore the climate. Somewhere I have to get down. I do not know where. My friend phones me. I make her talk to driver. She gives him directions. I look out through the window.

The food stalls on the sidewalks smell of familiarity. People hover around them. They eat, belch and leave. The radio is playing an old Bollywood number. I recognise the voice. I recognise the composition. Kishor Kumar, still alive here, my god!

As we drive ahead the crowd grows thinner. We cross a straggling bridge. The cars honk. In that din I imagine asking the driver if he knows where Santiniketan is ? Maybe he will tell me it is just around the corner. Tagore lived in there in a house of memory and rain storm . When I reach there I will ask someone to recite his poems to me in Bengali.  ( A lot him has been lost in translation, a friend told me once. )

But, I don’t ask him anything.

I let it go.

Taxi halts at the signal. The girls in fuchsia saris walk past. I see their reflection in the plate-glass windows of the smart stores.
The stores sell technology. The beggars in front of these posh stores are shooed away. The security guards run after them. They disappear in the narrow lane, a  small gap between two buildings, into blessing of nothingness. 

The signal turns green. The driver takes a different route. He swerves left.

In complete abstraction I let air ruffle my hair. I look around.

Old houses stand next to each other. They flank flat strech of the road we have hit now.

I don’t know where I am going. I don’t know where I have to go. I have come to Kolkata, unprepared. My imagination will suffer a great blow if I don’t reach in time( wherever I have to reach ). Then, maybe,  I will again resume my journey( in my imagination ).