Requiem for a Dream

(From the archives) 

I stumbled upon a small piece of text hidden in my Google Drive, dating back to the summer of 2019 - it feels like a lifetime ago. 

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As the Howrah Bridge rose above the horizon, she inched closer, clasping my arm. We knew the journey was coming to an end. A sudden uneasiness started to grow within me. I no longer sensed her tight grasp, the warmth from her purple sweater or swaying of the bus overtaking traffic on the Strand Road. A familiar aroma then filled my surroundings. As I tried to look further, my vision was blurred by a blanket of rain. The sensory tussle quickly came to an end as I felt another cold spray of water against my face. Waking up with a shudder, I noticed my wife towel-drying her hair after her shower. I stood up and hugged her tightly. Upon releasing she noticed tears in my eyes and asked, “Were you crying!?”.

“No…, it's your wet hair”, I lied.

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City of Joy

 

 This is the Howrah Bridge (in Kolkata) viewed from a departing airplane at midnight. If one stretches their imagination a little, one will notice that the bent shape of the Howrah Bridge resembles a subtle smile. She is smiling back at you as you leave the city for another city. She wishes you the very best for your future. 

However, secretly, She also knows for a fact that no matter how modern and flashy other cities are, they won't be a city with a 'heart'. The reason why Kolkata is called the "City of Joy" is because Kolkata is a city with a heart, with a soul. 

Here is my city in pictures. I have tried to uphold the essence of Kolkata, which always refuses to give up its originality and integrity in the face of surmounting pressure. 

1. Howrah Bridge (obscurely known as Rabindra Setu) is built on the Ganga river. It was imagined by George Turnbull in 1935 and opened in 1943. It is currently the sixth-longest cantilever bridge in the world. On the left side of the bridge is one of the busiest railway stations in the world- the Howrah Railway Station. Do you notice the iconic yellow taxis? As of now, it only operates in Kolkata.

  

2. Victoria Memorial: Following the orders of Lord Curzon in 1901, the monument was constructed to honor Queen Victoria. It was opened in 1921 and remains the largest monument dedicated to any monarch across the world. 

P.S. Before entering, do buy a pack of the peanut-onion-chilli mixture from the seller just outside its gate. You won't regret it. Oh, and also carry your best camera or DSLR. If weather permits, you will surely return with some amazing clicks!

 

3. MG road or Mahatma Gandhi Road. If you ask me, this has got to be the most chaotic road in the whole world! But despite all chaos, everything somehow works. It connects important places like College Street, Presidency University, Sealdah Station, and Hatibagan. The Barra-bazaar is located here and is a huge flea market exploited by wholesalers across North India.

4. Esplanade / New Market: A famous open-air shopping market in Kolkata where one can experience the harmonious co-existence of rich and poor brands, pretentious and un-pretentious crowd, and lastly, tasty and extremely tasty food! Eateries that I would recommend are - Nizam's, Hogg's room, and Chittoda's Suruchee Restaurant. Kolkata made it to the list of 11 best food destinations (9th position) in the world as being the only Indian city. To know more follow this link: https://www.eater.com/maps/best-restaurants-kolkata-calcutta-india-bengal

5. This is called the "Biswa-Bangla Gate" which is actually a rotating restaurant overlooking the modern part of Kolkata- Newtown. This region constitutes the IT hub of the city, surrounded by tall buildings and complex architecture. It also boasts a 480-acre-Urban park, a wax museum, and some posh hotels. 

6. Durga Puja: This is the grandest festival of Bengalis. Around this time, Kolkata suddenly attains an unmeasurable aura of magic and jolliness. Themed pandals are constructed to commemorate the victory of Goddess Durga over Mahishasur. People celebrate by visiting different pandals with family and friends, mostly eating outside during the four days of festivities and in general having a gala time. Busiest of professionals will adjust their schedules, non-residents will make time, school kids will pre-finish their homework, lovers will pre-plan outings, and, lastly scattered families unite just to visit Kolkata during this time. Even miles away, Durga Puja is celebrated by NRIs. 

   7. Great personalities: In case you stumbled upon these famous names, they were from Kolkata or were closely associated with the city...(By no means this list is exhaustive. It is impossible to list all the famous personalities in a single post.) I will keep complementing it from time to time.

                                                    

Swami Vivekananda. He was an Indian Hindu monk, philosopher, author, religious teacher, and the chief disciple of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna.  He was a key figure in introducing Hinduism and Yoga to the western world.  After his famous speech in the American parliament in Chicago in 1893, the American newspapers described him as, “an orator by divine right and undoubtedly the greatest figure at the Parliament”.

            

Rabindranath Tagore. Nobel Prize in Literature 1913 for Gitanjali ( Song Offerings). He was also the first non-European to receive this prize. His works celebrate the complexities of human relationships and the beauty of the simplicity of life and nature.

Satyendra Nath Bose. The founder of Bose statistics and Bosons (half of the fundamental particles in the standard model) is named after him. He proved the Planck Radiation formula without any ad-hoc assumptions or classical theory but using only pure mathematics. He closely collaborated with Albert Einstein and developed the theory of Bose-Einstein Condensate.

Jagadish Chandra Bose.  He was a biologist, physicist, and botanist. A pioneer in microwave optic research and the inventor of the crescograph.  A crater on the moon was named in his honor. 

Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay. He was a Bengali novelist and short story writer of the early 20th century. Notable works: Srikanta, Choritrohin, Devdas, Parineeta, and Pother Dabi. His works have been translated into several Indian languages and also adapted into movies (Parineeta and Devdas).

Ashok Sen. Indian theoretical physicist. He is the winner of the Fundamental prize in Physics (2012) for his groundbreaking work on string theory and a Fellow of the Royal Society (1998, nominated by Stephen Hawking),  Dirac Medal (2014), ICTP prize (1989), Padma Shri (2001) and loads of other accolades. 

Amal Kumar Raychaudhuri. He was an Indian physicist, known for his research in general relativity and cosmology. Not at all well known even in our country but some of his theorems have earned noble prizes in black hole astrophysics such as Stephen Hawking's and Roger Penrose's (to read further: see  Penrose–Hawking singularity theorems). He is famous for formulating a method to handle singularities in the general theory of relativity (GTR) and ultimately showing that singularities are an artefact of GTR (the Raychaudhuri Equation or Raychaudhuri-Landau Equation). He shares credit with Lev Landau.

C. V. Raman.  Indian physicist was known for his work in the field of light scattering. Originally from Tamil Nadu, he was posted as an Assistant Accountant General in Calcutta (now Kolkata). Later he took up the prestigious Palit Chair of Physics position at the Calcutta University. It was at the Indian Association of Cultivation of Science (in Kolkata), Raman and his research group discovered the Raman Effect (Feb. 1928). He received the noble prize in physics in 1930 for that discovery. This made him the first Asian to receive the honor in any field of science. He was also inducted into the Royal Society ( 1924) but 40 years later he resigned.

Satyajit Ray: Indian director, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker, author, essayist, lyricist, magazine editor, illustrator, calligrapher, and music composer. Some of his most famous works are Pather Panchali, Apu Trilogy and Charulata. He is also the creator of the famous detective character- Feluda.  He received the Padma Shri in 1958, an honourary Academy Award in 1992 and the Legion of Honor in 1987. Many celebrated directors like  Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Akira Kurosawa and Chris Nolan have praised his work and claimed to have also been inspired by Ray. 

It does not die

July 2022:

A typical rainy day in Kolkata. Since dawn, it had been raining periodically leaving behind a damp setting across the city streets. I found myself standing in front of the College Street book market, with an umbrella in one hand and a list in the other.

Out of the very many iconic places in the city, College Street has seen the least amount of modification over the years. Nothing has changed except for the introduction of UPI payment (online payment) by shopkeepers now. The streets stay littered the same way, the jolly 'Jhal-muri' uncle never left his spot in front of Presidency University, and the 'ghugni' sold at College Square tasted exactly the same as it used to, three years ago. Time seems to have frozen in this place. The streets have survived the pandemic, the deadly 'Amphan', economic meltdown and so much more. But somehow the love for books among Bengalis has kept this place alive. 

My affair with College Street dates back to 2014. I was in 10th grade when my father brought me here to buy some academic books. I was fascinated by the concept of an open book market. It gave me a strange sense of freedom which I don't find at otherwise regular bookstores. It was like entering a giant library with no librarian, a library where silence is not the norm. During my undergraduate/graduate studies, I have visited College Street innumerable times. Sometimes to buy books, other times to meet my then girlfriend.

Legend has it that there isn't a book in this world that is not available at College Street. Who knew that day I would be putting this old adage to the strictest of tests? 

Among the seven or eight books listed, I was particularly looking forward to two books. La Nuit Bengali by Mircea Eliad and It does not die by Maitreyee Devi. I wouldn't call myself a romance reader but these two books were unique in some respects. To begin with, they are true accounts set in the colonial Calcutta (now called Kolkata) of the 1930s. Secondly, the part which attracted me the most was the backdrop behind these two novels. In La Nuit Bengali, Alan (represents Mircea Eliad), a 23-year-old Romanian engineer describes his romantic adventures involving a sixteen-year-old Maitreyee Devi. However, their love ends in tragedy. Forty years later, Maitreyee Devi finds out that a book has been addressed to her by Mircea Eliad. She then writes It does not die, where she accounts for her side of the entire affair and how she had perceived all that had transpired. In sorts, It does not die is a reply to La Nuit Bengali. 

Starting off from the right-hand side of the book market, I asked every shop if they had them. Except for one seller, no one had ever heard of those two books. I was shocked, I must say. I searched the entire right flank of books but with no success. Not even a silver lining. It was a tough pill to swallow considering I was standing at the legendary College street. Now I went to more branded stores like Deys, National Book Store, Kotha-o-Kahini, and others. None had them. I checked my phone, it was 13.30 pm. I had plans of catching the 14:10 Tarakeshwar local train from Howrah station but that seemed impossible now. On top of that, the sky became overcast. Nevertheless, I was already drenched in sweat so it would have made no difference. 

As I was making my way out of the busy market along the left flank, a very old bookshop on the right caught my eye. For a moment I stood there and murmured to myself-"let's give it one more try". I handed the owner, a list that had the names of the two books. Suddenly his eyes started scanning the cobweb-filled dusty bookshelf near the ceiling. Then he signaled the helper boy to pick out two books from the left. A minute later, I could see, resting in front of me, La Nuit Bengali and It does not die. "Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you". College Street had passed its test, like always! Likewise, the bookshop owner was stunned to see someone come to buy these very rare books. He said they have been sitting on the shelf for over 6 years. I thanked him and then made my way toward College Square. 

The rain was now reduced to a light drizzle. I took this opportunity to sit on the benches and glance through the books. I could never fight this childish urge to read a few pages of a book, the moment it was bought.           

Reading about Maitreyee's and Alan's tragic love story brought back pain-ridden memories from my past. Suddenly every object in the surrounding made me reminiscent of that recent past. The stone pavement, benches, the lazy post-afternoon setting, and constant passage of the youthful crowd. La Nuit Bengali ends on an exceedingly sad note as Alan expresses his unfulfilled wish to see Maitreyee one last time before leaving India. Alas! it is not possible. For many reasons, I highly relate to it.  

Before leaving College Street,  I stood facing the Presidency University Main gate, soaking in all the evening chaos in front of me. Incessant clamour, people running hither and thither, yellow taxis and mini-buses managing their way out, and lovers trying their best to hold hands despite the commotion threatening to separate them. For a moment I thought I had come to meet someone, she would come out of that gate, and then we would return home together. The setting was perfect. Suddenly, a hand-pulled rickshaw wala yelled " রাস্তার মাজখানে দারিয়ে স্বপ্ন দেখছেন নাকি ??". I apologized and left.

The title of this blog is ripped off from Maitreyee Devi's book. "Unborn, eternal, everlasting, primeval, it does not die when the body dies".  'It'  does not die when the body dies.

Biswaraj Palit.