Coming back to life

It takes time to get used to the fact that I have landed in India. Reality seeps in slowly. I was getting cues at various levels, right from the beginning of the flight, which got slightly delayed because of some un-put-downable passengers; then the messy arrival lounge - after one month of Mumbai massacre, Mumbai international airport still looks so casual! It is now under renovation. Dimly illuminated, shabby arrival lounge is sure not going to make any positive impression on anyone and this is one of the main, if not the the busiest, port of entries to India! Cues continued - experiencing the driver's respect for traffic signals on my short journey through Mumbai traffic between international and domestic airports; semi-dark, dirty, water-logged rest room of Kolkata airport, and then everyone talking in Bengali ... I sure am back in India. The moment I joined the airport leaving traffic in Kolkata, I realized why New York City seemed so familiar after coming from the tranquil State College. Cars honking at each other, jumping signals, pedestrians crossing the roads like the acrobat maneuvering on the trapeze, hawkers shouting at the sidewalk ... life in a metropolitan city is basically same everywhere, be it New York or Kolkata. I was a bit scared to cross the road even at the zebra crossing as cars continued to rush in even on red light! Distance between two cars were hardly two meters - drivers have a very strong sense of proportion, visual measurement skill and sense of size of the car they are driving, otherwise it is impossible to drive in roads here.

But with all its apparent haphazardness, chaos or disorder, there lies an amazing current of vitality and vigor. Life in a city like Kolkata needs an enormous amount of life-force. Life in cities like State College seems so clockwork, so boring now. Being in Kolkata forces me to be alive, awake!

Snow white State College

“A clear, frosty night. Unusual brilliance and perfection of everything visible. Earth, sky, moon, and stars, all seem cemented, riveted together by the frost. Shadows of trees lie across the paths, so sharp that they seem carved in relief. You keep thinking you see dark figures endlessly cross the road at various places. Big stars hang in the woods between branches like blue lanterns. Small ones are strewn all over the sky like daisies in a summer field.
“We go on discussing Pushkin. The other night we talked about the early poems he wrote as a schoolboy...”

Was it coincidence that I felt like finishing the rest of 'Dr. Zivago' tonight and stumbled on this?

Well, not Pushkin, I was thinking of Elliot while walking my way back amidst the vast snow-white field. The yellow street lights, half covered foot steps on snow, deserted roads ... all felt like a déjà vu from childhood. Weird!

Rain rain go away ...

It was drizzling thoughout the day just like back in India ...

Moving!

I was calling home. My parents are moving. We've got a new home at Kolkata, so we are leaving father's quarter at Midnapore and going to settle there. In fact this move was scheduled long ago before my coming to USA! But the VISA episode got all plan disrupted and so now I'm far far away just listening them packing things and getting ready to move.
We stayed at that place for ten years. Ten years - long time huh? This has been the longest spell we've stayed at one place. We never had a fixed home. Moving with my father's workplace like nomads. Just the time you feel to grow roots on a place - its time to move. Its hard. I lost many friends and gained many, too. But somehow as I grew up, I never could mingle up properly in a new environemnt, i.e., our new quarter; probably because I knew its painful to grow association at one place when you know you have to move out one day. Still once you start staying at a place
for couple of years you are bound to have memories.
May be I am fortunate as at our last quarter I haven't styaed much. I moved to college hostel and then to Pune ... Midnapore was my vacation time! But it was home. I have some memories at every corner of that house.
When my mother told me they are packing I felt as if I am losing my memories. I know there are some old book, some old letters, may be some old gifts ... which I had forgot long ago, will remain unnoticed, un-taken-care-of. Its not that if I were there I'll carry them but its worth to have a touch on them once again before letting them completely drifting into oblivion and I'm sure there will some forgotten moments associated with them. I can see my entire home, I can see them packing. When I'll be back in India we'll be well settled in Calcutta.
And probably I am never going to go to that quarter ever again. Will I miss it?

missing adda

Today is the Saptami. The starting day of the Grand Festival of Durgapuja; and this is for the third time in a row I am away from home in Durgapuja. I am, well, honestly speaking, homesick.
For Bengalis Durgapuja is not a mere puja - its a yearly celebration of life, a time to get together, a time of endless adda at the pandal premises. Though I am not a very enthusiastic addabaj, I like to be there. But somehow the topic of discussions of the adda we used to have in puja gathering have shifted with time. At the end the schooldays the topics had been more on the edge of vulger legpulling and trying out the taboo things, like public smoking, boozing, teasing, smacking. This was a typical growth pattern of middleclass youth in a small town, where the effects of urbanization has started creeping in with the spread of media. We had no real icon in front of us, but we had heard/seen stories of freedom of west. This was an obvious bend the suppressed youth was supposed to take.
From this time on, I started losing contact with my classmates and addamtes for two reasons; firstly many of us parted for higher studies and secondly the larger domain of IIT culture opened a new horizon for me. The major thrust came from internet, which was easlily accessible at IIT. I have never been an active addabaj during Durgapujas after that. Then came career, the distance between us got wider and wider.
But now, today, after a three year distance from Puja adda, I feel nostalgic. I know the turbulence of our old adda has settled now, everybody has matured. The charm of old adda has might not been lost, but has taken a different point of view.
I, seating alone in fornt of my computer in the Saptami night, am longing for the usual addas in pandals...

Homesick in Pune

Early rising is always a pleasant feeling. Unfortunately, for me early rising is almost synonymous with night-out. Unless you don't sleep at night, you can't rise early in the morning!
But yesterday I had a terrible headache after returning from office and took to bed to rest for couple of hours at around six-o'clock. Afreshed, when I woke up, it was half past four in the morning! Night was still prevalent.
I made a cup of tea and came to my balcony. Only street lights are awake, along with a lonely light in a solitary room in the house just around the street. SOmeone might be a real early riser. But four-thirty, I presume, is too early for a regular early riser especially at a place like Pune where time runs almost half an hour behind the IST. It must be something else. May be the person has to catch a bus/train in the morning, so he is packing off. Or may be he/she has forgot to put the lights off!
The cool breeze and soothing night. It was feeling awsome. The first glow of light started to come in almost an hour later. And it revealed a spectacular dawn. Tow palash trees overloaded with bright red flowers greeted my vision from the two sides of the balcony. I didn't notice so much flowers have coem to them. Palash is a typical spring flower in Bengal, but here the life cycle is slightly offset. In Bengal Palash signifies the Saraswati Puja - festival of youth, one may say. These palash flowers brought back the memories of Saraswati Puja, which reminded me that Durga puja is just three days away and I am still stuck here in Pune. For last three years I have not been home in Durga Puja.
I miss those kashful, shiuli and dhaak. None of them I've found here. Though there are few places here in Pune where Bengalis celebrate Durga puja, I've never felt any attractions to them. They are more business-like than cordial!
The sky is now alighted. This reveals the cirrus clouds scattered over the sky. A typical autumn morning. I feel homesick.