Memories of 'The City of Joy'

As I bid adieu to the City of Joy: Kolkata, in a few days time, it is an opportune time to pay tribute to the place where I started earning & where my transition from a rocky Engineering Graduate to a Professional took shape. As I move on in life, Kolkata will always remain special. Your first Job & the place you did your first job is always romanticized later in life by you, irrespective of whether you enjoyed it or not. A lot of intangibles one gets to learn as you become financially independent.

As I look back at these 2 and half years here in Kolkata, I identify myself into two parts :
a) Hell lot work in office which was challenging but left little time for anything else.
b) A lot of opportunity to sock in the Bengali culture though I may not have utilized it to the fullest. Well, Durga Puja, the 10 day festival is a celebration of life here & is unlike any thing else. The week long carnival, you have to experience it to understand how it is a self expression of people here.

I appreciate the way people take life as it comes here. Among all Metros, we can safely assume that this is the least cosmopolitan. It is a kind of complement as bigger cities like Mumbai & Bangalore are finding it difficult to cope up with the growing demand of basic Infrastructure. Some parts of the city is cocooned in a time wrap which makes you wonder if the clock had turned back a hundred year. Every street in Kolkata is named after one of many personalities that have set their feet at these shores.

We are always biased towards the contemporary. The past and its achievements are rarely taken as a bench mark. May be, because it is difficult to visualize the past through the eyes of the present. During my stay here, I became more aware about the heritage & legacy that this place denotes. The Indian Renaissance of the 19th Century had its epicenter here. As the Capital city of British India, it was also the financial hub and all the thought leaders of India resided in the by-lanes of Kolkata. Things have changed in the last 63 years since Independence. Kolkata is no longer the Financial capital, the crown now proudly rests with Mumbai. The mind share of the people is now captured by Mumbai. The view about India starts with Mumbai and fades away by the time it reaches Kolkata in the East. It is similar to the world view which has moved from Europe to USA and may finally come to China in the later half of the 21st century.

I happened to read the book 'The City of Joy' by Dominique Lapierre. It was kind of an eye opener. The destitution of the Rickshaw pullers & the inhuman atrocities brought upon them is insurmountable. It is a tragedy that these Rickshaws pulled by Human Horses can still be seen in the lanes of Kolkata even though officially it has been banned long back in 1949. This legacy of the British Raj still persists. It is an irony of life for these people as they may starve to death if not for these Japanese made Rickshaws.

To end it, I have to quote some thing which epitomizes every Bengali & their homesickness, may be it is bit of a cliché:
“You can take a Bengali out of Bengal but not Bengal out of a Bengali”

I hope to see Bengal attaining glory of the past and as Mamata di is all set to capture power & come to writer's building next year, hopefully she will concentrate more on development & less on politics. My wish is let Bengal make headlines for development projects rather than bandhs and gheraos.

P.S : Will surely miss the jovial & carefree people of this place.

Bidaa-ye Bengal!