9th October.
I sensed there is something wrong with my alarm, the music it’s playing is different. I cursed myself for changing the alarm music. I hit on the snooze button hardly, nothing happened. Music is still playing. What the hell, I thought. Then it came to me, it is not my alarm, it’s the phone which cut short my sleep. It was early morning and I was still in half sleep and was angry. I answered the call with obvious frustration in my speech.
"Hello?"
"We're planning a trip. You coming?"
"Okay..."
I took some time to let it sink in. I am going next week.
it was my elder cousin sister.she always keeps this air of urgency in everything she proposes. She told me, her family,my other cousin sister and their kids are also coming,along with my Valyachan(elder brother of my father) and valyamma(his wife)
I was searching for right words. What to say ? at last I managed to say, “okay”.
I still have no idea why we are going to Kolkata, all of a sudden. And I forgot to ask her that. Well, it was okay, because I was sure she was going to call me anyway.
That day went as predictable as a boring ubiquitous story lined Indian romance movie.
10th October
I was at the office. There was a bad Indian custom: even if you are an adult by age, if you are not upgraded your status into a married person, you are not officially treated as an adult and no one will take you seriously. And you will have to fill in for every other so called married people. If you ask, why ? Then the answers would be , “what are you going to do going home early? and you don’t have any responsibilities”.
The phone call made me snap out of my routine office chores. I picked up the phone and I asked her,
“let me ask you something, why are we going to Kolkata? “
She laughed, it took her sometime to contain herself
I was totally puzzled.
“What happened? What is so funny about what I said?”
Nothing, she said “ it’s the same question everybody asked me when I said I was going to Kolkata”.
“Well, they are right, why do we go to Kolkata ?” I asked.
“No idea, just felt like it”, she answered.
“Okay , fair enough”. I told her.
“But there is another big problem, I m almost broke this month,
I don’t have anything left in my account. U will have to bear my flight ticket.” I told her.
“She said, okay, anything else ?”
“Nothing I can think of right now”, i playfully said
“Ok then , I will book the tickets for us all, now. Bye”
She cut the phone, quickly.
13th October
My flight touched down Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose airport at 8 AM. It was an average airport in size but well maintained. Bengali letters were inscribed on the ceiling. When u look up you can see letters written like calligraphy. It was refreshing to see and here letters and words other than Hindi for a change. Even though I don’t speak Bengali, I loved it. It has a certain sway to it. It was seductive. I hired a taxi to my destination, where I was supposed to stay. I was the one to arrive first, since their flight was scheduled to reach in the afternoon. The apartment we rented through Airbnb is pretty decent one. The owner was a doctor. They had setup all the basic amenities. And it was on the top floor, ie 20th floor. The view from balcony were simply stunning. The Durga Puja had made the city beautiful, like a bride before the wedding ceremony. The city is all dressed up , lights everywhere, music in the air. I was happy to be there at that moment.
My sister always tells me,
“ if it wasn’t for me you wouldn’t have seen any place other than you stay,anyways”.
When I used to pick on her, telling she choose weird places to visit. She is right, she has this talent of pulling things off at a very short time. She knows that and I know that too but never shows it. If I admit it, then we are not siblings, siblings are not supposed to acknowledge each other, it’s an unwritten law.
My sister and her family landed as scheduled. The moment their cab door opened the kids started to running around, like marbles coming out of a broken bottle. Their sound echoed in the corridor of the apartment. It was fun watching them. The elder one is the girl and the younger is a boy. She is round and plump like an apple and he was lean and skinny like a drumstick. Though they both fought each other all the time, she was the leader among the two. She controls him. He wants to do what his sister does and wants to have exactly what she has. This made a lot of difficulty for us adults. But we were happy to have them with us. They are very active and we adults are somewhat inert. They are always fully charged. To get them to sleep is a Goliath task. It’s a good thing that they are scared of ghosts. It was the first time I was thankful for scary ghost stories, they are life savers.
14th October
We woke up early, did our chores and got ready to start our rendezvous with the city of joy. At this time of year she is so calm and serene in the mornings. Bengali Devotional songs fill the air. It gives you a certain mood that can’t be explained. Main activity of people in the morning at the time of Durga Puja there is “Pandal hopping”. So did we. It was an amazing experience. Goddess Parvati in her intimidating Durga form, with Eight hands sitting on a lion. She is angry, her eyes are bloodshot and big. The demon Mahishasura is lying on her side, it seemed he was pleading for her mercy. His eyes are wide opened and terrified. He realised his end is near, but as always, it was always too late for people who does wrong, when they begin to repent. The depiction of this scene is so lifelike. Everyone can feel the fury and fear. The eyes of Durga idol is so captivating.
We didn’t want to leave the pandal, but we were in a tight schedule. So we had no choice.
The cab driver parked at the road side, it was in the middle of nowhere. I wondered why did he stop here? He pointed to a narrow gali and said there it is. I saw the board in the footpath, it was nothing much. We walked, just at the beginning of that small street is the Mother’s House, home to Mother Theresa. It was a very humble building and Mother’s room would tell you how simple minded was she. It was a small room with a bed on left side and a bench and desk to read and write and also for eating. There were some of her texts and a bible which she used to read, when she was left alone in her personal space. There was also one pair of sandals and her convent white dress.
Her remains were buried there in the Mother’s house. People came and pray beside her sarcophagus. It was a very clean and calm place. Kolkata seemed proud of Mother’s presence there. You can still find mother when you are courageous enough to go deep into the other life of the city, where there is no glamour and glitter.
Kolkata is alive, she has a soul of her own. She had a glorious past.You can feel her presence on every nook and corner of the city. The old Victorian architectures, temples where Reality and mythology intertwines, wide four way lanes, tall modern buildings, narrow cul de sac, slums she has everything a typical Indian city has. Delhi has an aura of being a royalty and a helpless Indian woman who has always been under the control of her man but Kolkata feels more of an ordinary bold Indian woman who has never been submissive and stood strong against anything which goes against her will. She has a strong past in spirituality.
Next we went to such a place where one man single handedly pushed Indianness to the canvas of world again. After British has tightened their grip on India , the world saw India through the lens of British imperialist frame where they despised anything other than British.
It’s almost an hour journey from the Kolkata city. This place sits at the banks of river Hooghly (River Ganges), in Howrah district. It is such a serene place. On the other side of the river is Dakshineshwar temple, where he was a priest.
This is where Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa setup his Ashram,Belur Math, at the banks of Ganges. He is the one who is responsible for finding out the swami Vivekananda, the great spiritual son of India, who carried the message of Vedanta all over the world. He is the teacher and “Guru” of swami Vivekananda. It is to propagate his teachings all over the world swami Vivekananda founded Ramakrishna Mission, as a part of Ramakrishna movement.Now his ashram has turned into the property of Ramakrishna Mission, which span over 40 acres of land. It is a wonderful place to be. You can still find the actual ashram made of palm leaves made by actual Sri Ramakrishna. It was just the same as Mother Teresa. May be They were birds of same feathers. When you see people in the ashram and their way of living you would want to rethink about the choices you have made in your life which you thought were right. The kind of aura they emit is non describable. On one hand these people who lead a minimalist life and on the other hand here I am doing everything I desired and still feel like not enough.
There was a long standing queue for the food they served to all. It was “daal” kichidi(a kind of porridge) it was nothing much to boast but you can have it in abundance. They were careful enough to ensure that no one left there empty stomach.
We turned back to the city where cacophony awaits, but my heart refused to go back. We were all tired of being stuffed inside a Toyota Innova. But the kids still had charge left like an iPhone and We were all drained. They refused to lie down, at last we had to make them sleep forcefully. I wondered how they are able to enjoy most of their time. I guess adults wouldn’t be able to do that because some thing always comes up in our mind. Children are beings of the present. They live in the moment. Maybe that’s why we all want to be kids at some point of our life, to be carefree, to live in the moment.
15th October
Today is the last day here in this beautiful Kolkata.
We had seen the goddess in her fierce glory, walked the humble floors of Mother’s House, and felt the quiet power of Belur Math. Kolkata had shown us her many faces, the devout, the historical, the resilient, the serene. So we decided to just be. To let the city wash over us one last time
As we lifted off, watching the lights of Kolkata shrink into a constellation on the ground, I didn’t feel the sharp sadness of an ending. Instead, I felt full.
My sister was right. I wouldn’t have come here on my own. And I would have missed the strange, sudden magic of it all.
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