Back in Calcutta

So I am in Calcutta. I arrived in a Taxi quietly as my city slept in the early hours of the morning yesterday. Quite a few things have changed since I left for Madras half a year back. My parents have moved out of the house I have grown up in and they have put up in a rented house on the bypass nearer to Garia. They are making a new house and they want to stay closer to the plot of land so it's easier to look after the work.

This house is rather nice and quite in the lap of nature. There are birds right out of the window that one only reads about in Jibananada's poetry. The mornings smell different from the afternoons, or the evenings. It's colder too. It's quiet. Though it gets tiring after a point. Thankfully, I can take a metro straight to the centre of the city when I want.

There are a lot of walks planned out. Lot of places to eat at. Lot of friends to meet. Calcutta is so much more beautiful than other cities that it hurts. It is cleaner. (yes! Yes! YES! Stop looking like that!) It is better. It is just so full of things that really matter. And you know what? I am glad that the medieval communists fucked up and did not let this city turn into an IT hub.

I mean, seriously. IT is bullshit. Anyone who works in IT knows it. People in Calcutta have far better things to do than set up hideously huge offices in glass and steel that all look like each other  and work on god-knows-what. Most people in IT are half-dead. People who are not remotely interested in technology (and no, just having an Android or an iPhone does not make you technically inclined). I have met so many people in my company who carry an Android but don't know anything about it. My friends who have studied history know more about technology than they can dream of doing. I am very happy that Calcutta is not a tech-hub or a commercial capital.  Even if it means staying away from Calcutta for me. For the time being, at the least.

People in Calcutta are nicer. They get angry. They get moved by things they see. They comment on things even (and especially when) they know that nothing will come out of it. They invest their faculty on so many things that won't ever give them any returns. They do things for the sake of doing things, knowing that it won't matter - that nothing really matters in the end. For example, no one in Calcutta has asked me why I take photographs. Specially if I am not selling them. No one here tells me I should try to sell my photos just so I don't end up pursuing something 'pointlessly'. Apparently, if you are good (or even mediocre) at something, you should try to make money out of it. Well. I am not saying it is bad. But why would the act of interest in itself be enough? Why will it be  imperative to, why, almost unimaginable not to attach every interest with some goal?

Anyway. I want to meet everyone. Please meet me.

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7E

There will, of course, be parties. But this is the end of an era.

Here's to Shattolah. To the best times of our lives. To bawra mann, nishitho rater badol dhara.  To Pola. To the definite refuge, the mother of all havens in times when everything seemed screwed. To an apartment that couldn't have been more aptly named.

Here is to Laddu and 7E.

Madras Mail: Part 2

I have never felt this scattered in my life. In the past six months I have lived in three corners of the country, changed five beds (and sometimes with no bed at all), basically  living out of a suitcase. Madras has been more difficult than I apprehended. I have tried not to react, jump to conclusions, but it is a difficult city to live and set up a house in if you have no one you know. The common people, and by common people I mean shop keepers, auto drivers, bus conductors, pedestrians, co- passengers, the teeming hundreds you see around you are quite hostile to anyone who is not a local. The hostility is not very evident in the beginning. Over time you will start noticing it. Initially I had mistaken it to be the general nature of the language. People came across as rude even when they were not. But now I have realised that they generally have very little patience with anyone who does not understand their tongue - to an extent that they may not even want or care for your business. There is, of course, another class of people - the cooler English speaking, goatee/French-cut bearing upper class who you will find quite rarely unless you happen to move in those circles. However, there is somehow a scarily large chunk of people who are completely bereft of manners or general niceness, who are frankly uncivilised and scornful in away that shows a deep contempt for everyone who is somewhat better off.

In the middle of the COBOL lines in fluorescent green for some reason I remembered the walk down Southern Avenue. My heart stopped. I could not breathe for a few seconds. I am a bad friend But I miss you all. All the time.

By the way, for those of you who have never seen a Mainframe (very very old computers, lets say, in layman terms) here is how a screen may look like:

Sorry Bob

Your workplace inspires you. It does and you know it. This is about a boy and the shirts he wears to office.

'How many times must a man wear a shirt
And pretend that it just doesn't stink?
The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowing in the wind.'

I said sorry.

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