The First Wind

Kolkata has the innate ability to confuse the casual onlooker, in the most tactful sort of way. It catches you off guard around every corner. The moment you begin to forget it, it sneaks up to you. For anyone Indian but not even distantly Bangla, the experience of a new Kolkata is both fresh and familiar and surprising in how deep and embedded culture can be.

So far it has been very warm and very full of chocolate confectionary. I can’t complain. The kookie Jar and the Flury’s are in season and all’s right with the world. The malls are just as they should be everywhere in the world – cold, commercial, colourful and uniform. The streets are throbbing with life. There are very beautiful buildings beneath layers of dust and streaks of rain. The ache and the Gurudeb Robindranath resound in my head as I take this tentative first step towards expressing most simply and honestly my encounter with a city nothing like any other in which I have lived.