Anti-Imperialist Day, themed around Neruda, will be celebrated (or merely commemorated) by the Arts Faculty tomorrow afternoon at the University's indoor stadium. A bunch of young women around the poster proclaiming so, just stood around for a while, wondering what in God's name Neruda was.
Traffic tends to get very chaotic in Kolkata sometimes. Just when you're making easy attempts to fall into the culture and spirit of the Bangla land, you're brought jolting to the real world by blaring horns, four taxis, a truck, two buses (chocolate and blue) and a gentleman in a white helmet all caught up in different directions at the crossroads. So you sigh and concentrate your energies on the wet foliage around you - perhaps the curling balconies far away or just the rainy platinum sky.
Dance classes are on offer everywhere. Western, ball, salsa, and the kind where they make children do funky things to music and pretend its an extra-curricular activity. One sees advertising for pilates and yoga as well, aided fully by not altogether skinny women grinning at the prospect of some future glamour. It's inevitable, this obsession with physical exercise, in a land that is the horn of plenty when it comes to confectionary.
There is a beautiful Greek Orthodox church here, yellow with angular gold lettering above its tall door. A golden temple in the green and gray of Kolkata's urban jungle.
No comments:
Post a Comment