The Landscape & the Oddities

Imagine driving through Kolkata. Imagine a long river of cracked grey wall. SFI poster. The sickle of Marxist thought. The Spiritual and Philosophical Institute of something. A hand pulled rickshaw with the proletariat at one end and the middle class at the other. The lone white cat on the stone slab underneath a straw roof.

Imagine buses blue and brown. Ornately carved windows and the apperance of a chocolate slab on wheels. The curls and arrows of the Bangla language painted on signboards. The well worn flyover. The Howrah Bridge, stringed and fine tuned. The Hooghly underneath, swelling, hazel and vast.

Close your eyes and picture. Heavily draped trees in lush, lustrous green. The constant drizzle of water. Tram tracks on the roads, half drowned in muddy puddles. An ambling tram hooked to the wires overhead. Yellow taxis dotting every cranny of your landscape.

Young people, sunned people, resolute people. The saris, the checks. The white helmets and traffic lights. The buildings right out of a beautiful European city destroyed by the World Wars. The whispering curves of balconies, red bricks, ivy and weed crawling over yesterday, domes and pillars, rain washed, sun dried, neglected but kept.

I saw a 'Boy's Training Institute' today. I'm not sure what this means, but apparently, they've been training boys to do something since 1918. Heh. Cheap thrills.

Curious Curious. Kolkata leaves you curious all the time.