1. The city with my soul,indeed!

In my life of 22 years, there have been numerous times when the thought of leaving you has crossed my mind. Time and again, you’ve proved me right. You have played with my patience, you have played with my mind, made me question my conscience. I have often been qualm. So, today sitting on my almost toddler sized bed in my run-down apartment, looking outside the window and hearing the incessant pitter-patter, I somehow find myself thinking of you- something I thought I would never do!

I find myself questioning my conscience, “Do you miss home?”

“What was your definition of home?” it cross questions.

And, I start thinking about what ‘was’ home! Deliberations lead me to think, Yes…I miss home!

You were like my scrape book. The one that I had designed just the way I fancied. In you, I had pasted pictures of my first success, of my first failure, my first best friend, the first best friend who turned into something more, of the first snap when he left me in a puddle of tears, of the first time when I saw pride in my dad’s eyes and many more… I have often jumbled and scribbled parts and episodes of my life in you.

I love rains and you have never given me that. So, when I set out for the city of dreams which also is the city of rain, apparently, I thought I would fall in love with it. Turns out, I haven’t and now to think about it, I don’t even like the round-the-clock rain. Aren’t we funny? For our entire lives, we make up a list of criteria for a certain thing and when that gets handed over to us, we don’t want it. You are the epitome of the screwed up education system and the political hullabaloo that didn’t provide me the chance I deserved. You have acted as a catalyst for every defeat I have ever faced, every friend that I have ever lost or for every platonic/romantic relationship where I have given my right arm and yet failed. You have stood for all the ‘could have been but didn’t’ s of my life. Instead of teaching me to hustle, you have always made me lean towards the laid-back attitude culture. On the whole, I have a book of complains for you.

But, what is it about you that makes me miss you like my heart has gone empty?

And thus I realize, “Some things, once you’ve loved (or hated) them, become yours forever. And if you try to let them go, they only circle back to you. They become a part of who you are!” We cannot break free from that circle of sentiment. So, yes! I miss the smell of old books at College Street, the horrible abomination called ‘cold coffee’ at Coffee House, the ‘fuchka’ stall at Vivekananda Park, the yellow taxis, Oly Pub at Park Street, the road to my school which had a huge bougainvillea tree and my grandfather would pick a flower for me every morning on the way, the blue and white architecture, the blue-yellow buses, the golden ‘aloo’ of my biryani, the neighbourhood tea stall, Eden Gardens, the evening “adda” at JU. I miss my two best friends. I miss my high school lover. I miss the pandal making scenes before Pujo.

I will miss ‘anjali’ and Tagore on ‘Ashtami’ morning!                                            

And just like the book of complains that I have for you, the sudden realization dawns upon me that I have a book of appreciation for you as well. Now I know, somethings stay imbibed in you forever and you don’t realise that unless you voluntarily try to uproot it and get it out of your system. So, stay the same as you are with your “macher-jhol bhaat” followed by an afternoon siesta, the mandatory evening chai and adda along with the discussion of football and politics and so much more that it physically hurts me to type. Thus, no more words and no more tears. Just take care, Kolkata!

Source: Line in Italics taken from the movie “Kill Your Darlings”