My Kolkata Walk

There are holidays, & 'holy' days, 'wholeness' days & 'holla-out-loud' days, honeymoons & heavenly hiatus &, of course, your good old fashion, run-of-the-mill, rest & relaxation, sexy vacation. All imply some form of respite, intermission, suspension of duty & recess from the ravishes of everyday life, perhaps even some perfumed-pamper & a little extra five-star-sparkle thrown into the crystal clear waters.

  The Hooghly River

I do not travel to INDIA for any of the aforementioned, ney, I tell you, I go there to be: propelled, pummelled, shaken about, spun around, smacked sideways, stunned, stupefied, confounded, confronted, crushed, affronted, assuaged, jolted, jarred, scarred, stared-at, serenaded-to, thwacked-on (by ricocheting spit-balls!) bumped-into, blessed & blithely bothered. In short, I go to experience the full gamut of human experience, of life 'Unfiltered'....a 'Walk of Life', which starts for some, & ends for others, in Kolkata.

The push & pull of industry

The family that works together...

Negotiating the space

Kolkata, that City of questionable 'Joy', that evokes more Dickensian drudgery, than Dalrymple delight, more 'Mother-House' affliction, than multi-fusion menu & more begging black-holes than a quantum-physics symposium. That she is ALL this, and more, makes her so frustratingly fascinating & likeable, people flock to her Hooghly-shores, not to escape the minutiae of life, but to face it.....head on & unapologetically.

 The wall of fancy-pants pundits

Tottering trams & tired buildings

Herbaceous road-side vendors

Peaceful Buddhist Shala

Ever wonder where your hair/shaving brushes come from? 

The finest goat manes!

Bow Barracks

Door to the 'other' side

 Churning chick-pea flour

Old Russian Theatre

Spicy street

While the heaving Howrah Bridge dominates, & august, British-colonial monuments flank the cityscape, as well as lend to it its modern history, it is the interactive alleyways & 'paraganis' (traditional townships), with it's confluence of cultures - British, Persian, Chinese, Armenian, & Portuguese among them, their shapely shrines, mosques & churches, edifying eateries, beguiling bookshops, institutes for 'adda' (political/topical conversation), tireless tailors, wily wallahs, vendors & hawkers, iconic, rickety-rickshaws, scrumptious, sought-after sweetshops, witty, bouncy, Bengali repartee, rolly-polly aunties in shimmering saris & unmatching cardigans, little girls in felicitous frou-frous, paired with non-negotiable Nikes, the elder-spunk in a safari, the young bro' in Gabbana, industrious indie films, lilting literature & fierce, freedom-fighting....that all give this city its soulful, colourful cadence.

Beth El Jewish Synagogue, 1856

The call to prayer caps

Old Portuguese Cathedral, 1799

Bubbly bidi (cigarette) stall & 
 jolly Bengali belly!

Vanity Fair!  
Mirza Ghalib (Freeschool) Street 

Dakshineswar Temple

Namaste your Majesty! 

The royal residence under renovation

Armenian Church, 1707

Snack time

Puppy-Love

Hindu wedding preparation

100 year-old Chinese tea shop

   
So, Ok there are also scuzzy dogs & stench-filled drains, pesky touts & clambering charlatans, roving eyes & ridiculous poverty, not to mention a swelling, swarm of 22 million sonorous souls all vying for that same cup of chai...but there's a story for ALL of that &, if you're interested & willing to rise above otherwise preconceived notions, relatively privileged lives & necessary sanitary proclivities, able to stomach the sensory intensity & digest the inescapable iniquities......you might just get a far more gratifying & graceful picture of this grand & life-giving megalopolitan.

The poor

The industrious

The hungry

The iconic

Don't expect though, to see a beautiful city.....if anything, she is a shambolic mess of snazzy new cars, overwhelmed infrastructure, whiteness cream, dreams, fumes & aspiration. Kolkata tests & beckons you to forage for her 'beauty', weed it out, blow off the refuse, paint it a new colour, reinterpret the concept, pack it away.........then carry it in your heart, veins & lungs, for a lifetime.

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#All Writing & Photography by Rani.C (Char)

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