Journeys Ahead: Kolkata Calling

What pull draws one, firmly, unwillingly, and yet relentlessly, to the place of one's birth? What primal heart beat, of a land, a place, beats resonantly with yours, following your meandering footsteps, a constant reminder of where the journey was first begun? As a distant flying arrow, constant always to origin, your source? Such is the draw of Kolkata, the place where I was born, the place that I'll again return, soon, to ground myself, to anchor within - to move out again, in ever widening spheres, away from this source. Maybe it is its grime, that's soiled my blood, its noises and music that have permeated my silences, its turbid, turgid, humid air, that has breathed into my pores- maybe the world I see has been suffused by its washes of soft, tarnished gold, of sun distilled through its intense, tropical jungle heat....

There is a mood to Kolkata, a flavor, a feel, a sense of self, uniquely its own - a once rushing crystal river, flows broad and brown here, languorously moving towards the sea; spilling shelves of books overflow into streets, pass through many hands and are still read; hand pulled rickety rickshaw rides over cobbled streets, pulled by young, gaunt men already bent and old; street foods of intense sweet and spice, that defy all boundaries of palate and taste; minuscule helpings of steaming tea served in earthen pots, to be thrown aside and crunched under soles, neatly disposed; the gigantic Howrah bridge; temples with black naked goddess wearing garlands of red - flowers, blood...all this is Kolkata in my breath, my blood.

Kolkata Connection

What tenuous ties link us, inexplicably, inescapably, to the place of our birth?Is the tree connected to where it was concieved in a seed? a bird to where it hatched?escaping fragrance to the flower that created it? a wave retreating to where it was born? What webs connect us to where we origined-in a dream?What brings me back to Kolkata?Incomprehensible pulls that have no words- to this city of layered grime, a broad placid old river, music born in destitution,unstable, tottering, almost on the verge of collapse, always, and still eternal, evolving.It is 26 years since I last spent a winter in Kolkata. Its a season of black, sooty, chill, that settles physically on your skin, skylines are smoky shadows in the settled, unmoving air that pervades in my days-nights without clarity, walking past huddled shapes crouched around plastic fire-urban refuse is still needed in this city of want, penury.

What is let through this dense, dusty air, are clear notes of music, crisp rythms on tabla, complex, intricate, bouncing off myriad atoms of polluted air, and yet reaching out-outwards in pristine clarity to hold this city together, in intersecting webs of music- all escaping and there by retaining- this city of my birth as a whole.