Wow!!!I love the rains in Calcutta.Finally after a long time hurricane Aila has brought some relief(well many will definitely differ with me but just can’t help the feeling).The rain lashing out against the obdurate skyscrapers,the sky turning ominously black,a fresh gust of wind bending the trees and rustling the green foliage,a sweep of green waves among the distant sea of paddy fields and that unmistakable sense of suspense creeping up,what fickle nature has in store for us next-it can definitely challenge any Hitchcock movie.Has anyone seen the Gorer Matth i.e.the Lungs of Calcutta during the rains?I mean everything from the sky to the expansive greens to the line of concrete tombs(the high-rises),the hurrying taxis on the Queen’s Way and the Bengali version of football(the one played in mud)-its simply unearthly.Some might think I am a romantic Fool but indeed being a lonely person mostly I have learnt to extract every kind of joy that comes for free from almost everything.One can honestly feel as light as a bird if one just opens one’s arms against the gust of wind that mostly carries the message of an oncoming rainfall.You can feel your mind unclogging.your worries ebbing away and once the rainfall commences you feel like singing with Perry Como “Raindrops keep Fallin’ on my head”.Trust me I have experienced this ethereal feeling -a natural cosmic getaway.
You know there a few places in the world that gives you the feeling that you have been there before though you know you haven’t.They may reek of a certain ancient scent redolent of periods you have read only in history books or they can make you feel nostalgic about places you haven’t been to before-some mysterious niche you have romanticised about.A rainy day in Calcutta definitely transforms the place into one-the fragrance of mango riping,the smell of the wet May grass,the washed out turret of St Paul’s Cathedral,the flooded by lanes of Bow Bazaar,the view of Howrah Bridge from the Princep Ghats,the line of abandoned hand-drawn rickshaws behind the Writer’s and the arcane sense of foreboding in the drenched obelisks of Park Street cemetery.Somehow you just can’t help but love this city-the city of coy Joy.
I’ll keep posting….
