oh! calcutta..

guess its high time i dropped a few words on my favourite city..the city i was born in..partially grew up in..the city that i call home now..got a lot of memories attached to it..childhood memories which are all sort of a blur coz i didn't know one end of cal from the other and the entire city was sort of a maze for me..i still remember that i was struggling to recall the way from howrah station to dida's place at jodhpur park the first time i seriously contemplated running away from home (i was 5 or 6 years old at that time i think..of course i didn't do it..dad caught up with me halfway down to the main road n coaxed me back home..hehe)..so there r those memories of going all around cal with parents..every part of the city seemingly new every time i came over..and new memories a few years later when the city started to change..em bypass became all awesome..salt lake became habitable..flyovers came up..forum opened its doors (the first mall since sriram arcade!..which isn't really a mall but then we didn't know any better before..n the tube elevators were sooo cool..hehe)..puja pandals became "international"..fancy stores cropped up..ccds n baristas opened up at every corner..multiplexes n malls came up all over the place..

but even when it's changed, a few things still remain constant..n those r what i love the best..like watching the mountains of white clouds on a clear sunny day..like the grey sky of a monsoon afternoon behind the white marble of victoria memorial, partially hidden behind green trees..bandhs..those mandatory holidays that even evil bosses cannot take away..the traffic jams which make for a ready-made excuse, even if i was the one who left 15 minutes late..hehe..how the bustling gariahat more at 9.30 pm is almost completely deserted by 10.00 pm..the deathtrap that is the "auto"..sitting in front, hanging on for dear life as it rivals a rollercoaster's trail..how the cheapest of food joints serve the tastiest of dishes..how gariahat shoes last way longer than "branded stuff"..allllll the awesome awesome food..hehe..phuchka n chats..chop n singara..biryani n chinese..ilish n pomfret n watnot..and the people..love how lazy everyone is..love how still kids come out to play cricket in the streets in the evenings..how the lake is still the same..full of couples u just itch to go n disturb..durga puja and all the hustle bustle that comes with it..the old fashioned melas at every fair ground..those games which are still the same as when i was 10..

(to be contd.)