Growing up. I knew Kolkata was "home" though we did not live there. Coming to Howrah Station by train from far flung parts of India is how we got to Kolkata once every couple of years. My Bangla was not upto snuff, my mannerisms were unlike the locals and finally I did not look Bengali. With that trifecta of circumstances, Kolkata was far from a comfort fit as a "home". Yet, I tried hard to make it work. Work on my accent, work on loving what the locals did and work on finding some redeeming quality about this city has a cripplingly depressing affect on me. I saw sad parallels to my own life - much potential but no real achievements to show for.
In that sense the city is my soul sister. I like to think of Kolkata as a woman - verdant, endlessly forgiving and vilely abused. Each time I returned, I would hope her fate had improved since we last met but the downward spiral continued unabated. My last contact was over fifteen years ago. In the interim, I worked on rehabilitating my life the best I could and rearrange the cards I had been dealt. I learned for instance to become accountable for my circumstances and not ascribe them to "wrongs" done to me. The process is not linear as I found out because identifying a cause (other than myself ) of my problems is like a gateway drug. It leads to feelings of temporary empowerment fueled by misdirected anger. It seems to diminish the pain. But after the "high" wears off the sense of defeat is crushing. From that bad habit stems many others - lack of real introspection, lack of focus in achieving goals for the future and so on. Far too easy to be angry at someone else who supposedly was the cause of my woes.
While I have made somewhat of a recovery, Kolkata has sadly not as I discovered this past summer. The attitudes of people have evolved to where they are all hustling and minding their own business and have little time to meddle in those of others. Privacy and personal space are not real concepts but synthetic byproducts of such hustle driven apathy. The family wedding is not nearly how it used to be. It is hard to tell the guests and the hosts apart as their level of engagement in the event is about same. Everyone is participating but no one owns anything. The generational fractures seem to be have widened since my day. Fluid relationship statuses are becoming acceptable not due to any heightened awareness of the self but because it allows for complete lack of personal accountability. The state of the city is an overall reflection of the times as it must be. No one appears to be in charge and there is no plan. The city along with its populace hurtles towards an unknown destination that is loosely called the future.
In that sense the city is my soul sister. I like to think of Kolkata as a woman - verdant, endlessly forgiving and vilely abused. Each time I returned, I would hope her fate had improved since we last met but the downward spiral continued unabated. My last contact was over fifteen years ago. In the interim, I worked on rehabilitating my life the best I could and rearrange the cards I had been dealt. I learned for instance to become accountable for my circumstances and not ascribe them to "wrongs" done to me. The process is not linear as I found out because identifying a cause (other than myself ) of my problems is like a gateway drug. It leads to feelings of temporary empowerment fueled by misdirected anger. It seems to diminish the pain. But after the "high" wears off the sense of defeat is crushing. From that bad habit stems many others - lack of real introspection, lack of focus in achieving goals for the future and so on. Far too easy to be angry at someone else who supposedly was the cause of my woes.
While I have made somewhat of a recovery, Kolkata has sadly not as I discovered this past summer. The attitudes of people have evolved to where they are all hustling and minding their own business and have little time to meddle in those of others. Privacy and personal space are not real concepts but synthetic byproducts of such hustle driven apathy. The family wedding is not nearly how it used to be. It is hard to tell the guests and the hosts apart as their level of engagement in the event is about same. Everyone is participating but no one owns anything. The generational fractures seem to be have widened since my day. Fluid relationship statuses are becoming acceptable not due to any heightened awareness of the self but because it allows for complete lack of personal accountability. The state of the city is an overall reflection of the times as it must be. No one appears to be in charge and there is no plan. The city along with its populace hurtles towards an unknown destination that is loosely called the future.
Comments