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Remembering Kolkata

Reading A Place Within and its fascinating to see India come alive in the author's voice. He says this of Kolkata, my home-town:

Of course there is a brilliance here, compared to the simple career-mindedness that I’ve seen elsewhere. These people here are not merely climbers, with wives or families to answer to, status to aspire to. They do not yearn for trips abroad. They are well informed, up-to-date not only on the news but also on global events and history; and they know literature. This is Calcutta. They can quote freely from Bengali writings (as well as Derrida and Foucault), and unlike Indians elsewhere lapse easily into the mother tongue in front of a non-speaker even as they apologize for this; they relish the language, love it, so it’s easy to understand, excuse the lapse. And there is a genuine sympathy for the oppressed: after all, there exists a caste system, and the multitudes are poor beyond imagination.

This is the Kolkata I met when I first came there to work a couple of years out of college. I have lived and traveled many other parts of India - until then Kolkata was a place I visited sometimes to meet the grandparents. Working there was an eye-opening experience for me then and the impressions I formed remain with me to this day. I am fortunate that I can stay with the romance and nostalgia of those long ago days, unblemished by the struggle and strife of everyday living that my parents and relatives report. I have the luxury of reminiscing about the smart, talented, artistic, quirky and charming people I got to know during that time, how great it felt to soak in that atmosphere as a young person who had a lot of growing up left to do. 

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