Back back BACK... you NOSTALGIA

I have spent a good part of my life in Kolkata where if I am honest, everyday has been a battle, and am still surviving. A fight for justice, a fight to love, a fight to give mercy when I have been hurt, a fight for a seat on a crowded metro or even a fight simply not to be cheated or taken for a ride by a local taxi driver. As a fighter or at least one who has had to fight to survive life in Kolkata, I have been very well equipped with weapons of war. I have a clenched jaw and a hard face that appears without my permission and a struggle to trust, a healthy fear of men who stand too close and some sweet evasive moves to ward off potential harm both physical and emotional.

I had an over-exaggerating urge to move to a city where I can thrive all alone, may be without much of these fights! The following next few months were again loaded with fights - this time with the inner demons. A battle between the two worlds of letting go! A world full of a 'brand new start' of a branded bandwagon and the other one was full of 'high hopes'. A random hunt for the 'grooviest' city and the fat cash - it continued. 

So! one day, quite unexpectedly, I chose a city where I was yet to make a bond with - Gujjuland - MY Dreamer's Gujjuland !!!! With all the stories that I heard, I made a collage of that place.

After much debate, calling my travel agent for another thousand times, checking and re-checking my checklists, folding forms, booklets, tickets, and much after carrying my favorite perfume - I landed in a city full of colors, loaded with religious differences, contrasting shades between the old and the new and a guy (whom I lost years back on a chilly night) named 'The lotus-eater'.

He took my hands and showed me the city through his eyes. Gujjuland doesn't fit seem to fit the bill at all, with it's everlasting demand from me to remain strictly alert all the time.

Season changed and so did my troubled bubble. With a lavish terrace and 'hand-picked' friends and luggage of boredom, I started venturing out in the city like a lousy traveler. I fueled quite UN-consciously, every curious eyes, every peculiar smiles from the colored crowd. 

...time evaporates and here comes Garba, the dancing act of men and women alike in mulch-colored clothes shedding all inhibitions aside. I've never been to a Bollywood movie set, but am sure there's nothing remotely dissimilar between them apart from the vanishing act of few super-stars.

As they danced and cheered with the 'taal' of 'dholak' , I stood there dumb-fucked with droopy eyes, buzzing head and heart-wrenching thoughts of my long, lost beloved 'Kolkata' . Whenever I am away from Kolkata, I impose a total media ban on anything related to the Pujo, taking a leaf out of the Government of India’s Ostrichian principle that if I bury my head in the sand and censor the flow of information about a certain thing, then that thing ceases to exist any more.

I was writing my puja post too. And it was very personal, and beyond the first three sentences I just couldn't go on (right words are such a bitch) and I was in a state of high-middle despair. It's Ashtami, dammit, when will I finish it and put it up? Which is when it occurred to me that I needn't, really, you know, put up a puja post. It's not a Pujabarshiki that I publish. Sit back. Hit 'save as draft'. Relax. Is okay.

Instead, I picked up my cell with teary eye and called " The Baul In Denims"...