Written by. Kunal Basu

University of Delhi

Electronics and Communication Engineering

 

A cool morning breeze brushes my face as I stand on one of the ghats (/ɡʱaːʈs/; riverside steps) along the Hooghly River. The first rays of sunlight shimmer on the water as a ferry emerges from the mist, announcing itself with a long blast of its horn. Above me, the steel frame of the Howrah Bridge is already packed with people. It is not even eight in the morning. I have no real itinerary, only a promise to meet a friend at Prinsep Ghat before sunset.

I begin walking towards the bridge. A porter brushes past my shoulder before I notice him, then another. They carry enormous wicker baskets overflowing with marigolds without slowing down or colliding with anyone. Soon, the smell of flowers gives way to tea.

A man behind a tiny stall pours chaa (/tʃaː/; tea) into rows of small clay cups. There is little conversation. People take a cup, empty it in a few hurried sips, crush it underfoot and move on. I do the same. By the time I reach the middle of the bridge, I am no longer walking at my own pace. The crowd decides that for me. From up here, the Hooghly flows beneath us. Another river flows above it.

A statue of independence leader Subhas Chandra Bose stands at one crossing. Minutes later, an old blue-and-yellow bus marked Dalhousie rattles past, and I turn onto Lenin Sarani. Kolkata's colonial, nationalist and communist histories seem to occupy the same map without quarrelling.

I had not planned on eating again, but the smell of frying kachoris (/kətʃɔːriz/; stuffed, deep-fried pastries) reaches me first. Nearby, syrupy spirals of jilipi (/dʒɪlɪpi/; syrup-soaked spiral sweets) glisten behind a glass counter. Around the corner, bamboo steamers sit outside a tiny Chinese breakfast stall. I order without really knowing what I am pointing at. The elderly man behind the counter says something to his wife in Hakka, then turns to me in fluent Bengali. A plate of dumplings appears before I ask for anything. I eat standing beside office workers, students and an old gentleman reading the newspaper. For a few minutes, I am simply another person having breakfast before the working day begins.

At some point I stop looking at the map. An old tram clatters across an intersection, and I nearly miss a turning while watching it disappear. Soon I find myself in the courtyard of the Armenian Church. A man sweeping leaves glances at me, nods once and returns to his work. Nobody asks why I am there. I read part of a plaque. That is enough.

Within a few streets, I pass Hebrew lettering above Beth El Synagogue and volunteers carrying huge steel pots into a Sikh gurdwara (/ɡʊɾd̪ʋaːɾaː/; place of worship). The afternoon call to prayer rises behind the traffic; somewhere else, temple bells answer it. A cyclist rings his bell behind me. I am standing in the middle of the road again. I apologise and move on.

I do not remember exactly how I end up on a tram. I think my feet simply decide they have had enough. The conductor tears a paper ticket without looking at me, and the tram rattles forward so slowly that a man pushing a handcart almost overtakes us. A few stops later, I am at College Street.

The pavements disappear beneath piles of books. A student tries to convince a shopkeeper that a second-hand engineering textbook is not worth more than three hundred rupees. Without looking up from his newspaper, the shopkeeper says, "Four hundred." They settle somewhere in between.

At another stall, a bookseller asks what I am looking for. I tell him I do not really know. He disappears behind a leaning tower of books and returns with a copy of Gitanjali, a poetry collection by Rabindranath Tagore. Across the road, the Indian Coffee House is already full. At one table, people argue about Kolkata's rival football clubs, Mohun Bagan and East Bengal. Behind me, someone insists that filmmaker Satyajit Ray's books deserve more attention than his films. I stay longer than I meant to.

By the time I step outside, the light has softened. Someone tells me Kalighat is not too far away, so I walk. The lanes narrow, and flower sellers take over the road. Hibiscus blossoms are piled into small red mountains. A woman silently holds up a basket containing flowers, incense and a packet of red vermilion powder. I had not planned to enter the Kali temple, but somehow I buy the basket and join the queue.

When I emerge, the city's noise returns immediately. Auto-rickshaws squeeze past one another. A woman in a white sari (/ˈsɑːri/; traditional draped garment) with a broad red border walks by carrying a brass plate of flowers and incense. I wipe the sweat from my forehead and notice a faint streak of vermilion on my fingers. It refuses to come off completely.

As I walk away from Kalighat, I begin to notice the goddess everywhere: a small idol of Kali in the corner of a sweet shop, another watching over a taxi dashboard, and a faded image of Durga above a tailor’s doorway. Perhaps they had been there all along. The city does not always announce itself; sometimes it waits for you to start paying attention.

By the time I reach Prinsep Ghat, the sun is sinking behind the Hooghly. My friend is waiting beside one of the boats.

"You're late," she says.

"Traffic."

She looks at me, then laughs. "You got distracted again, didn't you?"

I shrug as we step onto the boat and the boatman unties the rope. The Howrah Bridge stretches across the water in the distance. A ferry sounds its horn somewhere upstream.

"You've still got vermilion on your forehead," she says.

I wipe it away with the back of my hand.

Most of it comes off.

Not all of it.