Nostalgia….Calcutta I am coming

Who are you good friend? You made me happy, you made me sad. You made my heart fill up and you made it collapse.

I have lived in Calcutta most of my life and am familiar with every little nuance of what you have described, including the romances. The girls, whom we would never normally come across in our daily lives, arrived in hoards from their hideouts, dressed in their season's best. And as a kid, the toy pistol you describe so clearly, played a vitally important part of one's existence. The Anjali, the AIR Mahalaya broadcast and being lost in irresponsible happiness.

But then, there were stages of life. The Durga Puja during school days was somewhat different I think from the ones during college. Interests would change, so would the friends' circle. Books I think played an important role, new discoveries in the Puja specials.

Finally, as an adult, watching my son go through the same circle was a way of participating myself. Being with him as he repeated what I had done at his age and giving him ideas about what more could be done. One such new idea floats back to my mind this morning, when Durga Puja is only a few days away. Origami had just begun to gain popularity and I purchased for him a do it yourself book. It was a fascinating collection and the one challenge that attracted us most in the book was a Bedouin riding a horse. It was a difficult one to create, but father and son worked late into the night for a few days, till they finally produced the piece.

When I think of my son I recall a drowsy eyed little child, sleepy yet excited that his father was trying to play with him the origami games. All that is lost in the distant past now.

But the Bedouin on horseback still survives in my memory. That's all I am left with from Durga Puja days filled, days that were filled up with the excited and smiling face of a little boy!

ojaantrik

 

Gone back to my childhood days. Every person who have lived in this part of India could relate with the above post.

So true....

 

Dear @shama146

I enjoyed reading your jotting here about your happy days during Durga festivities in Culcutta now Kolkata.
Childhood memories - for some it is elixir or tonic: but there are few whose childhood affairs and events or treatments turned them to be a psychic, paranoid, thief, rowdy, rebellious and last bencher.
Psychology aver that reasons for those who are in jail for various criminal acts can always be traced to the worst treatment they had encountered suffered in their childhood.

On the contrary there are many celebrities who toiled hard faced ridicules and remain in abject poverty in their childhood. They had reported having done menial jobs during their teens and even supported their poor
ailing parents etc. : down the memory lane was horrible for them.

Every educated adult with reasonably good functional vocabulary and passion for writing can easily write endless anecdotes, volumes of their childhood days in their native and outside native village many sweet and some evoke sadness. Mine too is filled with many such stories of which few i had narrated in MY BLOGS IN IL.
One such narration in link below:

3m – Me, Mom & Milk

Regards.
God bless

 

Thanks to @Cheeniya @shama146 for clicking the "Like" for my feedback. I trust sister shama opened and read the link provided at #7 above. The story in link ibid is my earliest childhood memory and it earned a decade ago for me readers in Deccan Herald Bangalore now Bangaluru . Hence it us green in my memory.
I presume you too have solid memories of your teen days which urge you to share it with folks in IL.
GOD BLESS.

 

You reminded me of my beautiful years in Calcutta or sorry Kolkata. I was posted to Calcutta from Delhi in 1978 and I had a feeling that I will be back sooner than later. Friends were skeptical about the Naxal havoc and deteriorating industrial climate in Bengal on the whole.
Lo and behold, I lived there for 20 years. Both my daughters grew up there, educated there. It is called the cultural city of India and it proved to be and is.
Well, there is no Bengal without Durga Puja and Puja Pandals. There was one right in the garden in front of the house we lived in. The first few years we went hopping on foot from one pandal to another for hours. Of course, there were some irritating guys asking for puja Chanda but it worked okay once we became known.

 

It reminds me of my horror days in 1993, when I heard on promotion, I would go to oversee the affairs in branch office at Calcutta. To scuttle the plan, I was wondering where to pull the strings so that I get elevated to the coveted status but posted elsewhere . Few bosomfriends advised to proceed on long sick leave and few said the staff in culcutta rebellious, lazy and filled with sloth & inertia and can never work to attain the monthly quarterly annual goals and would arrive to office at eleven and leave by four citing enroute Howdah traffic jam. Staff full of Ardeshire Adulgees, Banergees, Cursetgees and Edulgees but none with energy to work in the office after consuming often Rasagolla with numerous cups of tea!