INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TRAVEL WRITING Mar ’12, No. 1.3 | www.coldnoon.com
The architecture of this grand building always filled her with a certain reverence that she could never explain. Being out of reach, perhaps, made it even more enigmatic and inviting. She wanted to feel the peaceful silence of the prayers that reverberated across each pillar and wall of the age old mosque. The hymns continued as she passed the red ornate gates of the illustrious Jorasanko Thakurbari. She curbed her instincts of entering the gates and take a stroll in the lawns that she worshipped. She remembered how she had aimlessly roamed around the various rooms and terraces of one of the many houses wrapped in history. Again, she thought, a silent testimonial to the years gone by and the times that the city and the country has seen. She was not a student of history and her sense of dates and events in the past would probably not have been immaculate, but she had a strange connection to the years gone by. She could somehow always connect to those times. She smiled to herself. The sounds of the Azaan, these old city streets, the history – it was all seeping inside her. And then her smile broadened as one by one she saw the strangest names on huge posters on both sides of the road as her tram passed the Jatra Para. It had always remained the same, except for the newer trends of names and faces. Long Live Chitpore Road and Long live Calcutta Tramways, she prayed silently! Smiling and overdone faces of actors, less and more known, adorned both sides of the roads while other hoardings announced forthcoming live performances. The concept of Jatra had always been a mystery to her – the sheer grandeur and overdoing in terms of make-up, acting, voice modulation and all other aspects – and how it had kept generations of spectators in awe in all of rural Bengal! She wondered what brought actors even from Mumbai all the way to Bengal to be a part of this tradition. “Tradition,” the one word that wove all the feelings from the moment she started her journey, was what kept her going and rooted in this century old city, with an equally old transport system, heritage architecture from an age long gone, a tradition of acting that has remained in its own glory even after so many ages have passed – it all culminated into her being, a true Calcuttan! As she approached Kumortuli she realized that it had not struck her that Durga Pujo was round the corner. The entrance to the potters’ colony and all around it had been strewn with half made images of unadorned Durga idols slaying their respective Demon King. She loved the smell of wet earth as
Vignette | Sanchari Sur | p. 57 First Published in Coldnoon: Travel Poetics (Print ISSN 2278-9650| Online ISSN 2278-9650)