Kolkata Unplugged....local sights and sounds...and memories...

.......an old world charm.....its tea time....local fare.....

.....these same cookies used to be sold at platform stations...when we used to go to school by train....the days we missed our school vans...and we would pester our over indulgent grandmother to buy us some.. Strange...how even the bottles have not changed.

......overlooking the Ganges....as it flows...

.....whats Kolkata without its fish market.....the rohu, hilsa, koi , pavda and tangra....@ Lake market, south Kolkata

....live fish.....can't get more fresh than this..... Lake market is the place to do your Fresh market if you are in South Koltata..

Second Hooghly bridge.....approached from Hastings side...where we used to stay in Jubilee lines...accomodation, houses...British type...with huge wooden balconies all around....

.....the looming Howrah bridge, caught unawares.....in a smart shower.....

......the queue infront of the ladies' counters...... some things don't change....

....is this the same girl who sold me 6 limes for ten rupees as I used to hurry to catch the 4.40 local back home to the suburbs from Calcutta university...

.... the Howrah station....time stands still...it seems.....only not so crowded as its not office or college time....remember the crowds just swallowing us up and carrying us into the train...like a wave...the strategising to get a seat by minutely psycho analysing every turn of the head of the seated passengers.....almost felt Dickensian....trying to read the minds and guessing backgrounds of all my co passengers...maybe a loving husband at home or a spat with a diabolic mother in law....

.....the local vendors.....products have changed....they seem more jaded and unattractive now.... But twenty years back....they used to lure all my senses....

Can still hear the cries of the local vendor in his carefully cultivated selling voice......chai, chai .....jhal muri, jhal muri, tok mishti logenze (sweet and sour logenze), paanchta du takai...( 5 pieces at the rate of two rupees). I would wait for a particular jhal muriwala, because nobody could get that right combination of salt and spice like he could. It would never fail to amaze me that they could talk in a normal tone too , unlike their other selling voice.

The sound bytes are permanently etched in my memory....strange how the jingles used to fall in rhythm with the chugging train.

Kolkata stands still in the suburbs....as time rushes by all around....unfazed...almost slumberous.... Oh Kolkata, Wake up Kolkata!!