This city is ochre. is grey. is spilling out. You can see how it bulges at the edges with little windows like eyes carved into every wall. This city is sombre, is bright. Is sun surrounded by the aroma of a coffee drizzle. Is old. Is warm. Is poor. Is art. Is the city of joy, is mishti dahi, is durga temples and streets lined with second hand books that are covered in dust and each word melts in your mouth.
Have a seat.
In this tram, this rickshaw pulled by a man on a cycle, in my horse driven carriage before it turns back into a pumpkin. Its almost twelve.
This city is old windows and balconys that collapse when romeo is right round the corner.
Its rabindra sangeet, art films, pseudo intellectuals, thick black spectacle frames and pani puris.
Look around. The sun is sinking its teeth into your flesh. The sky here is not so bright but the people are. Words are heavy on their tongues. A's become O's. They speak fast and I struggle to catch up. cotch upopadhyayayayaa.Calcutta

6 comments:

Jalap. said...

I just chanced upon this and in years of blogging, I have never had a perpetual habit of leaving comments on other's posts. But your pictures are magical, Im serious. They are the simplest structure of cult semantics. The Kolkata one gave me a heavy heart. Reminded me a bit of my urbane childhood with my family in that city for 3 years. Not too lavish, but yet your pictures were the views I recall staring at from my car window while someone drove me through Khiderpore or near any of those Kali temples. I don't know you but this was really pretty. Thanks. Maybe it's because I am horrid with the camera. I have never used it in automatic mode and 'Sepia' totally comes out real bad when I use.

Shilo Shiv Suleman said...

I stayed in Khiderpore while I visited so a lot of the pictures you are to see are from that area.
Thank you muchly :):)

Jalap. said...

I am mostly anti-poverty, in the sense that I cant stand it :-)
But it makes for good pictures, to say the least. It was just good and I felt like commenting, nothing more.

*makes note to self to stop reading blogs*

Bharat said...

aunty, your pictures have stories in them. Love 'em!

Hari Adivarekar said...

These are your best yet. Keep it going.

Anisha Jayadevan said...

Everything looks so colour co-ordinated.
sigh.
Lou it the pikchers, yaw.:)
And the blag.
And the little perfect words.