Big Clock @ Howrah Station

I cannot remember when I first boarded a bus, a car or a train in my life. Perhaps I was not ripe enough to understand that at that time. But I can still remember my long train journeys for my maternal uncle’s house. It used to happen mostly during the summer vacation and for some reason it was my parents who actually fixed that destination. My uncle’s house is in a village far from the city and I had to board suburban train to reach there. I used to spend nearly one month i.e. almost the whole vacation and then return back to my home. While returning I was accompanied by some fellow villager known to my uncle or a neighbor who was bound for Kolkata for some activity. He just escort me up to the terminal station i.e. Howrah Station and drop me into the safe hand of my father. It was during this time, I came across the Big Clock of Howrah Station as my father used to wait for me under it.

Now let me give a brief background of this historical clock at Howrah station which every citizen of Kolkata is more or less familiar with. This twin clock was designed keeping in mind the Big Ben of London. In 1926, clock manufacturer Gent’s of London made this clock. This 45 inches diameter clock is popularly known as Big Clock or Baro Gari and continues to be the most prominent meeting point for the travelers leaving the city or entering the city. Even in this digital age, this old analog clock (driven by electronic pulse master) is the timekeeper and landmark for the city dwellers.

My mother said that her father too used to wait for her under this Big Clock whenever she arrived to the city from village. She told me that the life in the village was hard in her childhood. There used to be very little earning from cultivation and scope of other employment was less. Lack of education system, lack of medical facility made her whole family to move to city for survival. But the root was embedded in the village and so there was need to travel to the village house quite often. I have learnt this from my mother but that old Big Clock has witnessed this all. It has witnessed generation after generation moving from village to the city for fortune. People have waited, people have meted, and people have separated in course of their journey. It has seen people laughing with friends, crying in the hand of dear one, anxious for leaving the familiar world behind, worrying about someone not coming in time. Sometimes I feel if using time dilation I can reverse this clock and can take it along with this whole station corridor in the past, I could have witnessed my grandfather in his young days, arriving the city to seek luck!

Last time when I was leaving Kolkata for Delhi, I encounter a group of 30 odd teenagers with their rucksack, directing their friends on the way to station to meet under Big Clock. It’s good to see that the Big Clock is still a rendezvous point for young generation too. I ‘m not sure whether this bustling station really cares about this clock in the age GPS and mobile phone but there are people like me who have favorable memories attached with this Old Man, really want history to survive amidst all modernization of city life. 

Resurrection

Here I’m, lying beneath this grey sky,

This gust of wind is whispering in my ear –

About a man who once walked on this land.

Here I’m, lying before this flowing stream

This shimmering rain is soaking me –

And makes me feel how cold life could be.

I’m waiting for that door to open,

The orange luminescence is waiting for me –

Let it take this last remaining of mine

But wait for one last moment please.

Let me hear the murmur of these trees once more,

Let me gaze at this monsoon clouds looming over me,

Let me kiss my daughter one last time,

Let me feel thy life once more.

Then let this eternal fire engulf me,

And I’ll flow down this stream towards the sea –

Still the smell of this earth, the taste of this water will remain,

For which I’ll come back again.

A Food Odyssey

Ever since my childhood, I get fascinated by food. Food with various color, aroma and distinctive taste lures me. I can still remember those auspicious break periods in my school days when we all took out our lunchboxes but showed more interest in the box of the fellow friends. My mom had a good hand in cooking however getting the taste of same food from different hands always attracted me. And those lunch hours gave me the opportunity to nurture this very nature of mine. With food, one word that comes quite together in my mind is sharing. Yes, we always shared our foods in our school days and whatever comes out of the boxes we enjoyed it together. There was sense of satisfaction and unity in that and I still cherish those lost break periods. Many years after I left school, a film was made known as ‘Stanley ka Dabba’ and it made me remember about a friend of mine who used to bring same kind of lunch every day.  It was kind of sandwich made out of sliced bread and boiled potato. I have never asked why his mom made the same stuff for him and why he never asked for some different kind of lunch. Though those sandwiches were flat in taste we pretend that we were enjoying. May be just like the boy, Stanley in that film, he had some background about which we were not aware of that time. Another incident that still lingers in my mind is about my Physics tutor who is a gourmand in true sense. But he seldom got that exposed before his students. But students like me who was very close to him always looked for opportunity. I knew that it is only Literature which can bring his real being out; so whenever it was cloudy and cold breeze started to blow or in an autumn evening when the twilight had created a beautiful canvas on the sky, I just say “it’s better to be Wordsworth than Newton at this hour of day”. And suddenly the whole atmosphere of the room got changed. Science was kept aside and Art was welcomed. And of course to make to it more eventful, pakora, samosa whatever available at that hour were ordered.

In College days, the same thing prevailed but in its own way. Though a time period was marked as lunch time, but it was not strictly followed. Students take break as per their choice and seldom brought lunch from home. So it was the college canteen that was the den for us to recharge ourselves. The food at our college canteen was value for money both quantity and quality wise. And there used to be party for some of the wild reasons. Party for getting slapped by a first year lady, party for getting caught smoking in the class, party for getting failed in one or two subjects consistently each semester etc. And for all this achievements, food is welcomed to celebrate. Of course there was a drink too; two glass of tea made into three and cigarettes to be smoked in counter. Then there used to be bucket festival during the college fest season. It was kind sharing of hard drinks among the seniors students mostly organizers and hostel boys but it was unique in its own way. A bucket was taken in which all kind of liquors are mixed (from branded to country liquor) and then with ice and cold drinks added to it the cocktail was ready to be served. Well it was really a festival of craziness and confusion. Since many years have passed, so there is no harm in saying that it was not the madness of the bunch of drunkards that kept me away from that bucket festival; rather it was the smell of marijuana that pushed me out of it!

Being a foodie in my own way I never thought that I have a chef within me. Till my college days,  I had always maintained a distance from kitchen; for me it was the domain of mom and my relation with it was only during four times of the day. However as I got my job and started living alone in some other part of the country I was challenged. It was really difficult to accept the cuisine that prevails in this part of the country. It is not that I have never tasted them before but it was not my day to day diet. I can remember the lunch time of initial days of my career was something that really tortured me. Black colored pulse, unfried paneer swimming in red or green gravy was something out of the world for me. And of course that raita of various types was strictly No for me. As necessity is the mother of invention, same way I had to start cooking to feed myself. Of course whole credit cannot be given to me only because I had my mom and later on my fiancé who had actually helped me in my endeavor. Hence started an odyssey of new experience and obsession! And to be true, I have finally reconciled with the North Indian cuisine.