Oh Calcutta!!!!!

well going home finally,,,after three months,,,not that the time spent out of cal matters,,,more a matter of going back home during a time when every bengali or should i say kolkatan if such a word exists is his/her happiest,,,we all wait for these 5 days all thru the year,,,each and every one of those who have ties with the city of Joy and have been there for quite some time in their lives,,,calcutta finally awakes,,,i really don like to address it as kolkata,,thats just not a name which every one has ever used for the city,,,it was more of a bengali name and not representative of the millions of others who have made it home for the rest of their lives or at some point of time and have been touched by its innumberable qualities at one point or other,,,not wanting to sound parochial but Calcutta is one city which is viled all across without being given a chance,,,i have been to all the big cities in india,,,mumbai,,,bangalore,,chennai and now delhi,,,all the people i have met who have never been to the city,,,don even give it a chance,,only two things which are associated with it are leftists mamata and their bandhs,,,and not to forget supposedly asia s biggest red light area,,,sonargachi,,,thats all that people know of calcutta and thats all they want to know,,,u tell them of the people and how friendly they are,,,u tell them that Pantaloons one of out biggest retail stories opened their first store in Calcutta and they will doubt you,,,,i doubt if some stranger to cal and its people has asked for some help on the roads on cal and has been rudely turned away,,,in fact i wud go ahead and bet my dollar on it,,,because at times it just gets too much the help that is,,,because most people don expect this kinda treatment when they come to cal,,,

anyways cal and its charm albeit from a biased point of view will be discussed later,,,now back to the pujos,,,,as i said the one time calcutta awakes,,,there are lights on thruout the night,,,there are people all over in their best,,,children are free once to stay out larer than usual,,,,lovers get to meet and roam the streets widout having to look over their shoulder whether some one who knows them is around or not,,,u get delicious food on the roads every where you go,,,you marvel at all the work put in by the famous artisans of Kumartuli and the way they show their art on the face of Durga Ma,,,,you see a smile on every ones face,,,you get to go on binges without thinkin of the splitting headache tomorrow,,cos its the pujos,,,u go to maddox square and hit on all the birdies there irrespective on age,,,ask any die hard Calcutta lover and u will know Calcutta boudis have always been the ones like no other place in this country,,,though after Khan Market here i just might differ on that,,,,smoking one ciggarette after the other with cha in the clay pot on the roadside to take a break,,,walking lengths that otherwise would not even come in your nightmares full of enthusiasm just to get another glimpse of the goddess and goddess she is,,,standing in the lines which run quite a mile long at the award winning pandals,,,for all you know you get to see Osama and Bush and Musharraf in quite a different light,,,

all of life s stories and good comes out during these 5 days,,,and why not,,,after all they are going to be the staple for the coming few months whenever you sit down for a session of adda with your fr8s,,,"oh that girl we saw near muhammad ali park" and so on,,,,

for these 5 days that the goddess arrives in every calcuttans heart she not only gives us pleasure and joy but makes us forget the pain for those moments,,,i tell u,,,if you havnt been to cal just take out a lil bit of your times and go there once during the Pujos and you will find something so exhilirating and joyous and all encompassing in every sense that it will live u just amazed and dazed,,,not for so many of the reasons given above is Calcutta the City of Joy,,,Bravo Mr. Lapierre,,you got it right as usual!!!!!!!!