Nostalgia
Kolkata revisited . . .
I was visiting Kolkata after ten long years. It was last December. One of my childhood friends received me at the airport. As he drove down the roads I remembered the times when I would travel with my mother from India to what was then East Pakistan. Night had fallen and I could hardly recognise the roads that took me to the area I was quite acquainted with --- Elliot Road in the Park Circus area. It was the place where I had gone to school. Yes, we, my husband I, were going to live with my friends on Elliot Road, the spot where I spent twelve formative years of my life. It was Loreto Day School which had opened up my world to the world which beckoned outside. The roads seemed more crowded and pollution had increased. But the sounds and smells were the same that I had known earlier. It felt strange. There was that certain tug at the heart. The next morning after a traditional breakfast, with cuisine from Lucknow, I decided to visit my parents' graves in Gobra. My parents lay beside each other inside their white cement graves covered with nettles and moss, beside the old familiar pond ringed by coconut palms. Close by were the remains of numerous relatives, including a niece who passed away a few years ago. Little children, expectations glowing in their bright eyes, meandered around me for alms. A moulvi sahib emerged from the graveyard caretaker office and asked me if I would like to have my parents' graves washed. I nodded and the task began. I stood in silence as four men hauled water from the nearby tubewell in ancient buckets to wash the graves and little boys and girls surrounded me in sharing the scene. The moss was soon wiped off the graves. I stood there, in silence, conjuring up the times in my mind when my parents, seven years apart, shuffled off their mortal coil. I prayed once the graves had been washed clean. Hands were raised to pray for the salvation of the departed souls. I spent much of my time in Kolkata visiting friends and places of enduring interest for me. But things had changed. I wanted to have cake at Flury's and so went to Park Street. I was surprised to see that we needed to queue up and had to pass through an electronic detector check at the door. Since the queue was rather long, we had to return home without tasting the cake, something we used to have every New Year's Day in my childhood. We walked down to Loreto College before returning home. It had been Vansittart's summer house. The foundation stone of the college had been laid by Sir Elijah Impey. I stood before the gates as my husband took snapshots of me. A visit to the National Library was a particularly enriching experience. I toured the Buhar Section that is made up of rare collections of Persian and Arabic manuscripts donated to the library by my late uncle Moulvi Sadruddin Al-Musavi in the early years of the twentieth century. I had carried a letter that had been sent long ago to my uncle by a secretary to the then Viceroy. It would help in my getting access to the section. And help me it did. The assistant librarian who showed me around, a Muslim gentleman speaking what one would describe as tehzeebi Urdu, turned out to be a prominent Urdu poet of West Bengal. I trekked down to European Asylum Lane (now Abdul Halim Lane) near Wellesley, the purpose being to see my childhood home. It was an exercise in heartbreak: the house, defined as it was by a plenitude of memories, had been demolished and an apartment block had risen in its place. Our caretakers were now the proud owners of flats in the complex. They treated me and my husband with much warmth and care. We dined with them and looked at the ancient teak furniture which once had been part of my mother's collection. It is now in the possession of our former caretakers. The architectural pattern of the flats made it hard for me to guess where my study had been or where my parents' room used to be. I was also amazed to discover that the arched gate to the entrance had now been replaced by a narrow staircase. The huge green wooden door was gone, replaced by a simple opening. My heart ached as I walked down the stairs --- to get ready for my flight back to London.
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