Hindustan Times
Past the Sell-By Date
Is it just me, or do other people, when they go back on visits to the place that was home for most of their lives, find it difficult to see that place in any other shade than the sepia of nostalgia?
I’ve lived in Bombay since 1993, so Calcutta is still the place where I’ve lived most of my life. But I cannot see Cal as a city of 2009. For me, time in Calcutta stopped on the 26th of August, 1993, at around 8 pm when the Howrah-Bombay Mail pulled out of the station, carrying me and a humungous suitcase to the west and a life of my own.
I cried myself to sleep that night. I hadn’t a clue what would happen – certainly I couldn’t look ahead to 2009. For all I knew, I’d be back in six months or less. And I’m sure I didn’t know then that when I returned on visits, Cal would be different for me. That it would be stuck in a time warp in my head.
Which it is.
When I go back, I’m not interested in going to South City Mall as every single person I know tells me I ought to do. I want to go to New Market.
I don’t care about the fancy new restaurants in town. I want my biryani, my rolls, my puchkas, Calcutta Chinese (different from Chinese anywhere else in the country), and home food, that’s all.
I don’t want to hit the pubs, though I’m envious in retrospect that my niece and her friends <I>have</I> pubs to hit. When I left Cal, there were two discos and those, apart from the clubs (membership-type clubs, not nightclubs) and seedy-ish bars, constituted the entire nightlife of the city. Since I had zero interest in nightlife before I moved to Bombay, I have no interest in nightlife when I go back to Cal.
I don’t want to check out the new multiplexes for movies. I want to go to New Empire and Globe (though this time, the existence of Globe as a movie theatre seemed to be in some doubt and Lighthouse has been a department store for years now).
I like wandering into shops like The Good Companions on Russell Street and Women’s Friendly Society on Park Lane, to look at embroidered and smocked baby clothes, household linen and old-fashioned things like hankies (!!!!) that you do not find elsewhere anymore.
I thoroughly disapprove of what has been done to Flury’s – it’s far too fancy and ‘designed’ now for me to appreciate it. I wish it were as sleepy and stuck in the ’70s as I think it should be. That’s what Flury’s is.
I’m sure if I lived in Cal, I’d appreciate all these new things or jazzed up things. More – I’d be proud of them and insist on escorting visitors to South City Mall or to restaurants that serve tapas. But I don’t live there anymore, so I scorn it all. Cal, for me, is about going back in time.
Nostalgia, I’ve learned, isn’t only concerned with a place. It’s also concerned with a time.
(4 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5)
Loading ...Posted by Kushal Rani Gulab on Thursday, November 5, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Filed under india · Tagged Bombay, calcutta, Good Companions on Russell Street, South City Mall
very rightly written.
i can fully relate to ur feelings.
well done
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Kushal Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Thanks Rafy.
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The same is Tehran (Iran) for me…..
Tehran stopped on 2nd June 2004!!
Tehran represents me the same feelings as urs…..
It took u soo many yrs to feel this, it took me only 5!!
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Kushal Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
You’re Irani, Aram? Been in India since 2004? Wow, it never occurred to me that you’re not Indian. I’d like to know about Iran please, can you write about it on your blog? I’ve read Persepolis and everything else by Marjane Satrapi, and My Uncle Napoleon by Iraj Pezeshkad, but that’s about it.
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Aram Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
I am abit of compliated
Am a Nepalese born in Iran and now studying in India
I have some blogs on Iran and will give you the links
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Kushal Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Fascinating! How and why did your family get to Iran? Did you live there your whole life? Tell all. And waiting for those links.
Welcome Back!!
yes time stops when we think about the past that has preserved the pleasing memories for us, memories that brought us up as a human being and memories that helped us stabilise our emotions whenever we wnted them to be back on track. Its not just the place but the very feeling of being a part, of belnging that makes us all the more attached to time that resides in our minds eye.
But moving ahead into the present builds up our treasure of memories, so heres wishing you a trunk full of joyous times ahead in life!
http://www.aspaceofonesown.blogspot.com
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Kushal Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Thanks Sana, it’s good to be back. And thanks for your good wishes and I hope the same for you too.
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Kushal Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Heyyyy! NICE blogs on Shimla.
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You’re back!!!! Yaaaaaaay!!! Fridays are back to normal now!!
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Kushal Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Masha, you make me blush. Thank you.
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Hello Kushal,
Welcome back seems to be the common refrain from almost all respondents on your blog. As I was reading so many welcome messages, not only on this post, but even on previous ones - wherein some people actually remembered 30th October as your end of leave day and beckoned you to not make them wait any longer ( to me it was amazing) - I could not help but wonder that probably you are the only blogger on HT who recieves such positive response on your page. . Most bloggers on HT recieve mixed responses ( which is quite standard to most blog pages) while some recieve only negative ones. However, all responses to your blog are positive and only poistive?
What makes you different and unique? Ever wondered about it?
As I thought about it, your current post on Cal ( and not Kolkata
), curiously gave me some clues. Nostalgia is a great quality that humans have. It is what keeps them grounded and remember their past. This is what keeps them attaached to their school, college, family, society and indeed country. And the fondest memories are almost always about childhood days - the days of innocence. When everything seemed so positive and rosy and when we were not yet imbubed in cynicism and the ways of the wily world ! When we were getting ready to take on the world and surely change it too !!!
Evertime I land up in Allahabad, my hometwon, I make it a point to go to my school. It is almost a running joke in my family and yet, they make great plans everytime to have some hours spent there on my each trip.
I think it is partly nostalgia that makes people so positively connect to your blog. You write about things that we used to do so fondly do in our childhood - reading. Anyone who finds time to read blogs on net ( and not just be lost in facebook and gtlak) would surely be a lover of reading. And this trait they would have mostly picked in their childhood days. The days of innocence. So just as Lighthouse reminds of days gone by ( btw I saw my first English movie, in a theatre, in Lighthouse) ), your writing reminds people of days gone bye. Add to it the irreverent style and there is a winner !
Sop here is a tip - just as you did not want to go to the slick and modern South City Mall - I think the trick for you is not to ask your readers to go down the path of a slick modern subject - politics !!. Because then you would surely invite some acerbic comments ( most likely from me
)
So indeed - welcome back !!!
And how was your holiday ?
Regards,
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Akhilesh Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
By the way, I recieved “Sweet Chillies” that I had ordered through Abebooks just yesterday. They took more than a month to deliver. Probably they too were waiting for your return !!
Will read it over the weekend - the first book I am reading based on recommendation !!
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Kushal Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Hope you enjoy it. Come to think of it, I can’t see what in this book is NOT to enjoy. Can happily read it again and again, and so can all my friends.
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Kushal Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
I’m not sure what to make of your kind words, Akhilesh. I don’t like to see myself as an old-fashioned writer, stuck in the past, even though I adore history.
Still, I shall take your words as a compliment in the spirit in which they were written, and thank you.
Can’t say I’ll never write about politics though. Have been fulminating very bitterly about the utter waste of time over the formation of the government in my state. Shows very clearly, I think, how it’s all about power and not about responsibility - and they don’t bother to even pretend that it’s not anymore.
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Akhilesh Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Hey, I never referrred to you as an “old-fashioned writer, stuck in the past”. This is grossly unfair.
What I was referring to was, that the subject of your blog - books - reminds people of their childhood days. It reminds them of the carefree world they had , of a world where all they had to do was play and study and play and study - study books, that is. Almost everyone picks up reading habit in their childhood days. And when one can find time in their busy adult lives, to indulge in this luxury ( I use the word luxury advisedly), it give them great joy ! Your blog in some ways allows people to have this joy. Thus their nostalgia of years spent joyfully and thus only positive responses to your blog !
However, not in the least did I intend to imply that the actual subjects of your blog are old fashioned and passee. Indeed your subjects are very modern and alive and may I add, very colourful too !!
And yes, reading your reply, I realised that my writing needs substantial improvement - one can derive totally unintended meanings from them, as you did !
I thought I had learned all - but as they say, learning never stops !!
Alas, no one is perfect, not even me !!
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Kushal Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Now I understand the value of an emoticon. My response should have been accompanied by a wink. Was just kidding, sorry.
Akhilesh Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Kushal Reply:
November 7th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Kushal Reply:
November 7th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Perfect indeed!
Akhilesh Reply:
November 7th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Now you have to teach me which symbol to use - so as to wink. All I know is the “idiotic grin” smiley - winking smiley looks much better.
Kushal Reply:
November 9th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
It’s a semi-colon ; plus close bracket.
Akhilesh Reply:
November 9th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
[;] [;] [;] [;] [;]
Akhilesh Reply:
November 9th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
(;)
Akhilesh Reply:
November 9th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
naahhhhhhhhhh….I am better off with my idiotic grin
Maybe because, when you move away, you don’t any more see a city ‘growing up’ (or ‘growing old’, as the case may be) every day. So the images you carry are stuck in history. And it need not be distance alone. Just the other day, one of my friends was telling me how he took his family to see old Delhi via Metro, and my mind went back to the days when I used to roam about there on foot (the best mode of transport - “No. 11″ as we used to call it! - at least in those days of choc-a-bloc traffic). And I stay only as far away as Gurgaon now!
Sadly, nothing remains as it is and times (and things) bygone are not gonna come back.
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Kushal Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Hmm, yes, Deb. It’s sad to watch your own city change when you associate good things with the areas that have changed. I feel that in Bombay too.
But speaking as an outsider to Delhi, I’m glad the Metro takes people there. Traffic in that area is a bit intimidating, so for me, it’s good to bypass the road traffic and emerge in the heart of the old city, fresh and ready to explore.
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Nice piece and something i relate to totally.
Visited my alma mater yesterday - things have changed and dramatically. There is now a new campus which is connected to the old campus via an “under the road” tunnel. All very fancy of course but caused me nothing but despair.
For me the place should have been as it was when i saw it last, April 1990 (even before you left cal).
There is a small part which has been left untouched (thank the lord) which is when i understood what an oasis is to a thirsty despairing traveller in a desert. And it looked sepia
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Kushal Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Oh poor you. *Pat, pat*
My old school, I’m given to believe, is now fully air-conditioned. And I am making very rude noises about today’s spoiled children.
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i think most of us feel d same as you! same is d case wid me my father has a transferable job so i changed 7 schools in my life! Few in d same city and some in others……but i liked d way it was and now wen i m in architecture colg and cant go along wid him all d tym it sometimes makes it weird dat dere is no change as it used to be i hav to stay dere fr 5 years and study with my batch mates…..but wen i will go somewhere else and come back in my colg or the city i would prefer to see dat in same way as it is now! so LIFE goes on! and time never stops…..
i read ur blog first tym and really like it!
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Kushal Reply:
November 7th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Well, I lived in the same house till I was 23, and went to the same school from lower nursery to class XII, so you understand how I feel, Kriti. Have always wondered what it’s like, though, to be constantly on the move. Did you have any one place that you could call your “hometown”? Maybe your father or mother’s hometown?
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Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.
Welcome back, Bunny.
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Kushal Reply:
November 7th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Thanks Bobbie.
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Yay! THE blog is back!
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Kushal Reply:
November 9th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
You’re somewhat biased, I think Pranav. But thanks. Grin.
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Bunny! It feels so good have you back, with a bang! Lovely, blog post. I didn’t know you had a soft corner for ‘kerchiefs. I have some neat, hand-embroidered ones (gifted to me by my dearly departed aunt) which I treasure very much and haven’t had the heart to use, till this date.
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Kushal Reply:
November 9th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Thanks Pervin. I wonder about my image now - you are surprised about my preference for hankies, my colleagues are surprised that I wear nighties, not pajamas… what am I doing wrong?
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Pervin Reply:
November 9th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
You’re just being, “you”. Stay unique. We love you, the way you’re.
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Enjoying the blog, kushal…and everyone’s comments. so pertinent! i was born in one city, grew up, till i finished college in another, married and have seen my kids change umpteen schools. so as a mother, i made sure that every time we moved i took along their old tatty stuff, like dog-eared books, comics with covers missing, because that gave a sense of continuity, and a centre, (and if i am not being fanciful, a ‘heart’)
Its like the bombay of my childhood has changed so i can call it mumbai so easily..its not the same! So am really glad we all have that ‘mind’s eye’.
great blog, kushal…it is so hpoeful..reading the comments, and the kind of people who visit and bother to write.
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Kushal Reply:
November 14th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Hmm, yes, the BEST part about writing a blog as opposed to a column is the comments. I love reading / hearing about other people’s experiences.
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hey..ur writin is sooo kool..!
i alwas use 2 look 4ward 2 d tueday hindustan times..bt dn u stopped writin…neway ur blogs r also pretty gud..i really njoi readin dem..keep writin..:-)
p.s: cn u temme about dis book u mentioned..’sweet chillies’..!
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Kushal Reply:
November 14th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Aww, that’s so nice of you Puneet. But that column was really hard to write. It was not always possible to think of a book that matched what was going on in the world each week, so sometimes it was really forced.
Glad you like this blog, though.
And I don’t know what more to say about Sweet Chillies than I have already said in that piece. Unfortunately, the book is out of print, though it is available at on the international secondhand books website, abebooks.com.
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Ah…Good Companions. Strangely, the only place I see through sepia is Bombay. Probably because I moved all over before that. Thinking…
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Kushal Reply:
November 14th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Goa also, surely, Rash?
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Sigh. I feel like that about Bangalore, and I find it very difficult to go back because many of the places that define Bangalore for me are gone, alas.
Anyway, welcome back I guess.
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Kushal Reply:
November 14th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
I can imagine, Samar. Bangalore has changed almost beyond recognition. Cal is also changing, but the pace is somewhat slower.
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hey….. nice knowing that others too experience the same range of feelings when they revisit their past days…..u know,i think those places are so firmly n indelibly etched in our minds that we dont want any portion of it to change….of my 19 yrs of existence ,i have lived more than 10 in a small town in bihar where my dad used to be posted….those 3 hrs of loadsheddin in the evenin,going to school in a rickety rickshaw,no computer or internet……m told its all changed now…i guess,its good for those living there now…but if u ask me to make a pick,i will be more than happy to stay primitive n un-happening…….
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Kushal Reply:
November 14th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
Grin. What I am GLAD to miss about Cal, Harsha, is the powercuts. Though I have to say, I often enjoyed them in winter.
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thanx..i’ll try n find dat book..!:-)
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