Nodes in History

Image Source: wikipedia.org

I was reading this article about Berlin's Ostbahnhof Station, its history and how past and present collide there. It is interesting how the development of early railway networks - that was almost entirely market driven - has had such lasting effects on our history. Of course there is also this article which which goes all the way back to the Roman Empire and tells us in the form of a Socratic dialogue (being meta, are we?) what the with of a horse's ass has got to do with US Standard railroad gauge and the size of a space shuttle's solid rocket boosters. But I digress.

The Ostbahnof article talked about how the station, and the area around it, was the gateway to Eastern Europe and how successive regimes have built over it and tried to change its character over time. I like to think of structures like these - public places that have been in use through centuries - become nodes in history. They bear witness to history as it plays out in the public sphere. These nodes, by virtue of the history they embody, become seats of power and successive regimes build / extend / restore to establish their power.

Image Source: buzzintown.com

One such building that immediately comes to my mind is the Writers' Building in Calcutta. The current West Bengal government is in the process of clearing out the "non-heritage" blocks (that were built by the Communist government before them) and restoring complex to it former glory. My friend and collaborator, An Observant Owl did a photo story documenting the demolition process and I wrote a blog post to go with it here.

Another such node, which has been sadly transformed into a glass case enclosed exhibit of history, was the Qutub Complex. It is said that a complex was the site of several Jain and Hindu temples, which provided much of the raw material for building the mosque, the minar, and the surrounding structures. Four different emperors added to/restored it; even the Brits tried to add a storey to it but then decided against it. Our democratic regime has mummified it; now it doesn't throb and pulse with history. Now it's just a background for a selfie.

On Old Cities and New

Going back to a city you've lived in is kind of like meeting parts of you that you've left behind. Same is true of meeting people who populated the streets of  your past. I'm going to Cal to meet someone very important after a quite sometime and I feel a mix of anticipation and dread at discovering how the city has changed, how my beloved has changed and how I have changed. I'll leave you with these thoughts from Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities.

Image Source: http://www.amazon.co.uk/

“For those who pass it without entering, the city is one thing; it is another for those who are trapped by it and never leave. There is the city where you arrive for the first time; and there is another city which you leave never to return. Each deserves a different name; perhaps I have already spoken of Irene under other names; perhaps I have spoken only of Irene.” 

― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

On remembering past loves

Image Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/

When I was in college, my friends and I used to religiously make trips to Calcutta to experience the much needed balm of civilization and exhilarating freedom that one experiences only when one crosses the threshold from teens to twenties. I also worked in Calcutta for almost two years after graduation and the city remains my long time muse.

I write a photoblog in collaboration with An Observant Owl and I was going through some old notes because I needed to write something for his upcoming galleries on the streets of Calcutta. That was when I thought of this one poem I'd written about my relationship with the city some years ago. When I wrote the poem I wasn't living in Calcutta and what I felt was definitely colored by homesickness and nostalgia but I'd like the reader to understand that after three years of leaving Calcutta, none of the sentiments expressed on the poem ring false for me and I miss her just as much.

Here it goes:

It was love at first touch.

Your roaring pulse in my hand –

Was the symphony of engines droning,

Harmonizing with the shivers

The river –

Sent up your spine.

Pop Quiz: How many nuts and bolts went into this cantilever beam shaped like a perfect parabola?

None. It is riveted. So am I.

An awestruck puppy –

I still stick my head out every fucking time,

Oblivious to the milling, jostling multitude.

I don’t love you for your bhadralok[1] or the machh[2] or the mishti[3],

It is the stories in folds of your saree[4].

I sit down with a cup of cha[5] and you will always tell one –

Or make one out of me.

I can’t decide if you’re perpetually stuck in a bad tempered adolescence –

Or are you a wizened withered witch.

I love your sweet sick smell of horseshit and scum and how you parade your poverty

And then you’ll turn around and dazzle me with your intricate delicate richness.

You are convoluted –

Full of ironies and paradoxes –

Stuck in a time warp –

And trying to break free –

Unsure of where to go and what to take along.

When I stumble, you understand

I breathe you and I calm down.

Your warmth, your flavors, your smells, your rhythms, your stupid obsessions, your nonchalance, your stories all feel like

I could finally come home

And hold you

And go to sleep.

That’s how we’re strung –

Love.

Hate.

And humdrum.

Like I said, it was love at first touch.

While some of the experiences described are are experienced by majority of people who have lived in or visited the city - anyone will tell you how crowded or dirty it gets or the wealth of colonial buildings that lend an aura of bygone era to the city. Then there are other experiences that are deeply personal. The very beginning describes my very first encounter with the city when as first year college kids we got off the local train at Howrah station and walked to the Howrah Bridge. We just stood there with our hands on the railings and let the sensations of the city wash over us. Also I'm an engineer so I love to geek out - even in poetry. It's riveted. 

I hope you enjoyed the poem. I sometimes get the feeling that it works better as performance piece and its better to listen to it rather than read it. I'll get around to that someday.

[1] Bhadralok: Cultured gentry

[2] Machh: Fish

[3] Mishti: Sweetmeats

[4] Saree: A garment consisting of a length of fabric elaborately draped around the body, traditionally worn by women from South Asia.

[5] Cha: Tea