Dusk on the Hooghly

There are few things that can be more relaxing than dusk on a riverside. The unwinding seems even more well deserved if you had had a hard day’s work. Struggles and nerve-racking deadlines sometimes seem to compress time - things run too fast, the backlog is always overflowing, and a day seems to shamelessly underperform if it ticks for only 24 hours! 

Which is when a small opportunity to stop still makes you really ‘feel’ the dilation of time. You can literally hear yourself breathe out, and all the bookish lessons of the sadhguru on meditation and mindfulness begin to make a lot of sense.

My first job helped me learn exactly this. Straight out of college with stellar marks, I was expecting to design and configure transformers, induction machines and microprocessor chips. C’mon, I had read of Faraday and Tesla for four years - should I have aspired any less? The closest I ever got though, was when I had to approve delivery invoices that had scanty mention of these goods. The well-oiled factory -to -fieldsite channel of operation ensured I stayed at my desk managing invoices for most of my job as Edison seemed to remind why commerce and turnover was more important than the fundamentals of engineering. Long story short, I needed no gold medal in my engineering degree to work at my job. What the hell, I needed no engineering degree to work at my job! The inspiration faded in no time - a tell tale sign that difficult times were ahead. After all, it is not really hard work but lack of inspiration that tires a man. My boss was no Jennifer Aniston either. The work kept piling, the turnover target kept increasing and small events that I should have been able to control - you know, the usual floods, train accidents, communal riots - all ensured pace at work kept increasing at a crazy rate. Crazy work hours compounded by crazy expectations led to a single constant - Burnout. In these times, as I look back, there were a handful of things that kept me steady. The most important, of course, were family and the hopes of an exit pathway. One more very important vent was my dusks spent by the Hooghly.

My technology consultant used to be based near old world Dalhousie. I would happily schedule these meetings at the ‘normal’ end of a healthy day, 6 pm (don’t give that ‘Scream’ look) and then instead of heading back to work at the other end of town, I would head for home through the aptly named Strand Road. Office hours traffic would ensure that the riverside strand would slowly metamorphosize into a quagmire of a strand, with buses waiting literally for hours.It was for these circumstances that one day I decided to take the ferry to cross into Howrah, serendipitously discovering a timeless world on the Hooghly.

The mad rush to get on the ferries was always there - almost scaring you that every ferry would capsize the moment it turned round. Yet the rush would gradually decrease as evening progressed often revealing an old world charm of floating buoys, bobbing fishermen’s boats and the roadside snack-sellers. The riverside ghats would be everything I would look forward to after heady days - dark, brooding, devoid of limelight, full of cool breeze from the riverside, and often quiet. I would compare the mad rush of the people to get onto the ferries with my everyday life, and the silence thereafter as the turn between these pages - quiet, rare, and laced with conscious mindfulness given they were rare and short lived. More often than not, I would happily stand at one corner of these floating ghats, and look at the madness that would ensue while embarking. I would let them pass, one, two often five in a row, sitting by myself, munching spicy peanuts with chopped onions, and gazing at the gushing yet relaxing waters of the Hooghly. If I was lucky to be early, I would admire the golden aura of the setting sun in both sky and river, and remind myself of living inside a Turner painting where gradual shades of orange and crimson would be added. There was no dismay if I would be late - for night time meant cooler winds, lesser crowds and the purple - golden lights of the Howrah Bridge offering feeble but superbly artistic compensation for the dark. 

That moving canvas, of being ensconced on the Hooghly’s mighty waters between the two Howrah Bridges was often the most sought after place on my workdays. How many dusks have I not spent there, breathing out, focusing on my ambition to crack the CAT and move on, unwinding and in a way decoupling from all the madness that was everyday life. The rains or a nor’wester would only embolden me to take the ferry, helping me come out fresher, livelier and stronger. I would go back home, and then, study for long hours till late night, the sudden slowness through this riverside break often recharging the mental batteries beyond the burnout. Perhaps, in hindsight, my exam preparations would not be as effective if it were not for these tiny breaks by the river.  Evolution will, of course, tell you that the presence of a waterbody - lake or river or sea - almost always lifts up man’s spirits. The primitive man’s ability to find food and water near a watering hole would give him relief and joy, which seems to have been hardwired into our genes, thus explaining the sense of serenity and joy that comes from being close to water. Add to it the onset of a becalming dusk and you indeed have a potent source of bringing down the adrenaline. But then living it, in the midst of a crazy deafening cosmopolis like Calcutta is a welcome solace that everybody should embrace.

What events will lead to the next, we will never know. But it is worth trying - I spent almost 4 years of my engineering getting stranded on the Strand. It was not until my first job that I decided one day to follow some commuters to the ghats, and lo, a new world emerged. Did that really have that big a butterfly effect on my life, I cannot say. What I can say though is, it never hurts to try something new and be happy if serendipity is struck. (Talking of which, even the ferry service was a strange outcome of the 1965 war with Pakistan. The boats that would ferry into East Pakistan were stranded in Bengal and Assam. The state government had then decided to use these boats to commence a ferry service between Calcutta and Howrah. Today, the ferries transport 2 lakh commuters every single day). 

Even today, when I go back to the city of joy, the city of lights, I try to take the ferry. And yes, even today, I leave a ferry or two if travelling in peak hours not because I have a lot of time but because, as they say, old habits die hard. That world remains timeless still. You can still see fishermen’s boats with kerosene lanterns float on the river waters as darkness settles on the Hooghly. You can smell - amidst the same choppy waters alleviated by a breeze - the crispy smell of fried pakodas that seems to have no diminishing marginal value over time. You can hear the same commotion as people embark on every ferry, while harbouring the same fear that this one is definitely going to capsize. 

It feels like making a pilgrimage to a sacred pit-stop from the past. Darkness descends, and the bridge lights up in a beautiful blend of pastel -neon colours. I smile, that some things do not change... 

31st July, 2021