Memories of maidan

 

I long to return to winter’s home,

Beyond autumn’s gold and grey

For, in that cold lay warmth of time -

Blue skies, Maidan, yesterday

 

Crisp that cold of December

Forgiveness in the sun,

Short the breath of winter’s day

Yet, so much to be done

 

To walk across the Maidan’s spread,

There - Victoria evergreen,

The Fort, the zoo, farther still

Waiting to be seen

 

Sanchi’s dome beckons as well,

But you sit upon the grass,

While dreams of Boimela chorus

With St. Paul’s and its mass

 

After a while, the sun mellows,

Nandan, then to Park,

Rolls, Oxford, dainty stores

That light up in the dark

 

Ochterlony’s beam of white,

For a cigarette, moments more

The city of lights has woken up,

So many memories in her lore

 

Then, a rickety bus to anywhere

Perhaps anywhere in the world

Yet, so much in my city’s home

Left to be unfurled

 

Metcalfe, Princep, Outram Ghat

The Bridge in purple glow

Winter’s fog begins to spread

The city starts to slow

 

Yet still awake till late at night

The Esplanade doesn’t sleep

While a vagrant me walks to hoard

Memories for the keep

 

In mufflers wrapped the warriors last

I hug my jacket tight

But this is winter at its best –

No need to put a fight

 

The fog descends, despite the haze

The city’s heart’s aglow

And Maidan’s winter stays alive

Though the seasons come and go…

 

My favourite part in the city of joy was its green lung, the Maidan – and the best part of the year to explore this heart of the city used to be winter - not simmering hot, not bedraggled in rains, but warm, cosy winter. When the tempered sun would fill the afternoons with delight, and encourage long walks – Elgin, Landmark, the Planetarium, Nandan, Victoria, Musuem – you would be spoiled for choices. With not many pennies in my pocket, the easiest would be to walk all over to Park Street, browse books you could never buy (unless they were pirated), fill yourself with the energy of the Esplanade and then wait for dusk to descend under the Shahid Minar. There was something exuberant and uplifting in that part of the city – call it the energy of the proletariat masses, who would come together for cha and adda at the end of day, the historic past of the Esplanade’s glory, now all shodden, or just the sense of struggle and resilience reminiscent of older Kolkata, I loved sitting under the Ochterlony at the end of day and watch the city pass by. Then a bus, or if feeling for a change, then a ferry across the Hooghly under the mesmerising foggy purple lights of the Howrah Bridge – altogether rendering a sense of timelessness, as if you were always there, growing like the city, with the city.

Years have passed since I left the City of Joy, but even today, the chill of a winter’s afternoon makes me nostalgic, and I yearn to go back to those sunny December days in the Maidan, to make that long walk to the Esplanade immersed in the heart of the city, shining by day, glowing by night…