The Footpaths of Calcutta
What a strange
and precise unreality! What a tumultuous mixture of frenzy, vitality, and
melancholy at its very core. Scorched in the sharp blaze of the sun, parched
and blazing, or stinking in heaps of rotting garbage. Flooded with human
throngs, mingled with piles of food, where the heroes of Nabanna share scraps
with stray dogs. On the sidewalks of Calcutta, someone stumbles upon an
abandoned handbag and becomes a millionaire. Another, returning weary from
office, is struck down by a reckless car and dragged to the brink of death. One
rushes in search of another hurrying forward. One, lost in sorrow, walks
slowly, no one knows where — and no one cares to ask.
The footpath entered my mind one day after school. In those days, Calcutta’s alleys and lanes did not yet have these cement-laid pavements. Pedestrians moved along both edges of the tar roads. To save bus fare, many a time we friends walked home together along the sidewalks. Walking, we swore eternal friendship with one another. Walking, we also quarreled bitterly. After a few steps, indestructible friendship shattered into separation. We turned away in hatred, distancing ourselves. With those friends I never again met.
One evening, in the blue glow of twilight, I came to know a boy who lived on the sidewalk — the son of a paan-seller. I had just begun smoking cigarettes then. Every day I bought them from him. Sometimes a few annas remained unpaid. One day, finding a companion his own age, the boy poured out his grief to me. I was young. Was it pity or friendship? Some strange bond tied me to him. One day, while chatting, I unstrapped my wristwatch and gave it to him. He was going to the cinema; he said a watch would look fine on his wrist. So be it. Then for two or three days, he vanished. On the fourth day, he suddenly appeared at my home, searching for me — to return the watch. I had another timepiece anyway. The one I had given him was a cheap electronic battery watch, fashionable in those days. I told him, “Keep it.” He blushed red with shame, refusing to accept it.
Many years passed. My visits along that road grew fewer. Yet whenever I did pass, sometimes from the bus window I glimpsed him at his shop, sometimes I got down near it to buy a cigarette and exchange a few words. He had married newly. His face was losing its charm. A few days ago, passing that road, I noticed with shock that his little stall was gone from the sidewalk. Gone too the small corner where his family dwelt. At the crossing near Jadavpur Police Station, hawkers had been evicted; a wide road had been laid. By the time I realized, the road was already complete. The place looked spotless, gleaming. Only the boy himself had vanished. Where had he gone after his shop was demolished? I never saw him again.
Recently a loud political cry has arisen to clear the sidewalks of hawkers. Yet the sidewalk remains the same. As before, so now. A girl, after quarreling with her lover, flings away her ring upon the pavement. Here I saw a family of the blind, placing hands on each other’s shoulders, walking in single file toward oblivion. Upon this sidewalk I once met a girl — here too came my first love. Here, after slapping me across the cheek, she boarded a bus and disappeared. Here I saw a stabbed corpse, lying naked in daylight. The lines of lust, the music of renunciation, the hunger of the body and the chant of bhajan — to the Bengali life, the sidewalk has been both stage and scripture.
The madmen of the pavement often seemed to me like wandering philosophers. And I used to wonder — who fathered children in the wombs of the madwomen? One man lived permanently on the sidewalk near our locality. A huge matted lock of hair covered his head. All day he bent upon the pavement, sketching diagrams, solving equations. His genius was unforgettable, like a Leonardo da Vinci gone astray. By day he was scientist or painter; by night, a consummate musician. Wherever he camped, that household could not sleep — for all night he sang at the top of his lungs, Bengali and Hindi songs, bhajans, ghazals, ragas of dhrupad and bhairav. Then there was another, named “Saheb.” He had a home of his own. By day he worked as a laborer, digging soil. By night, drunk, he rolled upon the sidewalks. He was called Saheb because once drunk, he spoke English like a gentleman.
How many bizarre experiences each day upon Calcutta’s sidewalks! During festivals they turn into sprawling bazaars. Everywhere lie scattered sleeping men. The dust clings to the trunks of saplings planted for greening. Bright showrooms glitter beside them. A lone, silent pedestrian walks in thought. A failed lover steps upon it, resolved for suicide. Is such color, such variety, such chiaroscuro of existence any less wondrous than the Mayan civilization of Latin America? Calcutta’s footpath seems to know magic. Whoever stands upon it encounters the magic of reality. The day I feel most miserable, I look upon the crippled child of the pavement — and my sorrow seems petty. The day I am happy, that same child reminds me of life’s unspoken agony. If sidewalks could count human desires and fulfillments, then surely the child’s simple smile would be their salvation. In Chhinnapatra, Rabindranath wrote: “Though I had grown in years, yet still I was straight. Today my spine is broken, bent like Ashtavakra, cracked in a thousand places like furrows of fate, while within me the frogs of the world arrange their long winter’s sleep.”
The footpath is like a bloodstream in the life of Calcutta. It bears within it both the pure and the impure. A modern writer, sitting to pen his autobiography, will surely find here the very psyche of Calcutta. In the world, only a handful of cities are famous for their street life and pavements: Chicago, Shanghai, Las Vegas, Paris, and Calcutta. In strange rhythm, the sidewalks of these cities hold within them a part of their vast population. If there exists in dictionaries a true antonym to “house-dweller,” then it must be “sidewalk-dweller.” With what strange gestures the blind beggar plays his bamboo flute! Into an uncovered drain tumbles the child who has slipped from his mother’s hand.
Many a summer’s day, seared by unbearable heat, drenched in sweat while waiting for a bus upon the footpath, I grew nauseated with this city. I thought: how long can one love this torment given at birth, this Indian inheritance? I longed to flee — to leave the sidewalk, the city, to go far away. Then suddenly I remembered my cousin. After many years abroad, he returned with a strange malady. Each evening, he was compelled to walk along the crowded sidewalks of Gariahat, just to watch the people. One afternoon, he went out walking. He never came back.
To tell the truth, it is from the countless encounters with the men and women of Calcutta’s sidewalks that I have gathered my richest experience and knowledge — the most important education of city life. Here people are born. Here people die. Some leave the pavement for homes; others abandon homes for the pavement. The sidewalk is never empty. Events occur upon it, one after another, in eternal rhythm. And when poets write, it is the footpath that makes them poets; when painters paint, it is the footpath that makes them artists. And when the game is over, in Tagore’s words, “He who played there — having ended his play, vanished from the lap that bore him.” The footpath itself knew nothing. In Tagore’s language: “I leave nothing lying behind — neither laughter, nor tears. Only I remain behind.”
The footpath entered my mind one day after school. In those days, Calcutta’s alleys and lanes did not yet have these cement-laid pavements. Pedestrians moved along both edges of the tar roads. To save bus fare, many a time we friends walked home together along the sidewalks. Walking, we swore eternal friendship with one another. Walking, we also quarreled bitterly. After a few steps, indestructible friendship shattered into separation. We turned away in hatred, distancing ourselves. With those friends I never again met.
One evening, in the blue glow of twilight, I came to know a boy who lived on the sidewalk — the son of a paan-seller. I had just begun smoking cigarettes then. Every day I bought them from him. Sometimes a few annas remained unpaid. One day, finding a companion his own age, the boy poured out his grief to me. I was young. Was it pity or friendship? Some strange bond tied me to him. One day, while chatting, I unstrapped my wristwatch and gave it to him. He was going to the cinema; he said a watch would look fine on his wrist. So be it. Then for two or three days, he vanished. On the fourth day, he suddenly appeared at my home, searching for me — to return the watch. I had another timepiece anyway. The one I had given him was a cheap electronic battery watch, fashionable in those days. I told him, “Keep it.” He blushed red with shame, refusing to accept it.
Many years passed. My visits along that road grew fewer. Yet whenever I did pass, sometimes from the bus window I glimpsed him at his shop, sometimes I got down near it to buy a cigarette and exchange a few words. He had married newly. His face was losing its charm. A few days ago, passing that road, I noticed with shock that his little stall was gone from the sidewalk. Gone too the small corner where his family dwelt. At the crossing near Jadavpur Police Station, hawkers had been evicted; a wide road had been laid. By the time I realized, the road was already complete. The place looked spotless, gleaming. Only the boy himself had vanished. Where had he gone after his shop was demolished? I never saw him again.
Recently a loud political cry has arisen to clear the sidewalks of hawkers. Yet the sidewalk remains the same. As before, so now. A girl, after quarreling with her lover, flings away her ring upon the pavement. Here I saw a family of the blind, placing hands on each other’s shoulders, walking in single file toward oblivion. Upon this sidewalk I once met a girl — here too came my first love. Here, after slapping me across the cheek, she boarded a bus and disappeared. Here I saw a stabbed corpse, lying naked in daylight. The lines of lust, the music of renunciation, the hunger of the body and the chant of bhajan — to the Bengali life, the sidewalk has been both stage and scripture.
The madmen of the pavement often seemed to me like wandering philosophers. And I used to wonder — who fathered children in the wombs of the madwomen? One man lived permanently on the sidewalk near our locality. A huge matted lock of hair covered his head. All day he bent upon the pavement, sketching diagrams, solving equations. His genius was unforgettable, like a Leonardo da Vinci gone astray. By day he was scientist or painter; by night, a consummate musician. Wherever he camped, that household could not sleep — for all night he sang at the top of his lungs, Bengali and Hindi songs, bhajans, ghazals, ragas of dhrupad and bhairav. Then there was another, named “Saheb.” He had a home of his own. By day he worked as a laborer, digging soil. By night, drunk, he rolled upon the sidewalks. He was called Saheb because once drunk, he spoke English like a gentleman.
How many bizarre experiences each day upon Calcutta’s sidewalks! During festivals they turn into sprawling bazaars. Everywhere lie scattered sleeping men. The dust clings to the trunks of saplings planted for greening. Bright showrooms glitter beside them. A lone, silent pedestrian walks in thought. A failed lover steps upon it, resolved for suicide. Is such color, such variety, such chiaroscuro of existence any less wondrous than the Mayan civilization of Latin America? Calcutta’s footpath seems to know magic. Whoever stands upon it encounters the magic of reality. The day I feel most miserable, I look upon the crippled child of the pavement — and my sorrow seems petty. The day I am happy, that same child reminds me of life’s unspoken agony. If sidewalks could count human desires and fulfillments, then surely the child’s simple smile would be their salvation. In Chhinnapatra, Rabindranath wrote: “Though I had grown in years, yet still I was straight. Today my spine is broken, bent like Ashtavakra, cracked in a thousand places like furrows of fate, while within me the frogs of the world arrange their long winter’s sleep.”
The footpath is like a bloodstream in the life of Calcutta. It bears within it both the pure and the impure. A modern writer, sitting to pen his autobiography, will surely find here the very psyche of Calcutta. In the world, only a handful of cities are famous for their street life and pavements: Chicago, Shanghai, Las Vegas, Paris, and Calcutta. In strange rhythm, the sidewalks of these cities hold within them a part of their vast population. If there exists in dictionaries a true antonym to “house-dweller,” then it must be “sidewalk-dweller.” With what strange gestures the blind beggar plays his bamboo flute! Into an uncovered drain tumbles the child who has slipped from his mother’s hand.
Many a summer’s day, seared by unbearable heat, drenched in sweat while waiting for a bus upon the footpath, I grew nauseated with this city. I thought: how long can one love this torment given at birth, this Indian inheritance? I longed to flee — to leave the sidewalk, the city, to go far away. Then suddenly I remembered my cousin. After many years abroad, he returned with a strange malady. Each evening, he was compelled to walk along the crowded sidewalks of Gariahat, just to watch the people. One afternoon, he went out walking. He never came back.
To tell the truth, it is from the countless encounters with the men and women of Calcutta’s sidewalks that I have gathered my richest experience and knowledge — the most important education of city life. Here people are born. Here people die. Some leave the pavement for homes; others abandon homes for the pavement. The sidewalk is never empty. Events occur upon it, one after another, in eternal rhythm. And when poets write, it is the footpath that makes them poets; when painters paint, it is the footpath that makes them artists. And when the game is over, in Tagore’s words, “He who played there — having ended his play, vanished from the lap that bore him.” The footpath itself knew nothing. In Tagore’s language: “I leave nothing lying behind — neither laughter, nor tears. Only I remain behind.”
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