Often, as we grow old, the places where we live start growing on us. Conversely, our environment is as much shaped and influenced by us as we are influenced by it. The people we grow up with and the places we grow up in, forms a comfort zone which is very personal in nature. This is our recluse where we seek shelter and comfort whenever we are hurt and let down. We believe that this is the setting where you would never be judged, where there is no measuring yardstick, where the old friend will patiently hear you out. He will agree that you have been let down, back stabbed and not treated well at all. The old trees, the old tea shop, that cement bench below the trees will surround you like sympathetic friends.

For me, this comfort zone remains an elusive truth. I grew up in Sindri, a small town of Jharkhand (it was Bihar then). Tucked farwawy in a corner of Bihar, it was full of fresh air, vegetables and nice people. The Bengalis were a closely knit group who found their identity through cultural events and Calcutta and Jadavpore University alumney.

Just when I started to step into adolescence, when you really start to identify yourself with the place and culture (you know what I mean, right?) my father retired and we moved to Kharagpur. Most of my uncles were professors at the IIT and my father thought the scholarly environment would groom me to be a future IITian. Although I could never get into coveted institute, but its culture got into me. I fell in love with books, music and lazing around. Believe me if you want to just laze around, doing in particular while enjoying yourself all the time, no one can beat a small town. The cycle rides round the campus, free net surfing at the institute when Internet was a unheard term in India, long hours at the ramparts of the empty stadium, good times which will always be with me.

And then job happened. I moved out of Kharagpur and got thrown to the bad bad world out there. I got posted to Mumbai, Gujrat, many places in Bengal, and finally Kolkata. Now I have settled down here in Kolkata. Brought my parents along, bought a house, and trying to think this as my home.

But unsuccessfully. After changing base so many times, now I find it difficult to relate myself to one place. A part of my heart lies in Sindri with foggy memories of sweet childhood. Kharagpur is more pronounced, with the events being of more recent times. Some of my friends still live in there. Its been almost three years now I have left kgp, and I have been making plans ever since to visit the place. To catch up with friends and walk by the old school. But every time a plan is finalized, typically something or the other crop up and plan gets postponed. Slowly, like Sindri, Kgp is getting foggy too.

I feel lonely when I walk home from the bus stand after a tiring day. Nothing much to look forward to most of the times. There are occasional parties and get together among the colleagues or acquaintances, but they lack the genuine warmth. The big city is engulfing me. Slowly, but surely.

****


You ask me about the country whose details
now escape me,
I don't remember its geography, nothing
of its history.
And should I visit it in memory,
It would be as I would a past lover,
After years, for a night, no longer restless with passion.
With no fear of regret.
I have reached that age when,
one visits the heart merely as a courtesy.


-Faiz Ahmed Faiz.
Translated from Urdu by Agha Shahid Ali.


Posted by: Ranjan