Letters to the City of Joy-01

Christina Sanchita Shah
Nov 2 · 3 min read

Dear Kolkata,

BBD Bagh

I know that when I left you, I promised myself I would not look back, I wouldn’t return. I was so very eager to leave. (And naive, in hindsight)

It has taken me 4 years and two cities to realize that you’re home, that no other place can be as warm and as welcoming as you. You taught me to find new stories in old fading walls. You taught to me appreciate music that nobody listens to anymore. You taught me that art lay not in paintings and murals but in conversations over chai and addas. People could be art too. As could life.

Howrah Bridge on a regular day

You taught me to appreciate the yellowed pages of a book over fancy covers and kindles. Walking around in College Street, with books strewn everywhere that I could see, you taught me the importance of imagination and storytelling. And of history. After being the colonial capital for 200 years, I could not escape the deep enriching history that you had to offer. It was all around us. In autos that follow a limited route to yellow colored taxis and to street names.

College Street

Places like Dalhouse always made me stop in wonder at every building which was from the colonial era but now used as banks, post offices, and other offices. The coat of fresh paint on old architecture only makes you more attractive, older, wiser and more knowing. Your bus connectivity within the city can give a run for their money to any other city. Albeit, old and rattling, no other city compares in terms of your public transport connectivity.

Dalhousie

You’re nostalgia. You’re a feeling, dear Kolkata and not just a place.

Local buses

However, now you’re old and dying and I see so many young faces, eager to leave you (just like I did). Perhaps it’s a rite of passage. One needs to leave in order to appreciate you more. But know that you live in the hearts of millions, who carry you wherever they go, with a deep yearning to return home.

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