FF1: Vidyasagar Setu
‘There will be few travellers from the west conditioned to meet with equanimity their first encounter with Calcutta; they will be even less equipped to do so if it is also to be their first experience of India.’
Keith Humphries, Walking Calcutta
Two weeks in Kolkata and we can confirm that while Keith is behind the times on the spelling of the city, he’s completely right on the less equipped part. What an assault on the senses! I’m pleased to report, however, that through our navigation of the metro system (the jewel in the crown of Kolkata!), the winding bureaucracy and markets that stretch like an ocean of tea and spice, we’ve met some wonderful and merciful people who have guided us through it all and helped preserve a little of our equanimity.
The photo above shows the Vidyasagar Setu, or the second Howrah bridge, which daily carries up to 85,000 vehicles over the Hooghly (hoo-glee) river, a tributary of mother Ganges. The picture was taken from Prinsep Ghat, a stepped jetty, historically used by royalty for ‘embarkation and disembarkation’ during the British Raj. Today, it’s a place where lovers young and old come to hold hands, stroke each other’s heads and promenade as the sun sets.
Putting those interesting facts aside, the real reason that I chose this image for the first ‘Fifty Frames’ was because it’s kind of crazy. The day-glo colours and kitsch leafy framing create a post-apocalyptic cocktail, Russian-wedding-photo kind of scene. Why do the leaves look pasted on? Why are the colours so lurid? This, dear friends, is the two-weeks-in-Kolkata effect.
Like moles emerging from their sleepy tunnels, blinking wildly at the dazzling daylight (let’s pretend that this happens), it’s hard, in just two weeks, to avoid seeing the city as a caricature of blinding contrasts. But we have a little longer to let our eyes adjust. And over the course of the ‘Fifty Frames’ that we’re here, we’ll show you some of the nuances of the place and get under its skin.
But for now, in the frame above, settle your eyes on the punt boats fighting with the current as they pass under the multi-billion rupee bridge above. On the path behind you, old-school romance meets modern-day convenience as people drift back home in Uber taxis, conjured up with a few swipes on a smartphone. Just a little further back, past the gas stoves and ceramic teacups of the chai wallahs, a man is hosing himself down from a street pump after a long, humid day on the bustling streets. The grime sluicing off his body joins the rest of the murk making its way to the party of liquids flowing down the Hooghly towards the Bay of Bengal.
Cold white tube lights illuminate the dense foliage on the path as the sun sets over the city. The deep orange hues enhanced by the haze of a thousand tonnes of airborne light-reflective pollutants.
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