Doing a Holden Caulfield in Kolkata- Part One: Howrah Railway Station

This Semester, I am undergoing a non-credit course in Spoken Modern Standard Arabic…. In which I read aloud excerpts from the original works of Naguib Mahfouz- the Egyptian Nobel Laureate in the field of Literature. My teacher told me something that I always felt and yet could never articulate. He said a good story teller weaves a story in such a way that the main protagonist of his story is not the one in the book but one who is reading it…. He is able to involve a reader to such an extent that the reader starts feeling being a part of the story…. Naguib description of Cairo catapults you from your ordinary existence to the streets of Old Cairo… you can feel the commotion, smell the incense, smoke a Sheesha, hear the gossiping of a road side Ahwa, savour the magic of an Azaan and feel frustrated by persistent demand of Baksheesh.

One such author is J D Salinger… though I am yet to read his any other book but the Catcher in the Rye. I have always identified with the character of Holden Caulfield…. His angst, his frustrations, his platitudes, his travesties- everything. I always felt empowered by his adventurism (or escapism)… of letting the world around him, go. Of considering everybody, but him, phony… of disenfranchising himself of his identity and existence, to such an extent that the hostilities of the world around him stopped mattering.

And once I tried it.

Those were the days when I was in the most endearing city of Kolkata (Calcutta, as we used to know it)… doing a course in Film Appreciation at the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute. The campus of the Institute was perhaps one of the most delightful academic campuses in India… with a lake amidst the verdant green campus… I have seen the campus of IIM Lucknow… and though I liked it a lot, yet I feel the Campus of SRFTI was a couple of notches above it.

I did not have a particularly good relationship with my batchmates… very neutral relations with some and one bordering animosity with others. The reasons are beyond the purview of this blog. And as Film Appreciation involved seeing a movie in a group and then discussing it among ourselves… so naturally, I was not comfortable doing that day in and day out. I was quite alienated by the course… and yet I continued.

I was particularly friendly with one guy in my batch and therefore used to hang out with him for most of the time. And one day, he took a leave from the course for a week and left for his hometown. It was then that- I decided that I too will take a leave and go for some sight seeing in and around Kolkata….

One fine day, I dropped in an application with the Course Coordinator… and packed a small bag and left my hostel… what happened thereafter was a four days of wanderings in and around the magical city of Kolkata.

Kolkata has its own charm… lesser known when compared to Delhi or Mumbai…. It is perhaps, in many ways, more magical than either of them. It is friendly, it is cheap, it is worth exploring… and it is a part of our cultural consciousness.

Though I had read so much about Kolkata… but I did not have any specific plans during my wandering… it can be understood from the fact that the places that I saw during my wandering, did not happen in any logical order. Starting with Dakshineshwar and Belur…. Going to Kumhartuli ….coming back to Howrah and trying to reach Mayapur through an unusual route… crossing the Ganges to reach Nabadweep Dham, Seeing Kalna Ambika… and then treading along the path that was colonized by the early Europeans… the Dutch, the French and even the Greeks… reaching back to Howrah and catching a train to reach Diamond Harbour and then going to Ganga Sagar and Bakhalli and then coming back to Howrah and catching a train for Bishnupur and finally coming back to Kolkata. To a person who knows Kolkata, my trajectory would seem to be mad…

As I said, I never planned anything. Everything happened at the spur of moment…

Very near to the campus of SRFTI was the Baghajatin Railway Station and it was very much possible to take a local train to Howrah… once at Howrah, the world is within your reach…

Howrah is perhaps the most interesting railway station in entire India… an entire humanity arrives at Howrah and then goes back, everyday …. Around 1 million people use this railway station everyday…. It was designed by an eminent British architect Ralph Ricardo in 1905, and last year it celebrated its 100th year of construction. Started with only 6 platforms, today Howrah has 24 platforms… uniqueness being- one can take an entire car inside the station. It overlooks the majestic Howrah Bridge, one of the world's finest and largest cantilever bridges. Incidentally, even though Howrah Railway station has come to be recognized with the city of Kolkata, yet it is not a part of Kolkata- it is a part of Kolkata's twin city Howrah… Kolkata has its own railway head called Sealdah…. Though hardly anybody associates it with Kolkata.

You can see an entire humanity in and around Howrah Railway station… trams, buses, taxis, cycle-rickshaws… all around. The area around the station never sleeps… Just two days ago, I had come here to drop my friend off- who was going to his hometown on leave… he was to board an early morning train… and we decided that instead of trying to reach there early morning, we will come here late at night and then hang around the place for the entire night…

The banks of river Hooghly, underneath Howrah Bridge and the area around, have huge slums… on the Kolkata side one can come across dwellings of petty traders who deal with flowers… there activity for the day starts around three in the morning… it is worth seeing the string of activities in early morning… the commotion is mesmerizing…

So two days after leaving my friend from the same railhead- I was heading towards it, once again.