City of Joy

Calcutta, the City of Joy, is where my fortune took me next after I completed school. To me the experience of this capital, till then, was irksome to say the least. I had faint memories of a dusty, noisy and an overwhelmingly crowded Sealdah. To me Calcutta was all "grey"-heat, dust, humidity!!! It was far away from my "green" North Bengal. But as luck would have it, i landed in this self-defined "grey city" owing to my father's transferable job. I still vividly remember it was mid-July when we landed at the Dumdum airport. It had rained considerably which had rendered the road slushy and muddy-a fact which i soon realised was customary in Calcutta even after a mild downpour. Looking outside through the window of our cab, in a day when the sky was overcast, Calcutta seemed even more grey to me. For that moment i truly felt i had permanently lost my "green days"...Impossible though it was for me to adapt, yet i had told yourself since this was going to be my city for the next few years atleast, better i fall in love with it!!! The sooner, the better...



But sooner it was not to be. Initially it seemed like a struggle to me...coping with crowded buses where i often felt like the proverbial tin of sardines or even the tube which was fast, pollution-free and dot on time, still would occasionally make me feel claustrophobic. It was the same old story- a small town girl trying to cope with the hustle and bustle of a metropolis. For me this struggle was all the more doubled. It is often said that a healthy body and a bad memory yield happiness. But my memory was too strong to forget things and i had a terrible feeling of my home town that didnt let me embrace this new city...a city that i had initially loved to hate but nevertheless i couldnt ignore for this city was to become my "home" for the rest of my life.