Ah ! KOLKATA !!

One of the most endearing images that kolkata can 'gibh iu'. somehow the love for city is also for the always charged and always lethargic tempo it has. Most of my life having spent in the city i realise that though for the first year or so i could not speak bengali to save my life ( i picked it up from political grafitti and mini bus headings) to slowly forgetting (almost) hindi my second language after english (or was it the other way round) Around then i discovered Ray, his movies books and discovered the warmth the city had. i turned a bengali but my senior relatives kept insisting that i must be missing delhi and what not. true i spoke to my bro in hindi but now it was getting more and more interspersed with bengali. true i listened to hindi songs mostly apart from compulsory mix of rabindrasangeet, nazrul, adhunik, baul the works . woke upto a plethora of singers from hemanta to shyamal mitra, suchitra mitra to purna das baul. around then came Suman Chatterjee and he along with some others filled me with joy about the nuances of the beauty that the city had to offer. to be honest had it not been for satyajit and suman and i know i risk being mauled for putting them together opened me upto bengal. i started with tagore moved onto sunil ganguly, a bit of sameresh and then to keep up the hip quotient also dabbled with joy goswami and jibananda. come on u could not claim to be bong and not read jibananda!!!
To be continued.....