A bright sunny day gave away to fabulous evening in February. The entire family decided to visit the much celebrated Kolkata Book Fair. Nowadays, the book fair is not held at the helm centre of the city, ie, Maidan, but at other places towards eastern Kolkata. However, the craze and glory still is unmatched. Kolkata's bangali babus and modern people from outskirts and suburbs, unfortunately, have lost their affinity towards comprehensive reading of books. Nowadays, book fair is merely a place of "hang out" or a "food park" where a you get to hang out with friends you regularly hang out with in other places.....and also you get to eat some food, most of which you eat whenever you are outside your home but pay a lot more for that. That is book fair for you. A conundrum that has always haunted me is why do you need to associate books and book fair to just having fun. Well....I stand corrected if ever I have said that the book fair is only meant for these...Well you will find thousands of people standing in front of the largest stalls waiting to get in...many of them not even matriculates....and once they go in....get to buy some books.....like every year...and go of to their families and announce proudly, "bought this from this years book fair" and as soon as the book finds its place in the shelf......remains there eversince till insects and worms have mercy on the poor fellow and destroy it up!!
Anyway, my objective of writing this piece is far from what I have written so far. It is nothing related to the pros and cons or virtues and vices of the Kolkata Book Fair but only to point out an incident that shall be important to this write up and allow scope and room for contradiction.
At this juncture I make myself sound a bit more mysterious. Why did I ever choose this title for my article? What on earth drove me to write something of this sort!! The cosmopolitan nature of the city of Kolkata....and the several hundred thousands of people who constitute the population of the city lead me flabbergasted at times. As I observe their various behavioural movements and I notice the attitude of some people as opposed to others I just wonder, how much of heterogeneity and contradictio there is in mankind. If a city could be so diversified, just imagine the world. Will a man ever get to know all types of people on Earth.,???? We often encounter such words that you meet all types of people on earth and hence must learn to get along with all of them and not take anyone too seriously or emotionally because everyone is not the same! Just some small anecdotes I wish to present in this section which has left me quite moved. Maybe very simple day to day incidents. But they have left me honestly quite moved. Small bits and pieces of a jigsaw puzzle which solves to form LIFE!!
Coming back to the bookfair. Our family in question, have made themselves queue up infront of a food stall. The mother is busy looking for what else is available other than HINGER KACHURI and the father meanwhile triumphantly comes across a Chair which has just been vacated by someone who has finished off his plate of Hinger Kachuri and is off in search of other delicacies may be!! So the father quickly grabs the seat and waits for mother and son to come with the food plates!! Till then its absolutely wonderful!! Now, there arrives a Family 2 with a mother and son. The son very young and rather a kid. The mother of this kid requests Father of family 1 to kindly vacate the seat for the young boy to be able to sit and enjoy his food otherwise it becomes very difficult for the child to eat. Father happily obliges. The young guy gets the seat begged for by his Mum. Next moment another Chair gets vacated. The Mother of that kid jumps and pulls it towards her and makes herself seated now. Herein comes my real awe!!! Where goes the courtesy of offering the seat to the man who left it for your kid madam??? You enjoy that give away and moreover at the next opportunity you take another one to make yourself seated????? Not even a glipmse towards the other Man who helped yu gracefully??? Is this the much celebrated bengali culture?? Is this how bengalis are becoming nowadays?? Ruthlessly self centred????????
I stand corrected again.!!! As I notice a contradiction during a Bus journey later on!! Even today...young bengali students stand up in a crowded bus to offer their seat to a Lady or a Senior Citizen!!! What is the true bengali nature then?? Isnt it just to be hospitable to one and all???? Or is it just selfishness and selfishness only?????
Other anecdotes are not really related to such strong contradictions but they have somehow left an impression on me. Nothing striking...nothin really awesome...just genuine observations which have made me wonder...made me think....made my mind belch...for whatever reasons....!!!
Travelling in a Government State Transport Bus. Rasbehari Crossing!! Suddenly notice the Conductor and Driver having a talk and the conductor smiling and running back towards the last seat...where I was seated!! The driver meanwhile is still smiling and looking back!! The conductor peeps outside through the window next to which I am seated and shouts out a name!! As far as I remember the name was, "Banhisikha"....a fine name too!!! As I looked out I found the conductor was calling someone in the bus which was standing next to our bus!! That was a school bus carrying young girls back home!!! A young bright girl responded to his call!! He pointed out at the driver and said, "See...your father is calling you!!!" Father driver from my bus and daughter student from the bus next to ours...exchange smiles as the signal goes green!!! The girl keeps peeping at his father as their bus rushes towards Tollygunge and my one takes a left turn towards Gariahat!! Dont know why but this incident has left some impression on me!! A girl is returning back hme from school on a school bus and encounters her Dad driving a bus alongside!!! Thats their life!!! But somehow I felt quite twitched!!
A rich executive, which can be made out clearly from his attire and his vehichle, is travelling in a car, all glasses raised, AC on undoubtedly, smartly dressed and working on a Laptop finds himself stranded in a signal at Park Circus Crossing near Islamia Institute!! I am watching from a Surface Transport Corporation Bus next to it!! At that moment, a limping beggar with scanty clothes and dirty appearance arrives next to the car!! I never expect the man to pull te glass down and pay something even though he should, I was thinking!! He must be earning thousands!!! Cant he just shed off a coin to this poor fellow? Even if he is not a genuine beggar...this man has enough certainly not to worry about it!! He can at least pay a coin!! Somehow I was feeling very bad and something told me that the beggar is quite genuine and really needy!!! I was planning to pay a penny to the guy myself!! Just at that moment I was immensely surprised to see the glass indeed rolling down....our rich executive reaching for his pocket...and hands the poor fellow a Ten Rupee Note!!!! How wrong I was in my impression??? This is another event which left me quite wondering about the nature of people in this city for the rest of the journey....and for days after that too!!!!
This may have seemed to be a very disgusting piece to those of you who have survived thus far reading this.....but undoubtedly I have put forth a few incidents that have had a lasting impression on me!! There are other incidents too....but the inexplicable nature of those...and the fact that mostly those are some facts that are not acceptable rationally and logically make me not write them up here!!! At some future juncture...may be when my madness comes to the forth again...I might as well post them!!! Till my next blog...Happy Blogging everyone!!!!!!
