I meet Kolkata every morning. Through it's smoky winter outlines crawls up the ghastly remains of an old city.
The old woman, sitting idle on the footpath with a shapeless-colurless bowl in front of her looking up at the shining black trousers and swift green skirts passing by represents Kolkata for me. With her face and her hair completely filled with dirt and a tattered sari, she probably succeeds in melting a few citizen's hearts. Five rupees? Enough for her to pounce upon the biscuits and a cup of tea at the tarpaulin covered tea-stall. Where did she come from, I often try to imagine. From the villages? where once, a few decades before she might have had a thatched-roof house, a drunkard as a husband, a few acres of land belonging to her landlord which they were allowed to plough on. Five hungry innocent faces waiting for her to finish cooking, the husband becoming a regular monster at night. Then one day as if the misfortunes were not enough and the husband had an accident - lost a leg. Somebody told them that "Kolkata" could probably save them, everybody gets something or else to eat there. A jam-packed vendor compartment one morning, the complete and utter horror of watching the hoardes of people at Sealdah station, the beggars community, the regular insults. A new life.
Once it used to hurt, once she used to think if it was a human life she is leading but it was not long before the thoughts vanished and the habits kept her going. She became less and less human everyday. Her husband died one day much to her relief, the children flew one by one. But she lived. She is not completely sane now I suppose, not that she would remember any human language apart from a few sharp insults and her regular "boli". But she will probably stay on that corner of the footpath much longer than I would imagine - looking at me with her blank eyes - too tired to extend her hand. And I would zoom past her, jump into a swift cab, flip my hands through my new touchphone menu to hear some sweet voice rendering on the other side.
But she will keep coming back on the ghastly nights - with her almost white eyes she would stare at me - unblinkingly.
To me she is the right metaphor of Kolkata. The old, lost, insane and dying city which to my utter surprise, still breathes.
