West Bengal is under a complete lockdown today, and I have nothing to fall back, save my laptop and a few childhood memories.
We lived opposite Kalighat park; the vicinity was more Tamil than Bengali. In the two or three adjoining streets there could have been about 50 to 60 Tamil families and one Malayalee family. The population included a few Tamil returnees from Burma, identified as Burma Mami or Rangoon Mama. Most of us studied in National High Schools, which reluctantly charged fees from students and often had to waive fees to those who could not afford. The roads from our area, through Prince Ghulam Md. Road, Bipin Pal Road were like a procession, children heading to our school.
Evenings were always noisy and chaotic all assembling on the streets with traffic sparse. Pittu, cricket, football, chor police and a few games imported from the villages of Tamil Nadu all featured. One elder would help a gang of a dozen to cross the main road and the tram tracks to reach Kalighat Park during the vacations. The park was all for us, one end occupied by Boys’ Training Association, which was famous for holding basketball tournaments in the evenings.
Cars were a dream and owned by very few. Only two Tamils those I remember owned cars, which they would never forget to bring to any social function, their drivers struggling with the handle to start an unwilling engine.
I recall on the way back from school was frequently past Lake market. It required less than two rupees to fill a large bag of vegetables, aubergines- 5 paise a kilo, or beans eight paise, more or less. Traders had flexible pricing, the morning hours more expensive and the close-to-noon times the cheapest. The hawkers would dispose of any unsold vegetables and walk back to Ballygunge station to catch the local trains back to their villages like Baruipur.
Sadananda Road was a busy thoroughfare chosen for two things that changed the profile of the area. One, during the planning stages of Metro Rail, a traffic diversion trial was made, letting one-way traffic from Syamaprasad Mukherjee Road into Sadananda Road. Not that there were many vehicles, but it posed a risk and was struck down as a playground. The next assault was letting the Minibuses run through Sadananda Road. The owners or drivers were mostly belonged to the ruling clan, reflected by their frenzied speed and utter disregard for safety.
We lived on the ground floor, often visited by fruit vendors, vegetable vendors, women who would give a few steel utensils for old silk sarees with much silver on borders, tender mango the size of the smallest potatoes. Each one knew everyone; the world was personal; my mother, the negotiator, often feeding them and enquiring about each one’s family welfare.
August has ten more lockdown days, and I hope to scratch my head for more to come.
Sampath Kumar
Intrépide Voix
