Kolkata

Its been raining in Kolkata for the past week. And I have conveniently lost my umbrella. I miss my blue umbrella.
I love it when it pours down after nightfall....there are so few people on the otherwise bustling roads; you actually get a feel of the city. I am glad Kolkata still isn't the posh metropolis that Delhi is trying to become. I hope it never does. It ensures that you can walk with your friend for five hours on the rain soaked streets under an overcast sky after a taxing day at college. It lets you walk down Park Street at 9 in the evening in a slight drizzle and not care about it being unsafe. Where you could walk for hours and get lost and not care.
It allows you to talk to people without worrying that someone is stalking you. I have grown up in a small town where cows lined the avenues in neat rows and fields flanked the paved roadways. Where you could walk for hours and hours and not get tired. Where a cycle would be quite enough for transporting you if only your ego would allow it.
Kolkata still retains some vestiges of being a city of real people. It isn't the City Of Joy. It is, for many, the City Of Eternal Sorrow. In a way I am glad Kolkata hasn't become Delhi.

Or I was. Kolkata isn't such a nice place anymore. Not since the blasts in Delhi. People exchanging glances of disgust at the government and roadside "Adda"s have transformed into people walking at night knowing full well that this Puja might well be the last Puja for them.
There is a rumour going around that Kolkata will be the next target. And it will be the Pujas.
I don't feel safe any m0re. Nobody does. Not the mother in Delhi who lost her son only because he had tried to warn the terrorists that they had left their bag behind. Neither the mother here who isn't sure if her headstrong son will come back at the end of the day.
We can no longer trust. Nor can we hope. A friend of mine said yesterday that she was afraid to go shopping because she was afraid she would die.
I am much too little to blame anybody. So its pointless talking about Shivraj Patil or the Police. The only thing I noticed was that as I reached home last night, I couldn't find a single channel which giving uninterrupted coverage about the blast; I saw cricketers instead. ...It seemed we had already moved on.

Its one in the morning. And I am researching stuff for a conference later in the day. The world,as I look out of my window, is dark and quiet, just the way I like it. Of late, blogging has become too much of an imposition and less of a pleasure. Hence I have putting it off.

I have been busy. And strangely,busy with things I like doing. None of them have a direct bearing with my college course but I like doing them anyway. I meet new people, do new things. I hardly find time to go through my favourite blogs nowadays, much less update mine. A year ago, I had nothing else to do. I just read and blogged and listened to music.
I have been reflecting on my past year for the past two whirlwind weeks. I was incredibly thankful for having too many engagements to be solitary.
I just read my favourite blogs for the first time in 7 months. And I loved it. I had lost the connection somewhere. I searched for it. Old friends from unfamiliar blogs who had moved on with their lives, people whom I knew only from what they wrote; I met all of them tonight. They seemed alien. And I type this out, I am slowly becoming aware of the fact that I am listening to "1973" after almost a year. It feels nice.
I have too much to do almost everyday now. But perhaps I let life pass me by. I liked the moment tonight to pick up the pieces and reminiscence. I sure had met new people. But I had forgotten the old ones.In my haste to be in the thick of things, perhaps I didn't realize how good I had it back then. A year ago.

Sarah's Night

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