Kolkata, Ah Calcutta :)

No, I am not going to write yet another homesick tale.

Someone I find extremely smart has recently shifted back to Kolkata after working in Delhi for quite some time. She shared an update recently saying “How do I react when mom shouts on the phone cause I am not home by 10pm?”

I have always volunteered for the I-got-all-the-independence-at-home-too clan whenever I have had debates with people on the Kolkata VS Bangalore topic and trust me; I have had MANY of these debates. No I do not belong to that section of the society where the mother would marry you off at 21 saying “ja ja moja korar biyer por korish”, that does not mean I can come home drunk and the Mommy would not react. But I do come from a household where you tell the mother a week after drinking out with friends and she would roll her eyes with “beshi urishna” and that be it!

Recently (and when I say recently, I mean yesterday) there was a little tiff with the mother because?
“Breakfast kheye ghum ta kon desher niyom?”
“Bikel 5tay kheye snan korte jachhish mane?” and the likes.

I tried explaining this is how it is when you are on your own and I was half afraid because she would start hinting on the million possibilities of not being on my own emotionally, which would lead to finding a partner but no, she kind of gave up the fight. Mainly because I stay so away that she did not want to destroy the distant conversations that we have with arguments. Lately there has been too many of them. Yes I felt bad for her but I was wondering how difficult it is going to be for her to accept the new bad lifestyle that I have now.

That is when I was wondering if these people were right about not wanting to settle back to Kolkata for this ‘independence’ which I do not clearly understand but then. They told me to sort the matter off with monthly visits (yes quite a joke right now when I think twice before eating dinner out two days consecutively). I was almost convinced when Piyadi and Sir also said, Kolkata is great but we are beyond that age and phase where we can live there permanently, or not atleast we hit the 40s.

But then, I get to see this song, and the streets and the places and the lanes and I know, I just know, be it sacrificing on noodle straps or nighters or beer or breakfast for lunch or whatever the heck it is. THIS place is where I want to be. Always! My city of joy!

Although the ‘living life on my own terms at Bangalore’ swag wins over the taunting Kolkata aunties over the already arrived “marriageable age”, the robbarer mangsho and chhader pasher ghorer ghum (but you HAVE to be awake by 10:30am) and Maa and friends and memories and almost everything about it makes up for ALL the sadness that there is/was/would be.

 Bari jabo :(
P.S. Rituparna boddo nyaka :D