CALCUTTA MEMORIES

Iwas born in Calcutta and spent my school and college days here which qualifies me to write on this blog . My early memories of calcutta are the Bangladesh war when we heard of a new word in my lexicon blackout which was preceded by sirens .This was done to alert the people about possible air strikes. Another word that I picked up was Naxalite . although the naxalite uprising had almost ended . Those two seperate events though not interlinked were to determine the course of events in calcutta . The influx of refugges from calcutta from bangladesh which started then and continues till this day has added to the overcrowding of this great city . And the failed revolution of the naxalites has also led to a great lacunae among the Calcutta intelligentsia .

Calcutta has been always regarded as the cultural capital of india a place where great people like Henry Derozio, Aurobindo Ghosh, Ramakrishna Paramhansa , Swami vivekananda ,Rabindrantah tagore , Subhas chandra bose met and transformed lifes . In later years the city got more brickbats than bouquets .While we had a Dominique Lapierre going ga ga over the city we also had Gunter Grass and a former PMm Rajiv Gandhi talk of it disparagingly. But Calcutta still has its charming old world atmosphere which is not there in other metros . Where else would you find people debating over endless cups of tea whether Brazil is better than Argentina in football or whether Satyajit rays films are better than Bergmans . Unlike other cities what mattered in Calcutta was how well you were educated or how intellectual you were also known as Aatel . Another feature of calcuuta was is adda sessions or basically gossip sessions . here you would find young and old men and women gossioping in a public place sitting on a Rock and espounding some cause like Vietnam or Cuba. Some of the landmarks of old calcutta are the Howrah bridge , Howrah station, Victoria memorial, Birla Planetarium , Marble palace ,the Dhakuria lakes , the Maidan or lung of calcutta ,Kkalighat temple , Dakshineswar temple .,Eden gardens,Botanical gardens , zoo