Random Thoughts

It was a ritual for me. Every year I would travel to Pune – my birthplace. I could never condition myself to like Maharashtra in general and Pune in particular. In fact when my relatives would ask me which city did I like more – Pune or Calcutta I, with a straight face, would answer Calcutta. In spite of its filth and indiscipline I loved Cal. It exuded warmth like no other city. I loved the din of the markets and the tin sheeted buses with the wooden shutters that would prevent any sunlight from coming in.

I continued my love affair with the eastern part of the country well into my college years. I studied at Kharagpur and loved every moment of it. It was a small town with the IIT driving its economy. We were the kings of that place and feared no one.

But those were different times.

I started working three years back. I left my innocence in the cozy environs of IIT Kharagpur and stepped timidly into the corporate world, unsure of what was expected of me. I had not seen much of India except for Pune and Nagpur and I saw India through the eyes of my friends at IIT KGP who seemed to come from all parts of the country. I remember asking a friend from Srinagar how the city was like and he would describe the beauty of the Valley – another would talk about the prosperous fields of Punjab while the third about the sights and sound of B’lore.

In a matter of few months I traveled across the breadth of the country. I tasted the first JP miles and eagerly awaited my upgrade. I started maturing and also started looking at things with a different lens. My travels continued unabated. I have had the opportunity to work in Bihar for two years and also stay in grand hotels. I have spent time on the banks of the Ganges in Haridwar and in Munger. And every moment spent away from Cal has been a revelation for me. I came to know the India that loved to work. I have seen poverty in Mumbai and Kolkata. The difference was in how people dealt deal with it. Mumbaikars would want to work their way out of poverty. They were proud and hard working. In B’lore, the peon in the office was smartly turned out – clean shaven, decent clothes. And in Calcutta people would love to display their poverty. Inherently lazy and undisciplined they would stall all signs of progress. They would bask in the glory of their wretchedness. They would take five years to build a flyover and celebrate it as an accomplishment.

I am not ignoring the fact that the rest of India is also corrupt, if not more than West Bengal. But the basic difference is that the corrupt will extract their share but will also allow work to happen. No wonder people migrate from Bengal in such huge numbers every year.

I have started disliking Cal. It is steeped in lethargy. And things seem to get only worse. I have not been charmed by the materialistic delights of the other parts of India, it is only that I have actually come realize what India is capable of, which Cal in all these years prevented me from realizing.

Just trash what all the critics say about the new B’lore International Airport. Take a car and drive on the road that connects the airport to Hebbal. Your heart will swell with pride at what India can do. And if you are a Calcuttan you’ll grow green with envy.