Footprints

Within the boundaries of haze,

His voice becomes clearer.

Among the landfills of grey,

Colours of the footprints glow.

Singing souls look within the depth of innocence,

The numbing smell of chrysanthemum,

Turns into fragile dust of cigarettes.

Under my foot they swim for touch,

And on my hand sings an empty box.

Glasses

Blue pastel colours beside the palate stinks today,
Tomorrow the small days will grow old
The shards of glass is hiding my clothes,
Even today the memories remain...
Even today the telephone beside my diary rings
Again and again.

These threads of enchantment,
Have got entangled in my fingers
I have no clue,
How to solve open this knot.
Today very particle of my body seems to remain like the last raga of that night,
That passes through the clouds.

Every evening the lights from the lamps
Blinds me into frenzy
How is this regard?
These dreams make me shudder
I close my eyes to weave a road,
A road to intoxication...tolerance.

If this rains like a storm, there is a way out here
Into a glass of desire
So many times I broke your mirror
To look through the rays into your eyes
But the numb river flows like never before
And the telephone beside the diary rings again and again...

©Madhurima Halder

Dreamland

A little tune spreading soon
Far and near
The brush touches the canvas
From here to there.

Blushing like a bride...

As if the gardens of song grow roses in them
As if the little tune spreading soon
Far and near.
The hamlets open their doors without dismay.

The canvas standing on the easel shuddered
While I drew
The Sun with a brighter 
Form of new

Achinpur...
I created Achinpur
All afternoon
I made Achinpur...

©Madhurima Halder

Shadows of Time...

Thousand seconds to figure out what happened
Twelve seasons of monsoons passed by,
And still they remain in drought
Trying to figure out through the windows of glass.
O desires of heart, what have you created?

Fifty one memories did make me bleed,
Seventy three more to rip my wounds
What is it that I am trying to figure out through the panes of mist,
The monsoon or the drought?
The famine or the loneliness of the days?

When impossibility turns it's head down
Translating the unscripted words
What is it that remains?
O the garden of time
Why are you pacing so hard?

Smoke is starting to set fire on ice
Through the bliss of paradise, Pigeons walk
When unbearable lightning of the sky touches, I start to realise, what did I lose,
Was it the time or just a single moment of love?

Destiny designing it's way out of my heart
The waves of sea turns still
Why are you being so stubborn?
Flow over the last part of drought
The desires will start realizing the arrivals of monsoon.

Eighty seven touches on the toughest part
Feathers seem like stones.
The excitement of the months keep arousing
The timely tales of rain that casts the clock today.

Why aren't you mad O heart?
Why don't you find your own door...
Pavements of diamonds near the fountains, sparkle
While the sailing smoke speak on its way.

©Madhurima Halder

Calcutta Diaries: Part 5

My earliest memories of the world are filled with the sights, sounds, tastes and smells of Calcutta. My parents tell me I was born in the Turret suite of the Eden Hospital. And then due to father's business we first moved to Park Street, then Saltlake and ultimately Barasat.

The city of Calcutta formed the backdrop to most of my childhood memories– the sight of yellow ambassador taxis; traffic jams on Howrah bridge and policemen in white; the trundle of hand-pulled rickshaws through busy lanes; the clatter of trams winding their way through congested streets; Rabindra sangeet wafting through our neighbour’s windows , Maa clearing her voice in the early morning hours and all the cacophony and celebration of Durga Puja. The slogans of ‘cholbe na, cholbe na’ and 'Hok kolorob' became part of my early Bangla vocabulary in the heydays of strikes watching street processions from our balcony.

My first initiation towards becoming an inveterate foodie was being fed hilsa and rice by Bose Dida, who would patiently handpick all the fine bones of the delicious fish and make balls of fish and rice to feed me fondly... her children all grown up and living abroad; visits to New Market to buy imported cheese so precious in an era before India’s economic liberalization and, of course the cakes at Flury’s. 

I remember the excitement and exhilaration of my first visit to the Victoria Memorial as a five year old. With its cavernous interior capped with a bulbous dome and its gleaming white marble, I mistook it for a queen’s palace and it became the benchmark to my childhood idea of monumentality, forming the setting in my mind’s eye for all the fairy tales of princes and queens. To me, all of Calcutta was like Victoria Memorial – grand, white and gleaming – and I treasured this mental image of the city like a keepsake flower pressed between the pages of a beloved book.

The yellow ambassador taxis are still here, as if the automobile revolution that had hit the rest of India had somehow escaped the city and so were the policemen dressed in white.

And yet these grand buildings, a bit tottering with age, with rickety balconies and peepul trees growing out of masonry cracks still stood with dignity and pride, silent sentinels to an age of elegance. Their silence was like that of a dowager empress, wrinkled and unsteady on her feet but every inch as regal. That is when I fell in love with Calcutta all over again.

With its Hellenic pediments supported on lofty classical columns, louvred windows, wrought iron balconies and brick covered in lime stucco, Calcutta’s architecture is regal and timeless. Its grand edifices are a study in classical proportions, a carefully articulated composition of mass and void. Unlike the fantastical Victorian Gothic of Bombay with its visual language of gargoyles and spires, a busy medley of pointed arches, cinquefoils, trefoils, quatrefoils, floral and animal imagery composed of sturdy basalt juxtaposed with delicate limestone, Calcutta’s architecture is elegant and understated.

Without the abundance of stone seen in Bombay Presidency, the Bengal landscape offered only terracotta and brick which forms much of its construction material. The classical proportions of its buildings, however, relieved the monotony of brick masonry. Corinthian, Ionic and Doric – the classical orders ruled. Lime stucco gave the buildings a gleaming whiteness and a purity of colour while the quintessential green wooden louvred window shutters filtered light into the handsome buildings and added colour to the facades.

Calcutta was the imperial city, an 18th and 19th century ode to the European Classicism of the colonial rulers. As the capital of British India, it became the site for most of the principal institutions of British India. The Asiatic Society was established in 1784 by Sir William Jones and by 1814, the Indian Museum had been established – the earliest and largest multipurpose museum in the entire Asia Pacific region and second in the world. With its gleaming white chunam plaster and colonnades of Tuscan columns, the magnificent building inspired awe and curiosity. The Government House, with its monumentality built to match that of Kedleston in Derbyshire, became the seat of all Governor Generals and then Viceroys until the shifting of capital to New Delhi in 1912.

Raja Binaya Krishna Deb wrote in The Early History and Growth of Calcutta, published in 1905: ‘With the exception of London, no city in the great British Empire can be compared to Calcutta in point of size, beauty and commercial and political importance. It is not only the recognized capital of British India, and hence the seat of the Supreme Government, as well as the headquarters of the Provincial Governor of Bengal, but it may be regarded as the second capital of the Empire.’ 

This confidence in its superior status endowed Calcutta’s architecture with a supreme confidence and pride. The City of Palaces, its handsome edifices retained an understated elegance, a self-assured confidence that did not bother to blindly copy and replicate other presidencies or colonial towns. Calcutta set the tone for others to follow.

The shifting of the capital to Delhi, however, dealt a blow to Calcutta’s ambitions. For a few decades after independence, it remained among the nation’s most cosmopolitan cities and economic centre. With its Bengali intelligentsia, Anglo-Indian community, Chinese entrepreneurs and Marwari businessmen, the city lived through the 1960s living life and tapping its feet to Usha Iyer (now Uthup’s) songs at Trinca’s and cabarets at Moulin Rouge and Firpos. However, the Naxalite movement led to an exodus of the businesses in the early ’70s, many of the Marwari families shifting base to Hyderabad, Delhi and Bombay.

The grand buildings of Dalhousie Square positioned between St. John’s Church and St. Andrew’s Church (Scottish Kirk) once created a spectacular urban design statement. The Writers’ Building, the General Post Office with its rotunda and the HSBC Bank were part of an unparalleled urban scheme, a dynamic civic centre of political and business institutions. Over the decades, much of the historic fabric was lost. The Mackinnon Mackenzie building was gutted in a fire, the Currency Building suffered a fate of dilapidation and neglect and the harmonious skyline was jarringly punctured by the concrete addition of the Telephone Bhawan.

I urge myself that in however difficult situation I would be in future, my presence in Calcutta should be my first priority.

Calcutta Diaries: Part 4

Nothing can come between food and Bengalis!

The way to a Bengali’s heart is truly through the stomach. Bengalis are pretty famous for eating literally with their hands. And why not! True Bengali food cannot be relished with spoons and forks. With a variety of dishes from rice to lentils to fish (with the bones), it becomes quite difficult to eat only with the help of spoons and forks. If a Bong does not lick each of his fingers after a meal it is to be understood that he has not truly enjoyed the food.

A ‘Bong’ foodie, born and brought up in the city of joy, in a traditional Bengali family, who can know better than me the joys of a delectable Bengali dish? From childhood my taste buds have been titillated by various Bengali dishes prepared by the best cook, my mother.

Coming from the heart of a true Bengali, these are some of the dishes that are all time favourites…

Chingri macher malaikari

You can't miss this out. It's my favorite! No special occasion in a Bengali household is complete without ‘Chingri Maacher Malaikari’. This is one dish that is a bit tricky to cook and the real flavour comes only when prepared with the perfect ratio of spices. Cooked in coconut milk with very mild spices, this is best served with rice. The velvety gravy is the highlight of this dish, which makes it ‘finger lickin’ good’. This preparation fills the entire house with its enticing aroma that waters our mouths.

Ilish bhapa

In West Bengal, there is no substitute for ‘Ilish Maach’. Any preparation with Ilish becomes Bengal delicacy. This dish is a gravy prepared with mustard seeds paste and usually served with rice. This dish is a little tangy in flavour. A preparation of Ilish usually doesn’t require much of spices as the aroma of the fish itself is enough to make the dish exquisite.

Aloo posto

‘Posto’ is an all time Bengali favourite, whether it is cooked with cauliflower or potato or ‘jhinge’ and the list can be quite long. Jhinge aloo posto is a traditional Bengali vegetable preparation where in the ridge gourd(torai or jhinge) and aloo (potatoes) are cooked with poppy seeds and green chillies, generally served with rice. Jhinge (Ridge gourd) has got immense nutrition values and the high water content in it. Poppy seeds help to keep your brains calm. Whenever you go to a Bengali restaurant, a thali will always have jhinge aloo posto as a must item.

Doi mach

A masterpiece of Bengali cuisine, this is a simple, but typical Bengali dish with very little spices– the flavour of the fish is the star of the dish. “Doi” is Yogurt or Curd and “Maach” is Fish and when the mix of the two is perfectly blent, there are very few dishes that can beat this simple preparation. Rohu fish is the perfect for cooking Doi Maach. Doi maach is a very authentic Bengali preparation served typically at lunch with rice not only on festive occasions but also at home as a change from the daily routine.

Sukto

This is my brother’s favourite dish and whenever he is home, nothing can stop him from asking my mother to prepare it as a welcome gift. Shukto is a mix of vegetables with an emphasis to the bitterness, a preparation where instead of hiding the bitterness, it is the taste around which the dish evolves. The bitter taste is said to be good for cleansing the palate and also for letting the digestive juices flow and so no doubt it is a good start off to the meal to follow. This typical recipe is a wake-up call to the piqued taste buds, so that what follows is more enjoyable.

Luchi Aloor Dom

This combination is a classic Bengali breakfast. Luchi is a deep-fried flatbread made of bleached wheat flour and aloor dum is nothing but dum aloo. With guests at home, traditional Bengali families love to serve this combo for breakfast, though they are also prepared for lunch and dinner. This dish revives fond memories of my maternal uncle’s place as my grandmother never failed to prepare it for breakfast during our stay.

Moving on to a few Bengali sweet dishes without which Bengali cuisine is incomplete…

Potoler dolma

This quintessential Bengali delicacy has borrowed its name from Mediterranean cuisine. Dolma generally refers to Turkish food where stuffed vegetables (mostly with spicy rice) and little pouches of stuffed grape leaves enjoy a special place. Although conventionally, the vegetable is stuffed with fish keema (minced fish), people often experiment with chicken, paneer (cheese) and even nutrela (soya bean) stuffing.

Mishti doi

Mitha Dahi is a popular dessert in the states of West Bengal and Odisha. It is prepared by boiling milk until it is slightly thickened, sweetening it with sugar, either guda/gura (brown sugar) or khajuri guda/gura (date molasses), and allowing the milk to ferment overnight. Earthenware is always used as the container for making Mitha Dahi because the gradual evaporation of water through its porous walls not only further thickens the yoghurt, but also produces the right temperature for the growth of the culture.

And yeah never to foget about the epic Rosogolla!

Calcutta Diaries: Part 3

A walk past the streets...

No one would call crowded Calcutta a peaceful city, but it could teach the world a lot about tolerant coexistence.  My Calcutta is rich and ethnically mixed. A walk past Bowbazaar made me realize that it was the Kolkata of Kolkata.

We began by turning off Chittaranjan Avenue into a labyrinth of narrow lanes. First up was Buddhist temple Street, with a guesthouse for travelling Buddhists from all over the world. Round the corner on Weston Street, children in smart brown uniforms were clattering in to Sacred Heart School. It was a pleasure watching them enter when a girl smiled at me and greeted, ' Good morning Didi.' That smile was probably priceless.

Christian areas have the best bakeries, my friend had said pointing out Ajmeri bakery, piled with fruitcake and sweet-salty bakarkhani naan. It was early morning and milk was being delivered. We followed the “milkman” and his flock to the British-built military housing that gave the area its name: Bow Barracks. After independence, the three-storey apartment blocks, green balconies and shutters contrasting with red brick, were taken over by Anglo-Indians, who love to keep their Christmas traditions alive.

Next year Maa had visited Bowbazaar during Christmas when she had mentioned, 'I saw a santa greeting everyone and he was pulled by a rickshaw!'
I had told her that she had been extremely mean since she didn't take me there. Of course, she justified it by saying that I was busy.

Round the corner on Metcalfe Street, we had stopped for a clay cup of chai. It was 8am and the streets were thronged: a man at a tiny desk had been offering use of a mobile phone to migrant workers; in an ironing parlour, irons that looked like museum pieces were being heating on a wood fire. This is a Parsee territory, my friend had said: a large red and grey building is the Zoroastrian fire temple, where a sacred flame had been burning since 1912. The main temple was out of bounds, but in the outer arcade we admired carvings and stained glass depicting the flame and the Faravahar winged disc symbol, and nodded to a priest in snowy white robes. The Parsees originally fled persecution in Iran but now contentedly shared a street with a subsect of Shia Islam: the Aga Khan Jamatkhana – place of worship for the Ismaili community – stood rights opposite.

The main artery of Bowbazar is BB Ganguly Street. Plied by ancient creaking trams, it had several personalities: a loud and noisy wholesale vegetable market in the east, then a carpentry quarter, then the optical district, with glinting spectacles. But we were off to China – a short step away around Sun Yat Sen Street. Here, red flags hung over doorways bearing Chinese names, hawkers sold prawn crackers and water chestnuts and people were slurping Chinese breakfasts of fishball soup. We could be in Shanghai or Soho. There were noodles, incense sticks, dried mushrooms, and every other shop seemed to be a butcher’s, all pig carcasses and strings of Chinese sausage.

After traveling so much, my friend stopped halfway and I too had to stop. I asked him, 'Tell me how did you feel?'
The only answer which he gave was, 'Can we go around the streets again after a while?'
'Sure...' I smiled telling him that such was the marvel of my Calcutta.