It's amazing. For the 20 years I have stayed in salt lake, never before I have looked back and smiled. Now that I do, I miss those avenues, those boulevards and the brisk walk to my neighborhood...
Part 1: Labony
The closest and the most accessible. I still remember I used to be fascinated by those interesting wall patterns on the boundary which covered Labony Housing estate so intricately. The first memories go back to labony school-my first familiar landmark in the society-no because I studied there but because my aunt used to teach there and had a lot of tales to tell us about it. And who can forget Murari kaku's shop? It's the 'eastern oriental fair' which james Joyce talks about in his short story 'Araby' for me. Still incomparable and of a much much higher class than the glitzy and swanky mall outlets and branded retail stores in any part of the world for me. There was nothing that you could not get from his shop and the most alluring part was the benevolent smile that used to greet me whenever I used to visit it either for the month's supplies or a piece of soap or a loaf of bread. My mother's hankering over a couple of rupees was also met with the most cordial of all expressions and an unending desire to please his customers. Truly, retailing was a piece of cake for him and he succeeded all right! Just around the corner was a sweetmeat shop called 'dool-phool' named after two sisters one of them who got married and came to stay in our locality. It churned out the worst of the sweets but nevertheless, guests in house would mean a trip to 'dool-phool', since there were no other sweets shop nearby. The old dingy alleys led to the greengrocers with all their fresh splendours-potatoes, onions, lettuces, cauliflowers, freshwater fish, mutton, tender chicken and the list would go on and everybody used to have their own advertisements-either shouting to the customers to come to them and check out the freshest of the lot or simply howling their low price varieties. It was unmatched. Who can forget the stationary shop where a jovial middle aged person tended to the time taken by me to decide which pen to buy, with unparalleled patience. Labony variety stores' ambience was perfect, now that I revive, to relax in a shade when the scorching sun was making its presence unbearable for us. It was a welcome relief amidst the fragnance of the freshly grained lentils and the pungent but titillating mustard oil. These sights and sounds and smells transport me to the olden past world of charm and laziness, only to find my existence now in a drab and mechanical world of commercialization and unemotion. Quite a number of times, I have played criclket with the so called 'rival kids' of labony-alone, in thier team,as well as while representing vidyasagar. My record while playing alone, I would like to believe, has been unmatched. There was a day, I faintly remember, i whacked sixes after sixes to a bowler. Trips to Bimal uncle's home for tuition was a reluctant affair but nevertheless, I miss it terribly now, such a goo teacher he was. But most of the days , the ambience in the house was such-with all the curtains drawn and no one in the house, either of us would doze off regularly, leaving the avoidable RD Sharma maths book unattended. Those were the days. The joy of escaping from the drab world of tuitions was a high for me. I used to run back to my home, only to come down and start my evening playing session with my friends. Later on, Arka and me used to go to labony together-if the either of us had something to buy. Or at least cross the estate if we had to go somewhere else on the same route. The stalls of milk, flowers and Fuchkas outside Labony was a great place to stop by and hang out.Even now, when I go to Kolkata, I make it a point to find an excuse to visit it at least once. During pujas, we used to visit Labony's puja, which 8 out of 10 times was better than ours, thanks to the high budget due the number of residents they had. But anyways, we would find a thousand faults with their pandals, thier idol and a host of other things and leave labony with a sense of accomplishment, grinning ear to ear. We used to dance the hardest near labony gate on the beats of the most rocking tune during durga puja immersion procession (the nagin tune) So a relationship of sweet rivalry existed between vidyasagar and labony but an indispensable bond was unmistakable in its presence between labony and me.
Part 2: CA Market
Arguably, no why arguably, DEFINITELY, the best market that I have visited. When I talk about best market it doesnt mean that it has to have cool stores and heavy tech facilities. My idea of perfect markets is that it should have a warm, cosy and familiar feeling with accessible and comfortable marketing facilities. And CA market suited the bill perfectly. It still does in many aspects. And the charm has increased manifold after I and Jaya used to roam around in the alleys surrounding it. But starting from trips to CA market with Bhaisaab to Amma to my parents to Arka, every trip has been so very special that it is altogether a different experience. Mona kaka's shop was a direct substitute for murari kaku's in labony. I liked dipping my hands into the sacks of rice kept outside the shop and also used to enjoy the star treatment meted out to us. SO often my parents were offered a cup of tea and I, a toffee of my choice, which made my trips even more pleasurable. Another attraction was the cassette Cds shop where, most probably, the first Salman khan Cassette was notched up by me before anybody else. The fruit shop, the magazine shop(where the comic magazines laid neatly on slabs of stones), the roll centre outside, the chemist's, Ravi da's shop outside, Sudeepta on the 1st floor(where all the latest He-man and g.i.joe figures used to entice me), the dressers upstairs, the stationers where I used to buy my school books from-so special they are and so strongly they are etched in my memory that I find it very difficult apart from them now. The malls dont impress me. But now Ca market has 'developed'. The advent of modernity is good but somewhere the charm loses itself...
Part 3: EC market
Yeah it was dirty, disorganised and lacked maintenance. It still is and I dont appreciate the dark roads that lead to it. But nevertheless, without EC market, the trilogy wouldnt have completed. Regular trips to the market was a habit. Sometimes for buying the latest russian books, underpriced and exotic, sometimes to buy fresh and hot vegetable chops and out-of-the-world kheerkadamba sweets with flakes of kheer over it from 'amrita piyashi'. Rows of GIJoe action figures used to hang outside SNCL, an acronym for 'essential' used to live up to its name for me. Everytime, I used to nag about visiting the shop and deriving vicarious pleasure out of watching them and 20 other odd toys, showcased so intricately, glistening and seducing me so much as to give me dreams of them. Then there was the brothers shop which I still did not understand sold what? 'Aahar's' rolls were the one of its kind in Kolkata with tender dumplings of chicken golden fried with a dash of lemon on it.So when I have saleem's or kareem's rolls here, the zing is missing and overpriced still. The shops in all the three markets mentioned were generic in nature but still all of them had an individuality of theirs.
I did not mention Chhorda's store in Vidyasagar as it is in my own locality. The Duttabad market also deserves a special mention as far as charm is concerned. Of late, City Centre and Purbachal market also were favourite haunts but only because Jaya accompanies me to these places.
I long for these markets and neighbourhoods now. So when I doze off while returning home in a bus and wake up and lose the sense of time and place, I imagine that after a little while i will be visiting one of the markets to buy something. And then, I realize that I am miles apart from them and they wont be accessible to me. Only in my distant dreams, perhaps, where i could see them but not touch.
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