Sensory Overload, memories of Kolkata.
Voices wail from the minarets every night at eight o'clock sharp. The Muslim call to prayer rises into the thick, dusty atmosphere, mingling with Kolkata's million other voices. Crickets chirp energetically in mango and palm trees which sway to a gentle breeze. Relentless honks and horns of endless cars, yellow taxis and tuk-tuks, motorbikes and rickshaws. A buzz and low thronging, the heartbeat of West Bengal.
I sit and absorb, exhausted by a day of traveller's sickness. My neck, arms, legs, face, all exist in a kind of constant sweaty, sticky, euphoria. But at rest nonetheless, content.
The air is thick, it hangs heavy. Once in a while the thunderous clouds release gallons upon gallons, retribution for the city releasing all its smoke, toxic fumes, pollution, into the skies. Once in a while the tension in the air recedes, the heavens open momentously. But mostly we wade through the hot, humid, odorous substance around us.
My tongue is constantly kept on its feet. Every new mouthful a new ecstasy. Masala, sizzle and spice, Tandoori, Biryani, Chaat, texture and taste, tantalising.
Colours scream everywhere, competing for visual supremacy. Explosions of amber and orange marigolds, blues of deep hues, lush green of tropical flora, peeling plaster of ageing, loved yellow walls. Novels upon novels pile high, high, in the college district, towers of words, spilling stories into the passerby's heart. Scenes of slaughter on Al-Muddin street, open air butchers, splatter and stench. Hordes of street dwellers, the forgotten and the desperate, outstretched leathery hands of veteran urchins competing with the soft innocent palms of the child beggar.
On every avenue and boulevard, patrol Calcutta's buses, colourful, magical and mystifying vehicles brimming with commuting souls, joyrides of bold tones and fonts and exuberant life.
Overwhelmed by sight and sound, smell and sensation and savour. By this enchanting, bubbling broth where brews the sweet and sour of the human condition.
