The Park Street

"oi je ..oi Asiatic Society ta aache na tar shamne niye choulun" (you know the Asiatic Society ? Drop me off in front of it). Mrs B directed the taxi driver while adjusting her shirt. She was going to Park Street. She felt light and carefree. To the young people who spent their youth in Kolkata, Park street was the place to be. It had the best shopping centres , pubs, and resturants that the city had to offer.

But it more than just that. It was an epitome of everything desirable; but..not readily achievable. At night when this place glittered with neon signs of branded shops , the aroma of rich food wafted out as suave men with dazzling women on their arm casually sauntered into the expensive resturants; the young people would wander through the crowd trying to be a part of the world into which they did not have a passport. At least not yet.

Mrs B was no exception. She had fallen in love with this street as a college kid. She felt alive walking through these streets. She had often surreptitiously peered through the heavy and tinted glass doors wondering what lay inside. The very fact that she had no access to many of these places as a pennyless student made her feel rebellious.

Later in life, her travel would take her to the streets of Manhatten, pubs of Chicago and shopping centres of San Fransisco. However, in no place on earth did she feel quite as young and quite as rebellious as she felt when she was at Park street, Kolkata. That was five years ago.

After collge she came back and completed the Masters program in her home town. She got accepted for a PhD into a university in the States. She had fallen in love. She was Mrs.B now. And yet there was never a time that she had been to Kolkata without going to Park Street. She had convinced herself that it was nostalgia.

As her taxi sped towards Park street she looked out. It was evening. Weary faces were returning home on packed public buses. Surely most of them were office goers? Some of them might be working at various offices in Park street. She wondered how they felt at being in Park Steet all through out the day. Excitement? boredom? nothing at all? Their faces did not clue her into anything. She just noticed that they were mostly tired.

The neon signs were starting to light up one by one. She felt young and excited. She did not stop to think that tonight she could get into any shop and any pub she wanted. This was just another street in a very known part of the world. There was no more any mystery here. She paid the taxi driver; alighted; fixed her jeans and shirt. Peered into the rearview mirror of a car parked nearby. She looked pretty ..the evening was just starting..and it was whole world out there waiting to be explored. She hummed a tune and started walking....

Photograph by Atreyee Bhattacharya