Mostly divine. At times Bovine.

A couple of months in this city and I have realized Home is where the fart is. You won't understand if you stay alone and enjoy the pleasure of farting as and when you like.

No I am not going to continue on that gross note.  So ...

Autos. 

They continue to entertain. 

At about 9.40 am. I am listening to music and trying my best to ignore the blast of cold air that's freezing my face. When...

Autowalla: Sholay picture dekhi hain?

Me: haan kyu?

Autowalla: Us mein double role kiska hain?

Me: kya? ... silence ... pata nahin.

Autowalla:  Sikke ka. (loud guffaw)  kisiko malum nahi...chahe jisko bhi pucho.

Who needs earphones...

Parents

After demanding a recital of my daily diet my mother hands over the phone to my father, who, upon hearing that my roomie is a cleanliness freak asks me whether she is having any problems adjusting with me. I had to remind him whose father he is. (Scandalizing!)

Work

Was going okay till I found a photo on my desk early one morning. A photo from a book launch. There were  5 people in the photo including me and the 4 humans apart from me occupied 50 per cent of the photo-space, rest of it was my territory. If all this fat were Helium, you'd see me as a gloriously inflated gas balloon waving at you from the Delhi-sky. 

Food

The funny thing is my roomie prefers to have ice-cream in winter as they don't melt. The not-so-funny thing is that I fall for that logic and hop down the stairs to get chocolate ice-cream at 9pm from the guy right across the street who by the way also sells mumphali. Huh.

PG

The fact that you may reach home and find that there's no water and that people will just say that and continue doing whatever they were doing calmly was not what I had ever imagined. Anyway so far I have been quite lucky. Have edible food, adequate space and a gem of a room-mate.

No this place is not home. I miss my friends, I miss those silent moments browsing books,  the loud chuckles in the restaurants and cafes, and debating for 15 minutes with Baba about who should make the evening tea. 

Yes the place is cold, commercial, rape-capital and whatever else you want to say  and yes every time I walk down a road alone I imagine the worst whenever a bike approaches but---I don't know at which precise moment it started---there's a tiny part of me that feels bad when someone criticizes the city. That does not mean that I'm not spending at least a few moments every single day planning my next visit to Kolkata. Home.