Cold Feet

'Everyone should make at least one. I am sure you will enjoy it.' My landlord sounds encouraging. It starts almost as a joke.

'The snow seems good. Its been there the whole day. We can almost make a snowman.'
'Not interested yaar.' My roommate muttered.

'The snow really is perfect for a snowman you know. But it will melt by the evening.' That was where my landlord comes in. Again, 'There's lots of shoveled snow outside.' And then finally, 'Here is the carrot for the nose. And here are the eyes. You can make one on the porch'.

There i a snowstorm, as I like calling it, the night I from Toronto. White powder falling from the sky. I trace my footsteps from the bus stop, watching them disappear, reappear. An ephemeral coat. A flake settles on my fingertips, melting away. I hold my tongue out and feel a few drops from the black freezer up in the sky. The yellow streetlights faintly the streets, reflected by the white. It does not seem night. It does not seem day. People, many of them are not happy with it. I am in the seventh heaven. 'It's getting worse'. I just smile and trundle along, watching the white hooded cars, the empty sagging seats at the bus-stop and the drains bemoaning their uselessness. Sometimes sinking beyond the invisible boundary of the sidewalk. But that was the day before.

The next day the kids on TV make snow animals. I wait inside, watching. And then it hits me. I have never made a snow man, ever. The decade old attempts at Rohtang were stillborn. With feet after tourist feet mutilating the virgin snow, it had turned into ice, tired, resistant and intractable. It had met the ultimate fate of all snow in India. Now is the opportunity. Hey, even the kids on TV have done it !

My landlord considered it almost a crime, a deprived childhood, one that had never seen a snowman. She made sure I march out armed with carved carrots, round onions, marginal enthusiasm and Calvinistic ambitions. The porch seems too public. What if someone sees me. The sole kid on the street has built a castle. Guarded by a plastic owl and a white dog which disappears into the walls.

My creation will have to stand guard at the backyard, where wandering deer venture in sometimes from the dundas wildlife reserve. Cautious steps, wooden ones, almost at level now take me down the backyard. The same backyard which welcomes all seasons, green in summer, yellow, orange and dark red in autumn and a dry white in winter. The floor is covered with a thick carpet of grass and green wall of shrub both of which feed the deer. It also hides the squirrels, big black ones which enter the house if the window is left open, to try their hand at everything from cupboards to boxes to trash. My landlord always thinks it is the work of raccoons. Now the green carpet is white.

Down, in the land of squirrels, deer, raccoons, shrubs, I glance around. A guy next door is practicing snowboarding. Down the slope, then up. Towards netherland again. He did not fall. I am disappointed. I scoop up a small heap of snow. Then stare at it. The winter cut through my leather gloves. Should I make two balls, one over the other like they draw in the cartoon strips? But it is no longer powder. The top layer had met the sun and melted brittle, stiff. The heap refuses to roll into a ball. It assumes the shape of a pyramid instead. This is going to be one big fat snowman with an over sized winter coat. I roll over another smaller ball for the head. It comes out oval, like a rugby ball instead of a football. The kids on tv had worked hard ! It is not as simple as it looked, I realized as I see the gruesome figure. It needs some hands now.

The shrub is not ready to come off and I am adamant. Slowly it gives way. The roots remain underground. Two branches in my hands, I stumble backwards. Towards the newly transformed birdbath-to-bird-ice-rink. Besides it were two pots, waiting for plants without soil. Not empty. Filled with powder. I see bright potential for a hat.

The sticks stand out like outstretched ghost palms begging for solace. The carrots and onions take places carefully carved out. I overturn one pot. There is an oval mound on the step. It is already non-powder. Hasty palm pressure made sure nothing came of it. Powder does not stay its own way for long. The falling snow forces that below it into ice. When it stops, the layer on top melts ever so slightly, coalescing. Snow cannot flow away. It collects, forming mountains everywhere. Smoke burns water. Black walls form on both sides of the sidewalk. The melting ice is slippery, so the roads and footpaths are salted. Every now and then, someone slips. But they need to reach home, to shovel all the snow out. In the fall you shovel leaves, and then snow which follows the leaves like a family of duck. Quacking away at your misery. Virgin beauty to monster madam.

I tried out the second pot. Another mound. But only a little bit of carving. The brittleness at the bottom is hidden. I place it on the head but it does not stand still. So I flatten the head out, thumping it, cutting the brains. Then make it top heavy. The snow has melted through my shoes. My capped head, squint eyed, begging hand man lacks shoes, I realize. I conjure up boots. One is large, another is a sad case of elephant legs. I walk back to the house, semi satisfied.

Next morning, as I wake up, the sun hazes into the room. Snow melts. Top heavy structures melt further. My snowman stands in the backyard. Hatless. Headless.

Kolkata Chronicled

'Taxi?', a fellow with a moustache and stubble enquires. As a rule, all such language is representative of taxi drivers scouting for passengers. The surprise here was, there was only one. No pack of hounds closing in on doomed prey. Calcutta looked hopeful.

The yellow ambassador taxicabs are an intrinsic part of the city landscape. The same way a black premier padmini is of Mumbai, a multicolored vikram is of lucknow and the yellow painted red seat shikara is of Shrinagar. Coming through the bypass via Salt Lake City, you see large tracts of green but in development land screaming from both sides. A site few cities can boast of. (The only comparison I could think of was Hyderabad with it's million year old rock strewn landscape.) The road is lined with Coconut trees. Something which stands out, especially when your airplane circles the city forgetting the fact that it was supposed to land.

As the car weaves through the narrow bylanes and the constantly overhead flyover, it feels like Lower Parel. Old dusty buildings, sundry people crossing roads and a jumble of cars maneouvering under flyovers. Buildings, ancient and creaking, dot the roads, lanes and bylanes, interspersed rarely with the modern. Sometimes, a jarring half-renovation leaves behind a comical (architectural) juxtaposition that escapes classification. Multi-storey relics of a bygone era also stand witness, watching the city sprawl outwards. Things which perhaps gives Kolkata an old world charm not present most places.


Malls and roads are not wide, accentuating traffic and plaguing parking. Branded outlets, while international inside, carry the look of a suburban market, when driving through. Between cars of all variety, two wheelers and helmets resembling miner's hats stand out. The boards everywhere are in English, the same way as in Mumbai, Delhi or Hyderabad. In fact more than Hyderabad, which denotes that it is a cosmopolitan city.

Chat stands, kulfi and the ubiquitous kwality walls cyclewalahs declare their presence with a crowd of connossieurs waiting to catch a bite. An assortment of cars wait by the sidewalk for a dip of the puchka and a bite of the chila. The especially enticing mango kulfi (it was kulfi literally in a mango) is a street delicacy not to be missed.

While in the city, it is impossible to miss the Havda brigde. Without any pillars, with an awe-inspiring view of the Hoogly, a broad promenade and pleasantly vibrating side-railings, it offers multiple opportunities for photographs. Primitive jute mills and red brick paint-peeled buidlings stand in wilful harmony with the red railway station. Boats float arcross the horizon and cars drive over the Rabindra Setu. The imaginatively named 'New Havda' bridge with private vehicles, lesser traffic, toll booths and sidewalk-less road stands in a wired contrast to its pillarless all-men-are-equal ancient neighbour. As the car approaches visible distance, you recall photo-albums of all your relatives who ever went to the Golden Gate. 'New Havda' however, is protected from the ravings of capitalist tourism. With a police fine.

People travel across the river. On jetties. 3 rupees each - that is the minimum fare for lazing across the hoogly on a white blue boat chugging smoke. Boys, perhaps employed by the transport, jump across from port to river to boat and the other way round. The Hoogly flows on - in slow sluggish currents buried under its own expanse, letting wooden boats float gently and be guided by the oars. The lights of eden shimmer on and gongs of the prayer to kali drift with the mellowing day.

A railway line runs near the havda. Ring rails. Empty rails. Rails also run in the city centre. Comfortably ensconced in northern calcutta, the trams of chitpur and bada bazaar welcome you into the arms of old calcutta. The change is gradual. The roads get narrower, the buildings dirtier, the traffic thins as the crowds bulge and then you even see the hand-rickshaws. In the land of equals, man rides on man, unconcerned. This is the Calcutta you see in the movies.

A tram follows my taxi. However, there is only one lane and no space to park. So it follows us for quite some time, trumbling on and humming a horn whenever we stop for directions. The road names mark all addresses. Perhaps a vestige of British planning, addresses in Calcutta are the preserve of streets, like the west. (e.g. in Calcutta you live on Russel Street, in Mumbai you live at Parel) Very few area names, fewer landmarks. Road names in Mumbai confuse, landmarks in Calcutta do so. The autorickshaw driver takes in five people - with a security rod near the driver's seat, so he does not fall out.

Vast tracts of gardens, especially near the Eden do not surprise you. They follow you right from the Victoria Memorial, a white mansioned, ancient-gardened Victoria Memorial. Protected by the Marble lions gruaring the gates, you can see the people walking, exercising. You can also see an orange beaked bird. I could not figure out its name. The sprawling gardens with grandfather trees, a throned queen with a pigeon piss crown and calm reflecting pools where ducks eat fish attract all kinds of tourists.

The memorial houses a history of India. A musuem. They story of class divisions, surprisingly, does not overwhelm the picture. Hidden vignettes can be found in the numerous life stories scripted (like a Britisher who died a troubled death advocating rights for the natives). Ancient portraits (the son of Tipu Sultan painted by a European, Siraj-ud-daula looking pretty foreign in a furred cap) and amazing landscapes ('A rock-cut temple on Salsette island' - my guess are the Kanheri Caves, Kashmir, Kanyakumari, Gujrat) from across India at the turn of the 18th century present a picture of history pickled, preserved.

Coming back to the parks, the land outside is marked with stalls and with horse-carts driven by half starved ponies. Ponies which graze in the parks under tall trees, yellow flowers. a searing sun and noon criket. As you near the eden, the parks turn into parking lots, especially on a day of the IPL. Parking for cars with stickers, blue, green, red, pink - multicoloured privileges of getting closer to the grounds. The grounds of full. As many people throng in to see the cricket as to see Shahrukh Khan. The pitch is slow and the white cheerleaders seem to be the only interesting thing around - the calcutta crowd shouts anyway, unfluttered with the dangers of moral turpitude. Even Shahrukh escapes the obligatory dance routine. Bored, the flash lights refuse to work. Nothing shimmers on the Hoogly.

Buses in Calcutta are small and cheap like all public transport. Glorified vans. They leave you at the landmarks, the streets, the street market of Chowringee with the un-named old building that features mandatorily in all tourist guidebooks. It also leaves you near the metro, as the crowds move to the underground. The metro seems small especially if you have experienced Delhi. The stations however, are lined with art like all good metros whould be. It is crowded but not crowded enough to evolve its own chaotic structure unlike the suburban railway of Mumbai. The city is sweaty, smelly, tasty, crowded and red. It is also a sightful. And something you cannot easily forget.