Typing out loud

 Last weekend, I traveled back in time, to a city where you would find Johnson babies, ceiling fans that still change voltage from time to time, wooden almirahs, yellow lights that attract insects, whistles at midnight, desserts that are served in a Cerelac bowl, tube lights that switch on with a flicker, restaurants that receive phone calls to take orders, and a father who can still handle spicy food.  It's still a city, but just a little less of it.  As nostalgia slowly hits you, you realize you are old enough to be nostalgic. You realize with a snap that there was a pre-COVID. You witnessed a time when Snapdeal was a thing, 9Xm was a thing, and Imran Khan was a thing. And the fact that it is not just post-Jio, but also post Shahid's chocolate boy phase. You realize every generation will have their own Don, and you have already had yours.  Maybe this time you too experienced an unknown Durgapur, not the one you packed in a suitcase when you left for Kolkata. 

It is amusing how certain roads always bring back certain memories every time I pass them. The green, soothing road that led to my school. Or the filthy, crowded, narrow lane that led to a claustrophobic doctor's chamber in Rajabazar. The busy market astride such lanes, that sold items of no specific order. The road that had a huge water tank I was scared of, as a child. Or the road where I got lost for the first time. The road along which, we shared a bottle of cold drink on a summer evening. Or the road on my way home, that had an old woman who reminded me of my late grandmom. The road where a transwoman returned me a change of ten rupees, noticing I didn't have much money in my wallet. Finding kindness amidst the scarcity of it is overwhelming.  Of the roads I walked with a friend, I walked with a date, I walked alone.  The roads that were kind to me and the roads that were too fast for me. Their footpaths, buildings, shops, cafes and ATMs. Their bends, lights, shadows, cha...

 I always long for the mountains, but suddenly I miss the sea deeply: the sound of it, the touch of it, the sandy feel of it, the horizon, the heat, the wind, and even the crab curry that stains your fingernails yellow. I noticed something adorable the other day. A friend of mine is such a parent when it comes to his pet, and I missed another friend, so I made the salami sandwich she always makes. In this way, months passed, one after the other: in coffee-stained cup plates of Coffee house, in long, tiring summer afternoons, and in the gap between your furrowed eyebrows.