Amar shonar bangla

As children, we are always eager to grow up. But it is only as adults that we realize that the icing from the cake has been licked and the best part is probably over.

So has it been with me. I came into this world, on a day when folks on the other side of the world were busy enjoying fireworks to celebrate Independence Day, in a not-so-snazzy part of Kolkata – the north. I grew up in Mumbai and it is the only place I call home. But the city where I was born – where my maternal home is - holds a special place in my heart. It is where I have spent every single summer vacation, with or without my family.

For me, ‘quaint’ will always bring to mind the bottle green doors and green shuttered windows on each and every house dating back to the British Raj nestled comfortably alongside narrow lanes. It is a neighbourhood of now-crumbling 18^th and 19^th century buildings that are painted either yellow with green doors and windows or in a white-and-light blue combination.

I still remember the times when my maternal grandfather in his trademark white starched dhoti and kurta took me to buy either milk or sondesh every morning holding my tiny hands and declare with unmistakable pride to acquaintances as we passed by ‘aamar may’r may’ (my daughter’s daughter).

North Kolkata has a beauty of its own that often goes unrecognized and therefore unacknowledged. It is still largely populated with Bengalis and Marwari families that settled many generations ago to set up businesses here. One can still spot Tant saris – cotton embroidered saris that are so characteristic of Bengal - drying from pretty wrought-iron balconies, the controversial hand-pulled rickshaws and the lazy trams.

This kind of beauty may as well be an acquired taste for I know many south Calcuttans who remain unaware of this side of the city. It is of little surprise then that most tourists who are looking for a typical Kolkata experience rarely go beyond British-style buildings in Park Street and elsewhere in South Kolkata. Even the guide books have yet to discover it.

But there are a few to whom this kind of heritage matters. A foundation called Cruta – Conservation & Research of Urban Traditional Architecture – founded by a tiny group of conservationists has started organizing heritage walks through streets to educate people about the eclectic architecture at hand.

It is of course difficult to lure the youngsters from all the malls that have sprouted up in the south (that is leading to a whole new mall culture among Bengalis) to get them to walk through filth and impromptu public baths near the water mains. But it is a start.

For me though, the after-effects of spending a large part of my early childhood in Kolkata will never wear out. I remember as a second grader at the age of eight or so I dressed up in a white dhoti-and-kurta for a fancy dress competition at school looking every bit like a true Bengali Babu. I even sang an epoch-making poem by Rabindranath Tagore which was later made popular by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose - 'Ekla Chalo Re' (Walk alone).