Kalkatte kã jo zikr kiyã tu ne hum-nasheen Ik teer mere seene meñ maarã ki haaye haaye…

Mirza Ghalib uttered these lines around the mid1800s after visiting the then capital of British India for the first time. This great Urdu poet of India then added something about that city which still holds true. Mirza said that it was both a hundred years ahead and behind its times. Well, he was wrong! It was not only the city but the state and its people who are so. Ghalib was talking of Calcutta. I am talking of Bengal, Bengalis and its capital, Kolkata – The City of Life, as I have named it.

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! Kolkata is also called The City of Firsts in India. From being the first capital of India (British India to be specific) to being the home of the first Indian newspaper ever. From the first medical college of India to the first golf club. From the first high court of India to the first port. From the first cricket stadium of India to the first underground rapid transport system, taking it now to the first ever underwater metro railway in 2024. I can go on and on but let’s pause here with a true story. Kolkata, then Calcutta, is also the first and the only city to have lost me. It was a rainy night more than four decades ago. ‘Life is a beach’, my mother overheard. It was a windy night on a local train which was running at top speed between Howrah Station and an unknown destination. She covered her lap to protect her baby from the torrential downpour.

I was that baby and fatherless at that moment. Yes, life was a beach at that point in time (if you pronounce bitch in the English diction of the then rural Bengal). Now, the backstory. My parents had just landed in Calcutta with their newborn and were headed towards their village some fifty kms away. On boarding the train my father realised that we were without tickets. The train was due to depart platform no 15 of Howrah railway station in 15 minutes. Can’t say if it was his honesty, risk-taking ability, tomfoolery or sheer carelessness but he rushed to fetch the tickets leaving his wife and his child back in the train.

As luck would have it, the train departed before my father could make it and with it went his just-born baby and his naive young wife who was penniless and neither knew Bangla nor the destination. The night was dark, and the clock struck 10 PM. ‘Chinta koro na, didi. Aamraa tomaay baari pounche debo. Kothaay thaako?’ (Don’t worry sister, we will drop you at your home. Where do you live?), a Baangali gentlemen consoled the tearful lady. My mother was new in our village and though she did not know the exact address, she somehow remembered the name of the station.

Lock, stock and barrel, she and her baby were disembarked safely by the co-passengers when the train halted at the railway platform. ‘Didi, haam yehi pass ka graam ka hai. Aasha kori aapka mister aagami train se aa jaayega. Taab taak haam aapka saath hai’ (I live in the neighbouring village, sister. I guess your husband will arrive by the next train. I will stay with you till then), one of the fellow passengers got down along with us and tried his best to communicate in Hindi as he had guessed by then that my mother did not understand Bangla. He offered a cup of chai to her but by then, she was a bundle of nerves holding me tight and praying. The wise unknown man was right.

My father arrived after half-anhour in the next train to see his family being taken care by a stranger who reunited us safe and sound at that platform, smiled and disappeared in the wet night with his umbrella and jute bag. I do not know those people, I could neither meet them again nor express my gratitude, but I will never forget them for I owe this life to those good samaritans. They are what is Bengal – the Bengal of Bhodrolok (gentlemen). No wonder Kolkata has been adjudged the safest city of India for the last three consecutive years by National Crime Records Bureau, Govt of India and I am glad it has not changed in all this time. Kolkata did not lose me. I found Kolkata.

Coming back to the City of Life, there are many more reasons why I have named it so. You see, Kolkata is a true flag bearer of the concept of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (The World Is One Family). From Marwaris to Biharis, from China Town to Ekbalpore, from Durga Puja to Christmas, from Mayaram to Aliah, from Mother Teresa to Swami Vivekanand, Kolkata encompasses all. It is too liberal to discriminate. Talking of discrimination, you can still eat your fill for a whole day if you are stranded on the poor Strand Road with a mere fifty bucks in your pocket and also fine dine at the first floating hotel of South-Asia on the same Strand Road with fifty thousand in your pocket.

I had done both at different times of my life. A place is not just a place for its inhabitants, it is a way of life. We build a place gradually without realising that there comes a time when that place starts to build us and Kolkata has a large heart, indeed. Mulling over this one of these days, I take a stroll on a late evening to grab some vinyl records from central Kolkata when I see two naughty kids with balloons riding a 130-year-old hand-pulled rickshaw, three saree-clad pretty girls smoking in a 66-year-old Ambassador taxi, four grumpy old men donning Sherwanis in a young electric auto and five genteel Babumoshays sporting Dhoti-Kurtas in the latest Mercedes E-Class on the road named after the same man who read the character of Kolkata correctly. It was Mirza Ghalib Street.

I pay my regards to Ghalib and cash to the shopkeeper, but the latter politely declines. ‘Dada, Shubho Noboborsho (Happy New Year) but no cash – only UPI,’ the humble bong smiled. Now, either I continue the chronicles of the City of Life or I leave you on a high. I pay the guy and call my goodbye. Greetings to the City of Life on Poila Boishakh. Aashchi (I will be back)!

(The writer, an Army officer, is a social media consultant, film maker and author.)