Friday, April 14, 2017

New Town and return of the repressed: Memories and Classy Country roads









Kaleidoscope in his new workplace often finds himself wondering and questioning his existence. He knows it happens primarily because of the settings of a build-in city in a freshly transformed environment, designed to comfort urban needs! Well Kaleidoscope is neither urban, nor in need to satisfy his needs out of the built-in environment. He knows this place is no different from other build in cities around the country. He could have been in Noida and feel the same. Therefore, he sometimes, roams around with some other souls who perhaps wonders in a different way with different sets of questions in mind.


Memories on a random day:
So, on such a random day Kaleidoscope met with a person selling green coconut. It was quite a discussion. He could remember a large water body near the New Town bus stand surrounded by grasslands, a graveyard nearby where children used to be buried and a famous banyan tree where several people have committed suicide for unknown reasons over the years. He could recall how fearful was it to people to roam around these places even in broad day light. People could listen to calls from the tree - calls of familiar voices - in Bengali its Nishi Daak - reminded by one of Kaleidoscope's fellow wondering souls. Well, the discussion was brief, continued until Kaleidoscope decided not to consume the entire part of the soft coconut taken out of the green coconut. The seller's his eyes could cross Kaleidoscope's body and focus towards the horizon - perhaps because memories stay at the horizon. Good old days also stay at the horizon. However, the repressed returns in a variety of forms. Sometimes a well kempt boulevard is "infested" by the grassland or the lawn is occupied by outsiders doing mundane proletariat things.
Often the seeds of memories come back quite unexpectedly as repressed returns


The lawn- Bourgeois lawn and others' evening encroachments another moment of return of the repressed.
Country roads:
As one of Kaleidosocope's fellow wondering souls says there has been real country roads nearby. Yes there were, but now there is a microbrewery nearby with the same name. it offers quality food and wonderful range of beers. Kaleidoscope sometimes goes there to drink a few mugs! No matter how hypocritical it may sound, Kaleidoscope too has urban needs to satisfy. While Kaleidoscope could roam around centres and periphery of this "built in" space, the memories as the coconut seller revisits, tend to disappear. The new space does not consider even the names of the places which used to exist when there was real country roads!